The second funnel week has started for the Iowa Legislative body.

Iowa Senator for District 12 and 2023 Senate President Amy Sinclair says that things have gotten busy, with bills from the House of Representatives making their way to the Senate for their approval. She mentions that the bills first had to pass subcommittee and committee process to make it through the first funnel, and now has to have been discussed on the floor of the chamber it originated in, and pass both subcommittee and committee processes in the other chamber before passing the second funnel.

Sinclair adds that these deadlines help the legislators focus on what bills are really important to the current session, and which ones could be brought back at a later time. She tells Raccoon Valley Radio that there are a few committees that can draft bills that are funnel proof, including the Appropriations and Ways and Means Committees, and the committee that she is in charge of.

“Government Oversight can actually convene any time of the year. So as Government Oversight Chair, if something egregious came up, I could draft a bill tomorrow and we could consider it by the full body because those three committees are funnel proof. Largely because the Appropriations and Ways and Means (Committees) are working with the dollars and cents, and this is now the time that we start working on that. And those Government Oversight bills come at us at any given time, (and) that’s in response to something that’s gone wrong within our state government.”

Sinclair says that any bills that aren’t to go through those three committees must make it through the end of funnel week this week, otherwise they will not progress any further, and will have to be brought back in a new session.