A bill in the Iowa House concerning Student First Scholarships died during last week’s funnel.

House District 47 Representative Phil Thompson serves on the House Education Committee and tells Raccoon Valley Radio they broke apart the omnibus education bill, Senate File 159, into individual house bills, with one regarding the Student First Scholarships. Thompson says the bill would allow parents of children that attend 34 designated federally failing schools to go to another institution. He points out the legislation got through a sub-committee, but there weren’t enough votes to have it pass the full education committee.

“There was not an official vote, that was considered in caucus. I will say that I had some problems with the appropriations with it and not helping any of the pupils in my district. It could come up for consideration again, but as far as moving through the education committee, yup, we just didn’t have the votes in our caucus, so it was never brought up for a vote.”

Thompson notes that because of last week’s funnel, which takes any legislation that doesn’t pass a committee is not viable for the rest of the legislative session, and this bill didn’t reach that criteria. He appreciates how House Speaker Pat Grassley conducts their business, even with pressure from an outside organization wanting the scholarships to be pushed through the House.

“In our caucus, we’re pretty bottom up. Speaker Grassley isn’t the kind of guy that just says, ‘This is what we’re going to vote on, now get in line.’ We’re a very bottom up caucus and frankly, if he doesn’t have the votes to do something, he’s not going to really crack the whip.” 

He adds, the legislation can be brought up again as part of another bill that isn’t subject to the funnel.