A bill that Governor Kim Reynolds wanted to see end up as a new law will have to go another route.

District 47 Representative Phil Thompson of Boone serves on the House Education Committee and the governor’s overall education bill was broken down into individual bills, and one of those was on school vouchers, which Thompson points out there wasn’t enough support for it to pass, as it failed to get through the first funnel week. The first funnel week is a deadline where bills that didn’t pass out of a committee in the House or Senate are effectively dead for the rest of the legislative session.

However, Thompson notes House Speaker Pat Grassley is considering moving the voucher bill into the funnel proof appropriations committee. 

“The conversation is still alive there. I don’t know if the votes are there yet. I do serve on appropriations (committee) too and we haven’t had that conversation yet. So I’m really not sure if the votes are there yet either. But the Speaker did want to make sure that the bill at least had a shot to keep the conversation moving on that.”  

Thompson shares his view on the school voucher topic and specifically if he supports the part of the proposal of allowing 5,000 of the maximum 10,000 vouchers to go to low income families that are at 400-percent of the federal poverty level.

“I’m the type of legislator that tries to make legislation better. I would like to see that help more of our low income families if we are going to move forward with that scholarship. I want to have a holistic conversation about the population of people who we’re trying to make that scholarship work for. And if that’s going to advance the bill, then that’s going to advance the bill.”  

If the bill is taken up by the House Appropriations Committee that means it wouldn’t be subject to any more funnel weeks.