When the 90th Iowa General Assembly gavels in for the upcoming legislative session, there will be a new house committee.

Republican House Speaker Pat Grassley recently announced the new House Education Reform Committee that he says will consist of five people that will deal with bills containing significant reforms to the state’s education system. House District 47 Representative Carter Nordman doesn’t serve on that committee but he believes it will play an important role next session.

“We see that some kinds of reform need to happen to ensure that these policies get a good look and understanding within the House. I think that this new committee could be a great way of doing that.” 

Nordman believes one of those bills this new committee may consider is the governor’s student voucher legislation that was passed by the Senate but failed to get out of the House this past session. He points out that when bills are introduced in the House, it is Speaker Grassley who assigns them to committees. Nordman doesn’t think the education reform committee will be a duplication of the regular standing house education committee.

“It’s going to be a committee headed by leadership of both (republicans and democrats) parties to take a look at major reforms on education. So it’s not going to be a redundancy, from my understanding and my belief that it’s going to be a committee that only considers major reforms to our education system.”   

The 90th Iowa General Assembly begins January 9th. Raccoon Valley Radio will continue to do interviews with our state-elected legislators from both the Senate and House while they are in session.