There have been some big bills that have made it through the first funnel of the Iowa legislative session, but there are also several smaller ones that have gone through as well.

Iowa Representative for District 23 Ray Sorensen tells Raccoon Valley Radio that there were several bills that he was able to help work on in committees that made it through before the end of the first funnel, which narrowed down the amount of bills that the legislators could continue working on based on their progress through committees.

“In my committees and the committee that I chair, Eco(nomic) Gro(wth and) Tech(nology), we ran Iowa Economic Development Authority bills. They’ve got a couple big department bills that are moving through. So we got them past committee so they can continue to be worked on as they move to the House floor. We have software licensing bills and some cybersecurity bills, and of course, previously we’d gotten consumer data protection and things like that across. But this week specifically, I ran a fix for one of my public school district superintendents. They weren’t completely clear on if they could use SAVE (Secure an Advanced Vision for Education) dollars for cybersecurity purposes, and so I have a really simple bill that’s just a clarification fix there.”

Sorensen adds that for the Transportation Committee, there was a bill that was passed that would bring Iowa into the Midwest Rail Commission, which discusses inner-city, high speed and interstate rails, and any problems that those systems may face. If the bill is adopted into law, Iowa would join 12 other Midwest states.