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Coming up on ����vlogA News close up, Iowa's 2025 legislative session begins on Monday. We speak to some of Iowa's top lawmakers returning to the state house, hearing about their priorities and their plans on how to get those across the finish line. This is Iowa's news leader. This is ����vlog 8 News close up. Good morning and thanks for joining us for ����vlog 8 News close up. I'm chief political reporter Amanda Rucker. State lawmakers return to the state house tomorrow for the start of the 2025 legislative session, and this morning we're talking with Republicans and Democrats from both the Iowa House and Senate about their top priorities. Republicans continue to have the majority in both chambers. That means they control which bills get taken up and what issues are considered this legislative session. In the House, there's now 67 Republicans and 33 Democrats. In the Senate, there are 34 Republicans and 15 Democrats. There is one vacancy which opened after Republican Senator Chris Connoyer was tapped to serve as Iowa's lieutenant governor. Well, I'm joined now by Republican Senator Mike Buscilo from Ancon. Thanks for being here this morning. Good morning, Amanda. Well, what are Senate Republicans' top priorities this session? You know, first of all, the Iowans sent us back with huge majority in the Iowa Senate. We expanded that majority to 35. We're so happy for our colleague Chris Knoyer to be *** lieutenant governor, uh, but the voice that they sent us back with was loud and clear, and that is costs are too high in Iowa, and there's ways we can control that, you know, we can't control federal spending or inflation, but we can do things to make it more affordable to live in Iowa and. The loudest voice we heard on that, the biggest issue we heard was property taxes, you know, cities and counties have seen 6 and 7% growth statewide on *** statewide basis, uh, over the past year. There's been unconstrained spending, and I don't know about you, but I saw my valuation go up majorly in the past year, and we need to make sure that we're putting in place constraints on local government. Spending that has been out of control and led to higher property taxes for Iowans. Property taxes are dollars out of Iowans' pockets, and that's an area we can control to make it more affordable for Iowans to live here. How do you do that without the state making *** mandate on local governments? How do you look at what city and county, you know, budgets are and what they're spending on essential services without the state coming in and saying, hey, statewide this is what you can and can't spend on? At the state level we've been able to cut income taxes because we've constrained our spending. We've been conservative, made our priorities, and spent where we needed to, but also didn't spend every dollar we had. We haven't seen that at the local level. So what you're going to see is us taking *** hard look at how the property tax system has worked, but also where that money is being spent. Uh, you know, we have *** *** daycare in Ankeny, and that daycare last year had *** $90,000. property tax bill this year that same daycare has *** $105,000 property tax bill. Those $15,000 are going to come from somewhere. They've got to either come from paying teachers less money or charging uh Akeny families more. Either way, the problem is it's just driven by property taxes that are going up and up, and that's money out of families' pockets, whether it's for their home or the businesses they they go to. We need to get it under control. I know in other interviews you've also mentioned uh Senate Republicans may propose *** Medicaid work requirements what would that look like? Well, work requirements have existed in Medicaid and across programs, uh, social welfare programs that exist in Iowa, and what I believe that the Senate has passed in the past and will again seek to pass this year is that workable. Iowans, so folks who are not disabled on Medicaid, not paying anything for their health care, should face the same requirements that you face for unemployment and other types of Medicaid recipients already have to seek *** job or job training and with *** 2.9% unemployment rate in our state and the need for more skilled workers, simply saying that if you're gonna have that free healthcare, which we believe in. That you should also be doing job training or job searches that's common sense for for Iowans that are receiving it and for the Iowans that are funding it. House Republicans say they plan to propose again some changes around eminent domain. They've uh put out those proposals in the past. They've died in the Senate before. Is there anything that the Senate would be willing to compromise on when it comes to landowner rights this year? What's important to me is that we protect all landowners. The proposals that have come from the House in the past have been focused on one type of project. I don't like government picking winners and losers. I think if we're gonna do something we need to have *** proposal and the Senate will have *** proposal that will. Seek to limit the use of eminent domain and protect all classes of landowners and not just simply because your land has *** CO2 pipeline instead of *** natural gas pipeline or importantly what we're gonna see in the future are transmission lines, right? There's more. And more electricity being used and produced in Iowa that's going to have to be transmitted somehow, and those are lines that could potentially impact and be using eminent domain. We need to protect all landowners. That's our priority in the Senate and reducing the use of eminent domain. Another new thing in the House this year, the new House Higher Education Committee, the Speaker has talked *** lot about that, but from Senate Republicans' perspective, you know, what do you think about some of those ideas that they've talked about on that side? Well, I'm eager to see what comes out of the higher education Committee. uh, you know, that's different. We don't have that committee in in the Iowa Senate. Uh, we all are always making sure that the Regents universities and the private colleges to the Iowa tuition grant and that the community colleges are accountable to the taxpayers who are helping uh fund major parts of those institutions. uh, I think that's critically important. Uh, you know, the House has two new committees, both the Higher Education and the Federal Funds Committee. Uh, I sit on appropriations. Uh, I'm not on an education committee, but I do believe that ensuring we have accountability, I'm eager to see what they have to do. uh, Representative Taylor Collins is *** friend of mine, and I know he's taking *** very diligent look at all of the issues. Well, Senator Bus, that is actually all the time that we have for our conversation this morning. Thanks so much for being here. We appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Have *** good day. Well, still to come on close up, we hear from the top Republican in the Iowa House. House Speaker Pat Grassley wants to approach property taxes and education. That's coming up. Stay with us. Welcome back to Close Up. Before the 2025 legislative session starts tomorrow, we're talking with lawmakers in both chambers on both sides of the aisle. I sat down with Republican Speaker of the Iowa House Pat Grassley to talk about what House Republicans want to accomplish this year. What are House Republicans' top priorities for the upcoming legislative session? Yeah, we'll appreciate the opportunity to get to chat with you again as we're heading back into session. Um, we obviously had *** very successful November and so we're ready to hit the ground running with 67 members and. *** lot of the feedback that we heard on the campaign trail was um centered around and I'm sure people heard me talking about property taxes. I think you may see several different proposals potentially even from the house uh there's *** reason why that we continue to talk about this issue because I don't think there is just *** magic solution just sitting out there that we haven't acted on. I think it's gonna take *** lot of time in conversation, but my driving. Um, goal from my perspective needs to be to get certainty back on behalf of the taxpayer. I think the reason we've gotten in this point is we have several different different taxing entities across the state. So wherever you live you have if you look at your property tax bill, you have several different taxing entities all taxing within silos, which is how the system currently works today. And at the end of the day if each of them have even small increases when it gets to the taxpayer that's *** pretty large impact on them, especially Iowans on fixed income. So what I want to see is *** shift from certainty for the taxing entity to get uh certainty on the tax payer themselves. On the side of local governments, how do you balance, you know. Cutting property taxes, delivering relief to the taxpayer, but also making sure that local governments have necessary revenue to provide the essential services that they need to and I think that's part of this conversation we've always only talked about the revenue side, but I think if Iowans are as concerned about their tax property taxes as they seem to be in the conversations that we're having, we are gonna have to have *** conversation around services and which ones are the truly essential services whereas. Where are there some areas in which maybe there is some fluff in some of the budgets. Now again that gets back to why it's so difficult because at that point the legislature doesn't need to be in the business of passing individual city budgets, for example, but also looking at making sure that the tax dollars that we are having come from Iowans are being used wisely. I think we've done *** good job at the state in doing that and our local governments in most cases I think do, but I think the conversation needs to be bigger than. Just the revenue side, it needs to be *** very broad conversation and that's kind of uh back to what I said. I think everything's on the table as we enter into this on the revenue side as well as making sure that we're using those tax dollars wisely. State revenue is expected to drop by more than $500 million this current fiscal year as uh with the new flat tax rate in effect, how do you plan to make up for that loss in revenue? We've budgeted and we've built the state. Budget in *** way where we currently have our cash reserve and rainy days fund full at nearly *** billion dollars. We have nearly *** $2 billion ending balance we have uh $3 to $4 billion in our uh in our cash or in our taxpayer relief fund. And so as we talk about those levels of numbers we anticipated that if you're gonna lower income tax you may see slight reductions in revenue, but as we did that, like I said, with $3 billion in the taxpayer relief fund. Some of that will be there to offset and as we see the growth to start happening what we expect not only from the tax cuts but some of the optimism that we're hearing about in the economy with the new administration, we planned all those things knowing there may be some bumps in the road, but that's why the decisions were made to put us in *** position that we could um make sure we could absorb those and that was our priority as we put those bills together is whatever we do we want it to be real and we want to make sure it's sustainable and we felt that we were able to do that um and planned. In advance to get to this point, will there be budget cuts? I don't, I mean, I think we're in *** position where we're, we're gonna, like I said, we've got those revenue sources that we've had some mechanisms built in as they come in. You gotta remember we haven't been spending all of the dollars that we take in each year, and I think that's an important conversation this if we had been spending right up to the 99% expenditure limitation that's in law. We would be in *** much tighter position, but we've been very fiscally responsible not only building up those reserves but not spending every single penny we can get our hands on. Is that sustainable for years to come um beyond just this legislative session? Well, I would say that any time that you have, we have roughly *** $9 billion budget when we have approximately $6 billion sitting there of overpayment of the taxpayer money. And also we knew that there would be *** one time or not *** one time but *** short term dip in the revenue typically what you've seen after tax cuts going back for 25 years is you may see *** slight reduction in revenue at the beginning, but as you see growth in the economy and keep in mind and I kind of briefly touched on this, but um and I just heard *** report that uh economists are even seeing here in Iowa is *** higher level of optimism within the economy so I think there's *** lot of factors working for us to be able to quickly recover that um loss of revenue that we knew was coming. Uh, moving to the higher education committee, you know what type of proposals do you want that committee to focus on, um, when it comes to solving Iowa's workforce shortage. Yeah, and I my answer for that committee right now, not knowing what every single bill may look like or may not look like or what the members have as priorities. I've kind of said everything is on the table and we started down the path *** few years ago with instead of just giving general fund appropriations to our region institutions we said let's create scholarships. High demand fields that are in need here in Iowa. So if we're gonna have taxpayer dollar investments going into higher education, let's make sure that it's going to the degrees that we need to fill our workforce shortage here in the state of Iowa. And so that was an example of something that we kind of started down that path that I think I see us hopefully continuing to do more things like that, willing to try different things that we haven't done in the past to really refocus the taxpayer investment. Well, Mr. Speaker, thank you for taking the time. We appreciate it. Thank you. Still to come on close up Democrats' top priorities for the legislative session. We're talking with the Iowa House minority leader after the break. Welcome back to Close Up. I'm joined now by House Minority Leader Jennifer Co first. Thank you so much for being here. We appreciate it. Always happy to be here. Uh, what are House Democrats' top priorities this legislative session? House Democrats are gonna be looking at every piece of legislation through the lens of how does this help an everyday family sitting down at their coffee table and trying to figure out their budget? Will their budget, their household budget be better after. The Work we do this legislative session and if so it's been *** success so that's gonna be our measure on every piece of legislation. Let's help everyday Iowans budgets have *** little more ease. Does that come from what you heard, um, you know, talking on the campaign trail and the outcome of the, the general election and the elections here in the state? Yeah, I mean we definitely heard the needs of the economy and that's obviously an important thing. We talked about the economy *** lot during the campaign. But we just need to get back to those bread and butter issues and at the end of the day everything else is uh is sideshow if you are having trouble paying your bills at the end of the day. So we want to make sure that we're laser focused on that. What can be done to lower costs for Iowans? You know, we think that it's important to recognize that costs aren't just one thing, right? You can't just cut taxes and everyone's budget will be fine, right? We need to look at child. Care the child care costs we've been talking about for *** long time, rates haven't gone down. We need to look at housing. How can we help more families live in and have home ownership? We need to look at health care costs. Healthcare costs are such *** big part of people's budgets. How can we address those costs? So it's gonna take creativity and *** robust conversation that looks at the whole system, not just *** one size fits all approach. Democrats are coming off *** tough loss this past election cycle. How do you plan to advance those priorities when it's going to be Republicans who are deciding what bills get taken up and what issues are considered? Yeah, you know, by definition, every bill, um, in the way the legislature works, every bill we vote for is *** Republican bill, right? They brought these bills forward. They're the ones that get hurt, but we really value our relationships, our ability to work across the aisle and help pass legislation. And work with them on it as we go, right? So we talk with them about how can we make this legislation better and we're gonna ask the same question of them as of the as ourselves, which is how is this bill going to make um costs lower for Iowa families. You know, Iowans are sick of politics and political games, so we're more than happy to work across the aisle, but we will call people out and hold them accountable if they're not reaching the same goal that we think is important, which is everybody's budget. Do you think the outcome of the past election should shift or change how Democrats' message or what House Democrats should be focused on this session? It would be naive to say that we have an election like this and we don't look to see what could we do differently next time, but we also want to make sure that our answers are not coming from pundits, they're coming from everyday Iowans and people. So we're doing research right now. We're talking to Iowa voters. We'll be doing town halls. We'll be going around the state and continuing to listen. And we're gonna use that as our guide and uh work with Iowans to hear what we're trying to say and what we're trying to accomplish. And again, we're gonna point out the results at the end of the session and see who needs to be held accountable. Republicans in both chambers have said this session is gonna be all about property taxes. They said property tax reform is, is top of mind. What do House Democrats think about that? You know, we were proud to support property tax reform last time and we, we, um, we did that because we listen to our constituents as well. We think that we're more than happy to learn and be part of the conversation about property taxes. We want to make sure cities and counties are at the table because police and fire services that um our property tax pay for education. Our property taxes pay for we want to make sure that they're not being gutted or that *** tax isn't being raised somewhere else to pay for the property tax decrease. So we'll be paying close attention to what we think these bills will do and looking for any unintended consequences because it sounds great on paper. We wanna make sure it's really gonna have the impact that we're hearing that it will. Republicans in both the House and Senate have said part of this conversation needs to include what our cities and counties actually spending money on uh. Taking *** closer look at what services are actually being provided and how much they cost, what do you think about that conversation? I think that transparency is *** good thing no matter what is happening, and I know that *** lot of cities, including the cities that I represent, are very transparent already about where the tax dollars go and how they're being spent. So I don't think any city would be afraid of that kind of look. I think that the concern comes with somebody saying, why is Des Moines telling us what to do in our small community? Not every town's the same. Windsor Heights isn't the same as Webster City. So how can we make sure that we're also empowering those local community leaders who were also elected to drive the budget conversation too so let's just make sure that it's *** partnership, not *** Des Moines down approach. Uh, in the house we'll have *** new committee, uh, this year, the, uh, Higher Education Committee Pat Grassley told me everything is on the table when it comes to what they may look at, and I think he said comprehensive review of the state's colleges and universities. How is your. Caucus thinking about higher education, we think about *** higher education *** lot because we've been fighting for funding for higher education for *** long time. Look, we know that not everybody wants to go to college, um, and that college isn't the right path for everybody, but we also want to make sure we're not creating it so that college can't be *** path for anybody. So we'll be looking at affordability. We'll be looking to make sure that we are training Iowa's future workforce in every way apprenticeships, community colleges, higher education. And that all Iowans have access to higher education and that Iowans can make the choice, not us in Des Moines. So let's give our local leaders at these, um, that the Regents have approved for, you know, presidents of these regions institutions, let's trust them to make the decisions that they are. Hired to do and let's review, but let's not try to be so top down I think overall let's remember that everything that happens in Des Moines isn't necessarily *** good thing for the rest of the state. So let's make this more of *** conversation and less of *** here's what you have to do. Also on the issue of education, the governor has said she wants some sort of policy on cell phone use in schools. We don't know yet what the specifics of that will look like, but how are House Democrats thinking about what *** cell phone policy should or should not look like? I think that it's perfectly appropriate. No one wants kids on their phones in school. We've all seen them looking down at their laps in the classroom. Let's get them. Focus on learning absolutely can support that as always, the devil's in the details many districts have already implemented policies like this that are working well. Let's ask them why it's working. Let's let districts make their own policy. The biggest thing I'm gonna be concerned about is, are we giving teachers one more thing to do, which is to police cell phones. They've already got so much to do. Let's give districts the flexibility to determine those policies on their own. Well, House Minority Leader Jennifer Confers, thank you so much for making time and being here this morning. We really appreciate it. but happy to be here always, about to start sessions, so I know we'll be talking *** lot soon. Well, still to come on close up, Senate Democrats have *** new leader. We talked with Iowa Senator Janice Weiner when we come back, here her priorities for this upcoming legislative session. Welcome back to Close Up. Senator Janice Weiner is the new Iowa Senate Democratic leader. I asked her what her party wants to focus on this legislative session. What are your priorities and the priorities of Senate Democrats for this legislative session? In particular, I mean, if you look at the economic side, we would like to, we would like to go back and take another look at some of the changes that were made to the unemployment system, um, when, there have been *** number of layoffs and plant closures in recent months. And we have, um, we have really the, the shortest, the fewest number of weeks of any of the surrounding states right now. So I think we should take *** look at that, and I think we should make the process less bureaucratic than it is so that we can really help Iowans get back on their feet as quickly as possible. We're going to be reintroducing our package of reproductive rights. Um, I think people ought to also have the freedom, for example, to have clean water throughout the state regardless of where they live. What have you heard from your caucus about top issues people heard from constituents on the campaign trail? We heard *** lot. About economic pain. Um, uh, about, essentially about the need for people to not just get by, which way too many are doing, but to be able to get ahead. And some of their frustrations with, um, the, some of the challenges they face, challenges they face, childcare challenges they face, um, finding Decent housing. Um, and we also heard *** lot about some of the topics that have been discussed the last couple of sessions, um, in, in detail, um, public schools. The AEA's Um, and, and reproductive rights. So that's sort of the, uh, that I would say is sort of the universe of what we heard, but I think what we both Heard and saw with our own eyes was. The fact that Iowans are out there working hard to make *** living. Um, and It's just not working for everyone, so how do we help them? Get where they need to be. Before we go, we'd like to take *** moment to remember our colleague John Hoyam. He died on Thursday morning. Hoyam was known for his sense of humor and always bringing *** smile to the faces in our newsroom, and as you can see here, Hoyam was *** big Cyclone fan. He started working the weekend overnight shift and he spent the next 3 decades crafting some of the newscasts that you see every day on our air. He also produced close up for several years, sharing important political stories with Iowans. John was *** dedicated and hardworking journalist. All of us here at ����vlog will miss him dearly.