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Finally The legislation has agreed to pass this bill, and it will save so many lives. She lost two family members to *** distracted driver. Coming up on ����vlog 8 news close up, the bill she's been fighting for is becoming law when drivers could start facing fines. New tariffs are rattling Wall Street. How local businesses and lawmakers are adjusting to the new economic landscape. And the second final week of the 2025 legislative session is over. How leaders on both sides of the aisle are reacting to the major deadline and what's next for the final stretch of session. 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. President Donald Trump announced last Wednesday that he has. Imposing tariffs on virtually every country that exports goods to the US, the president says the move is aimed at erasing trade deficits between the US and its trading partners, but the tariffs have raised concerns about economic growth and sent the stock market stumbling. The import taxes range from 10% to 49% on goods from countries all across the globe. President Trump says America's trade deficit is *** threat to national security and says the move will punish what he sees as unfair trade practices, but some business owners fear it will also hit their bottom line. Governor Kim Reynolds says she's working with the Trump administration to ease the short-term impact of the tariffs for Iowans. She released *** statement saying in part, quote, President Trump is using tariffs as leverage to force our trading partners to the table and put America's farmers first. She says she's working directly with the administration to keep Iowa's ag economy strong and open the door to new export opportunities. Iowa farmers are bracing for impact. Economics economists predict the tariffs will come at *** cost for Iowa farmers, making it harder for them to offload produce abroad. It's gonna be more difficult for the US to sell its products abroad, and that's gonna be *** problem for Iowa farmers too, because, of course, *** lot of corn and soybeans and pork and so forth is exported. Farmers can also expect higher costs as we get into planting season because *** lot of the fertilizer that they use in Iowa is imported from other countries. During *** trip to our state last week, US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rawlins promised to protect farmers in trade. President Trump's plan focuses on balanced trade deals, increased market access for United States exports, addressing unfair trade barriers, holding bad actors accountable. Trump's tariffs also include *** 25% tax on vehicles imported to the US. Experts warn these tariffs could push car prices up by more than $10,000. It could also make car repairs more expensive because parts are often shipped in from overseas. Now some local dealerships say more customers were car shopping. Month before tariffs started, Stu Hansson, Hyundai and Clive saw about *** 20% increase in customer traffic. Buyers say they were trying to get ahead of rising prices. Now cars on the lot now and what has already been shipped will not be affected by these new tariffs, but the price of future cars is uncertain. Best case, you know, Hyundai is kind of working with Trump *** little bit of building *** $21 billion steel plant to maybe not have the tariffs for Hyundai. Worst case scenario is just learning how to manage the price increases. The dealership's general manager Steven Amos says things have been moving very quickly. Usually his showroom is full, but he says buyers are driving away with new cars before the dealership has time to replace them. Coming up, how lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are feeling about things their party has accomplished now that we're through the 2nd final deadline of the Iowa legislature. And *** widow shares her relief now that the hands-free bill has been signed into law by the governor when the new law will take effect after the break. OK, it's locked. Governor Kim Reynolds has signed into law *** long awaited bill aimed at stopping distracted driving. The new law bans drivers from using cell phones and electronic devices unless they're in hands-free or voice activated mode. Iowa's families who've lost loved ones to distracted drivers have been pushing for this for years. That includes Christy Kastensen. She lost her husband and mother-in-law after *** crash about *** decade ago in Dayton. Now she's sharing her relief and has *** message for Iowa drivers. What I've always said is I don't want any other family to go through this. I have met so many families that have had loss and for *** senseless act. In *** split second, your life can change, and there's no going back, and I just want them to know there's nothing on that cell phone that is that important. You can put it down. You can look at it later, and it's still going to be there, but *** life is not going to be there. People who violate the law will face *** $100 fine or an increased fine if the violation causes injury or death. That law takes effect in July. Well, last week marked another major deadline at the Iowa State House. It was 2nd final week. That is when most bills need to advance through one chamber and one committee in the other chamber to stay eligible for the rest of session. Joining us this morning is Republican Senator Mike Clemish, the majority. Whip in the Iowa Senate, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me, Amanda. So how are you feeling now as we're heading towards the final days and have the 2nd final week behind us? Well, I think from the Senate's perspective we navigated the second funnel week very well actually. I think the committees did *** great job on filtering through the bills, making sure that we advance great policy for Iowans. You had *** lot of bills coming over from the House side. We looked at it. It may potentially be *** record, but the House passed over to the Senate more bills than in. Previous sessions, at least in the past 25 years, you know, how did Senate leadership decide what was important enough to bring to the committee? Well, Senate leadership always allows their committee chairs to work pretty much independently, uh, gives them the opportunity to, excuse me, gives them the opportunity to vet the bills that they come across from their corresponding committees in the House to delve in and do some research, uh, and make sure they can pick and choose which policy pieces they see and benefiting for Iowans and advance those. What are you feeling the most excited about? Oh, there's lots of things we're excited about. I mean, we're having conversations about, uh, an overhaul, uh, to the property tax system in the state. Uh, we are looking forward to the governor's energy bill, uh, as well as the governor's rural health care bill, um, and I think those, uh, will help to move the needle to, uh, to provide the services that rural Iowans need every day and make sure those services, uh, you know, stay, uh, in place, uh, and are provided at *** level, uh, that, uh, makes sense for them. Uh, you also chair the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, two bills that did make it through that second final deadline last week. Uh, one would make it easier to open birth centers in the state of removing them from that certificate of need process. Um, another was. You know, kind of comes from *** story of, of *** mother who lost her young son who wants to open *** pediatric hospice home in Iowa. Both of those made it through committee. Do you see those, uh, going to the floor? Yeah, I see both of those pieces of legislation having *** pathway to the floor. Uh, both of those were good policy pieces that we chose to advance to the Senate Health and Human Services Committee. Uh, I think, uh, you know. They both provide uh fill *** need in Iowa, right? I mean where we have uh. Pediatric services for folks for mothers that are, you know, looking at um hospice care, uh, which is important for them and I think both those pieces of legislation should have *** path. One thing that was funnel proof but you had *** lot of work on. Uh, would create work requirements for Iowans who are on the state's Medicaid expansion program. *** part of that creates kind of *** trigger for if the federal government grants *** waiver allows those work requirements to take effect, but later revokes it would get rid of that program. We've heard some concerns uh from Iowans who are worried about. Potentially losing their health care. What's your response to those concerns? Well, my response is, you know, in 2014, the state decided to do the expanded Medicaid population and that that program was initially designed just to be *** safety net for folks, right? You know, if you had something that changed in your life that required you to have *** backup plan, this was your backup plan, not intended to be *** long term solution. Uh, right now there's about 180,000 Iowans that are on the expanded Medicaid population and the vast majority of them, uh, are not seeking employment. Uh, so we feel it's important, similar to our SNAP program, which has *** 20 hour *** week work requirement. To impose *** work requirement to get those folks back up on their feet again, uh, you know, seeking insurance through employers, uh, and making sure that, uh, the program as it was intended to function, uh, can continue to intend to function that way without having undue stress and burdens placed on it. Quickly, now that 2 funnel week is done, what are, what's the focus moving forward? Uh, budgets, we'll work on budgets, uh, work on some of the major policy pieces I talked about earlier, the governor's health care plan, the governor's energy plan, uh, and try to get those through both houses and across the finish line. Well, Senator, thanks for joining us this morning. We appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Well, still to come on Close Up, we hear from the top Republicans in the Iowa House. We talked tariffs and where things stand on restrictions on diversity, equity and inclusion. Plus we talked with the top Democrat in the Iowa House what she wants done in the final weeks of session. Welcome back to Close Up. I sat down with Republican House Speaker Pat Grassley to talk about the major deadline that wrapped up at the state house last week and what comes next for state lawmakers. How are you feeling about the outcome of the second final week? Yeah, I think, you know, as we digest that, get through the entirety of the week. *** lot of the priorities that we've been looking at, uh, we've already passed some bills obviously that we think are extremely important here in the house, looking at, um, trying to empower our state when it comes to the federal government, looking at things like work requirements, looking at our SNAP bill, for example, we've done some bigger things. We've also passed bills out of the house looking at pipelines and making sure protecting property owner rights and kind of get to that point in session where we're. going to start that budget conversation as well as continuing the tax conversation, so I think Sessions is moving along at *** pretty good pace. Coming off of the campaign trail after the election last November 1 of the top things that we heard from voters was just how expensive everything is right now at this point in session, how do you. Feel like you've delivered on some of those campaign promises to try and lower costs for Iowans and one of the things that, and you know as we get to this point of session where we're looking at tax policy and what some of the impacts would be, you know, obviously the one, the one tax and the one thing that we're hearing about is uh *** lot right now is obviously the impacts of property tax. I've been talking about that before session trying to make sure we're providing certainty to Iowans and as we continue to move forward with cession. Just looking at in ways in which we can not only ease the tax burden on Iowans but we've been looking at regulatory burdens as well um and then also some other issues like looking at making sure we can continue to keep education affordable when it comes to higher education. I think there's *** lot of things that have been moving through the pipeline that may not directly say. This becomes more affordable but trying to overall globally provide some level of relief. *** bill that the Senate sent over to the House is not going to move forward. The bill that would shield pesticide companies from lawsuits over failure to warn over certain health risks. You know, why, why is that not moving forward in the House? Well, I mean the the really easy answer I could give you would be we just there's not support right now in the caucus. Um, you know, that issue has been around for the last couple sessions and trying to address. We understand in on the ag side, you know, *** farmer like I said earlier, understanding the need to be able to use Roundup and use glyphosate as *** tool in our toolbox to be able to um control weeds on our and grass on our farms. We understand that, um, at the same time with all of the questions that are existing and with their high rising cancer rates, I think you're seeing *** lot of consternation about that conversation and how this may or may not impact that again. You know this this ultimately is *** labeling bill, but at the same time um when when we don't have the support within the caucus, this isn't unique from the standpoint not every bill we bring up or comes over from the Senate may or may not have the support, but where we are right now, the caucus just doesn't have, we don't have the support within the caucus to move that forward, particularly on changes to diversity, equity and inclusion at the end of 2 funnel, the House has some bills that survived. The Senate has some bills that survived. One that both chambers are looking at are making. Changes to local governments and preventing local governments from creating or maintaining DEI offices. Where do you see the DEI conversation going from here? Will there be conversations on which one will move forward, or do you see that potentially stalling? I think we're thankful to at least see some level of activity moving through the Senate. Obviously like you said, the bill that came over was not as broad, but we wanted to keep that alive for the. *** lot of state funding ties into *** lot of what happens at the local level. So if the question is why does the state care about that, there are *** lot of dollars that flow through the state and then back to our locals. So I think you're gonna see *** pretty broad uh expectation from the House that whatever we do would have *** lot of those pieces in it. Looking at the economy overall, President Donald Trump just announced 10% tariffs on all imports, some other tariffs as. Well, how do you see that impacting Iowa's economy and the agriculture economy here as well? I think from the egg, the egg perspective as well as the state's perspective, I think there's there's kind of two questions we've budgeted in *** way in which we've left ourselves not only because we've reduced our tax burden on Iowans to 3.8% flat tax, but we've done that in *** way where we have nearly $6 billion in reserves as *** state. And some of that was obviously in anticipation of reducing our tax burden, but some of it also was if there's anything that's unforeseen that happens in the economy or slowdown in the economy, we have the ability to absorb that as *** state. We haven't lived on the edge when it comes to our um amount of spending that we've done. With those two things in mind, and so I think that if there are some short term bumps in the road from some of the decisions that the president's making trying to make sure America's being more competitive, we've anticipated some of those things again, some of that tidy with that that tax piece and when it comes to the egg economy, something that you know as *** farmer I get asked that piece specifically on tariffs and I think. We understand in agriculture that you have to have trade partners. If we don't have *** strong standing in the world to make sure that we're having fair fair trade deals, I think if this puts us in *** better position to do that, the long term impact it has on agriculture, I would expect would outweigh any short term bumps in the road. Well, Mr. Speaker, thanks for making time to chat. We appreciate it. Thank you, glad to be here. Top priorities on the other side of the aisle. When we come back, I sit down with House Minority Leader Jennifer first. Stay with us. Welcome back to Close Up. We are now through the 2nd final week of legislative session. I'm here with House Minority Leader Jennifer Confers. Thanks for being here this morning. Happy to be here. Well, another major deadline, uh, done, and we're heading into kind of the final stretch of session. How are you feeling about things? Uh, feeling like we still have *** lot to do, uh, especially when it comes to our state budget, you know, we looked at this session and said. The one driver we were going to look at when it came to bills going through was how are they going to lower costs for Iowa families, and we have *** lot of work to do on that on that range so we're hoping that *** lot of the policies that we've proposed about health care, child care, things like that that will lower costs, they still have *** chance to get through, so we'd love to have conversations across the aisle and see what we can get done. What are some of those bills that are still. Out there that you feel like could get some bipartisan support and and get across the line, you know, I mean, certainly, um we're hearing *** lot about the need for affordable housing, just housing in general and so how can we make it easier for people to get the housing they need workforce housing so companies can come into the state um health care costs are incredibly, um, you know, unpredictable right now but at the end of. I do think child care is something we can work together on, you know, we're not big fans of the continuum of care bill that's up there right now, but we think we can work within that and try to get something done. We want more slots, more affordability, and more folks to be able to have options when it comes to child care. Childcare costs have not gone down, and we've been talking about it for *** long time, so obviously we have to do something different. Uh, biggest disappointments with what survived, you know, past the final week or didn't make it. Yeah, I think that, you know, we're disappointed that *** lot of our proposals, of course, you know, they don't make it through, which we're used to, but we'd like to work together to see if some of those can be, can come back. But we really feel like overall we haven't done anything that's going to make everybody's budget *** little easier at the end of session than it was at the beginning. We've got to be focused on costs and how can we make everybody's. Pocketbooks *** little, *** little more um predictable and I don't feel like we've done anything to do that and of course we're watching for property taxes um the only thing we've done so far on property taxes is give half the school districts in the state the ability to raise them by not giving our public schools enough money. So, um, we're frustrated with that too, but look, we're, we're ready to kind of finish strong and see what we can do to work together. Have you had any conversations with Republican leadership about. The proposal from your caucus to give rebates to homeowners and renters, we haven't, we haven't talked to them directly about it, you know, we put it out there really as *** as *** way to send the message that we've been talking about property taxes for *** long time and no one's property taxes have gone down. So instead of getting *** more complicated proposal out there, let's pause, work on that for *** few years, and meanwhile take that taxpayer relief fund and give. Everybody *** check by September 30th so that they can see some immediate relief while we're working on how to fix this and when we're talking about costs and in the economy when look at the big picture this past week we saw *** new round of tariffs come from President Donald Trump, uh, as you're now thinking about setting next year's state budget thinking about costs for Iowans, you know what's your response to to. How lawmakers should be approaching, I think we have to be realistic. I think we have to say we are accepting that the economy isn't doing as well right now as as maybe some had hoped, and we can't just pretend everything will be fine next year. We have to budget conservatively. We have to consider what the impact will be. I think 8% of Iowa jobs are somehow connected to tariffs and are somehow, you know, connected in *** way that could put them either at risk or with with *** lot of uncertainty. We have to bring uncertainty or certainty to Iowans because right now all the uncertainty, all the chaos is causing people *** lot of heartache and *** lot of concern. We need to give Iowans the confidence that our budget can withstand all of this up and down. And meanwhile, we need Iowa leaders to step up and say to President Trump, back off for *** minute, slow down. We want to make sure we're doing this the right way, not just slash and burn. Uh, House Speaker Pat Grassley said that the way that the state has budgeted for the past few years have left them with *** surplus of money in the taxpayer relief fund that that was intentional, not necessarily for this situation, but in the case that there's some type of economic downturn they'll be OK you know what's your response to. Yeah, I mean that I do believe that that was the intent and um I just I believe it's concerning when we are in an economic time of economic uncertainty to draw down from the savings account to pay our regular bills right at home I can't or shouldn't take my savings account and pay my mortgage that's what the state is proposing we do. Um, you know, we need to be ready for *** real economic downturn, and when we continue into budget deficit spending, we lose money that we could be using. We're not supposed to use one time money for ongoing expenses, so we really need to look at what those expenses are, including *** lot of money, hundreds of millions of dollars going into *** school voucher program that right now is the 2nd largest, 2nd fastest growing part of our. That is *** concern that no one is talking about and it's going to end up being *** billion dollars over *** few years that are now coming out of the budget that we didn't have just 5 years ago. We need to consider what the impact there is as well talking about schools and school funding lawmakers are several weeks behind the deadline to set public school funding levels. Uh, we've heard no details, but House and Senate Republicans say they're closer to *** deal on. This, you know, what do you hope happens as they move closer towards the package? Well, I hope that the package they've agreed on is much bigger than we've been hearing because we know that, you know, the governor and Senate Republicans proposed *** 2% increase for public schools and *** 44% increase for private schools. Um, that is not the priorities our state should have. We believe that *** minimum of 5% increase to our public schools is what they need to get back on track. You know, if, if our costs at home have gone up to heat our home to, you know, provide school lunches, their costs have gone up too. We need to make sure that we're helping our public schools stay strong. We believe they'll probably end up at 2%, which is what the governor wanted. Uh, we don't think that's adequate, and we know it's going to increase property taxes in many communities because they have to pay for schools and we know that it's gonna cause layoffs. We're already hearing about layoffs in schools up in northern Iowa. Um, it's gonna cost more. We have to fully fund our public schools because 90% of Iowa kids go there and they're our future workforce, they're our future leaders. We have to take care of them now. We only have *** little bit of time left, but now as we move forward to the budget process, what are the top things you want to see just as as lawmakers approach that we just want to make sure that we're looking at every line item in the budget and ensuring that it is serving the needs of Iowans and not special interests. So we'll be looking at it through that lens and again, how do we lower costs? That's our priority. Well, uh, House Minority Leader Jennifer Com first, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. You bet. Well, thank you for joining us for ����vlog 8 News close up. We'll see you back here next Sunday. Have *** great day.