Des Moines Register. January 25, 2018
On water quality, Gov. Reynolds should keep asking
Gov. Kim Reynolds asked for it two weeks ago and she got it: The Legislature, after failing for more than two years, passed a much-anticipated bill to improve Iowa’s water quality.
Now she should ask for more.
More debate. More monitoring of the state’s lakes, rivers and streams. More collaboration between cities, farmers and other groups to create regional projects. And dare we say, more (and new) money.
Water quality is a complicated topic, certainly deserving of more than the hour of discussion that happened Tuesday in the Iowa House.
But in some ways the issue is simple. The state’s own Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy estimates that, depending on the scenarios used, reducing pollutants from agriculture and industrial sources could cost $3 billion to $6 billion.
The bill the governor is preparing to sign provides $282 million over the next 12 years. That’s not even a drop in the Raccoon River.
How will Iowa bridge this difference?
It’s not just environmental groups asking for more. The Iowa Soybean Association called the bill that passed this week a “timid response.”
“It’s nibbling around the edges of what’s truly needed,” said the group’s CEO, Kirk Leeds. “While some additional funding continues to point us in the right direction, it doesn’t get us too much further down the road in achieving the kind of results we all know are attainable and necessary.”
It’s not just Democrats asking for more. Rep. Chip Baltimore, R-Boone, ripped his colleagues’ “failure of leadership.” Instead of supporting legislation that involves all Iowans in answers, lawmakers passed a bill that “lays water quality, and the problems and solutions for water quality, squarely at the feet of Iowa’s farmers. That is a disservice to them,” he said on the House floor.
Two years ago, then-Gov. Terry Branstad asked for more. His proposal would have allocated $4.7 billion to water quality efforts by drawing from a school infrastructure fund. The idea was unpopular with both parties, but it contained the boldness this topic deserves.
Gov. Reynolds knows the bill passed this week isn’t enough. She said so Tuesday: “Passing this long-awaited legislation does not mean the water quality discussion is over,” she said. “It should ignite a continuing conversation as we begin to implement and scale best practices that will continue to make an impact on water quality in Iowa.”
That conversation should carry over into another one of the governor’s priorities, tax reform. It’s an ideal time to consider funding the Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Act through a sales tax of three-eighths of a cent.
Iowans have already said yes to this. They said it by voting in 2010 for the fund. They’ve said it in numerous polls since, including one released this month showing 69 percent support the tax. That includes 52 percent of voters polled who identify as conservative Republicans and 64 percent of farmers.
They know more needs to be done.
Up to 60 percent of the estimated $150 million to $180 million generated annually by sales tax could go toward improving, protecting and restoring waterways, according to a report from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.
No, that’s not enough, either. But it’s more, and the governor should ask for it.
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Sioux City Journal. January 26, 2018
Legislature should regulate, not ban traffic cameras
Iowa’s legislative obsession with traffic cameras continues this year. We have lost count of how many sessions have included time spent debating this issue.
On Tuesday, the House Local Government Committee rejected regulation of red-light and speed cameras and approved a bill to ban automated traffic enforcement devices. The bill would void all local ordinances authorizing the use of traffic cameras as of July 1 and order their removal in eight cities and one county where they are used. A similar ban on traffic cameras passed a Senate Judiciary subcommittee and will be considered by the full committee.
As we have said before, our preference is for speed and red-light cameras to remain legal traffic enforcement tools within a uniform set of rules, including fines, in the name of public safety.
To this end, we support a bill the Senate passed (but the House didn’t) last year because we believe it’s a reasonable compromise on these divisive devices. That bill kept traffic cameras in place, but required local officials to justify placement of cameras on state and local roads and allowed the equipment only in high-risk and high-crash areas. Under the bill, money generated from traffic fines would have to be spent on road construction projects or public safety. A traffic camera regulation bill is under discussion in the House this year; to this point in this year’s session, regulation isn’t under discussion in the Senate.
As was his predecessor, Doug Young, Police Chief Rex Mueller is (like us) a believer in the value of traffic cameras to making roads safer for drivers. In a wide-ranging discussion about local law enforcement issues with our editorial board on Wednesday, Mueller said he doesn’t care if they produce no fines at all because compliance, not revenue, is the goal for operation of traffic cameras.
Mueller said the No. 1 issue his department hears about from the public is traffic safety.
Even if this debate doesn’t turn out the way we want, we hope this is the last legislative session in which traffic cameras get discussion. Iowa lawmakers should make up their minds about whether to ban or allow them, put this issue behind them once and for all and move on to more important business.
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Fort Dodge Messenger. January 26, 2018
Eggs and Issues is a vital forum
Many of the issues that members of the Iowa Legislature deal with each session are complicated. In some communities, it’s difficult for citizens to stay as informed about the decisions lawmakers make as would be ideal.
Locally, however, Eggs and Issues makes staying well-versed about what is happening in the state capital easier. This forum, which is sponsored by the Greater Fort Dodge Growth Alliance and Iowa Central Community College, is an opportunity for area residents to be updated regularly by state lawmakers. It also affords a superb chance for anyone who participates in the sessions to share their views with the elected officials who represent the area in the Legislature.
Eggs and Issues takes place monthly when the Legislature is in session. The first session for the current year will be held Saturday from 8:30 to 10 a.m. in the Triton Café on the campus of Iowa Central Community College.
The Messenger is a strong supporter of the Eggs and Issues project. The dedication that area lawmakers have shown to making these meetings productive is greatly appreciated. We urge readers who wish to be better-informed citizens to add Eggs and Issues to their personal calendars.
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Quad-City Times. January 26, 2018
Leave speed cameras to the courts
The constitutionality of speed cameras is a matter for the courts. And, to that end, Iowa Legislature should pump the brakes until Iowa Supreme Court offers legal clarity.
But impulse is driving premature action in Des Moines. Dueling bills are rocketing through the House and Senate, with an outright ban gaining steam. Traffic cameras make for interesting bedfellows, indeed. The Democratic-backed version, which would merely impose new regulations on local use of traffic cameras, has the support of the Republican atop the House Transportation Committee, Gary Carlson, R-Muscatine. Meanwhile, ACLU of Iowa, has backed an outright ban pushed by Sen. Braud Zaun, a libertarian-bent Republican from Urbandale.
The issue divides this editorial board, too.
Add to that poll after poll showing a general distaste among Iowans for traffic cameras and the entire issue becomes a complete political morass.
But, in the coming months, Iowa Supreme Court is set to render a decision on traffic cameras in Cedar Rapids, Iowa’s poster-child for abusing the camera system to stuff its coffers. And it would be knee-jerk for lawmakers to act until the state’s top court weighs in.
Driver Marla Leaf says she could afford the the $75 speeding ticket she received in the mail in 2015. But Cedar Rapids doesn’t ticket tractor-trailers or government vehicles flying past its speed trap. Nor did the city make clear that alleged speeders could appeal in local court, instead emphasizing an administrative process that, Leaf’s attorneys argued in September, are clearly biased toward the city’s interest.
The long and short, Leaf contends, is that cities, including Davenport, have handed police powers to the private firms that manage these systems. In so doing, they’ve undercut the bedrock constitutional principles of equal protection and due process.
The very fact that Iowa Supreme Court took the case speaks volumes. Listening to the pointed questions justices aimed at Cedar Rapids’ attorney, Patricia Kropf, only strengthens suspicions that the court might, at the very least, split the baby and impose new regulations, either locally or sweeping, from the bench. Of course, justices could simply side with preceding appeals court rulings in favor of the city. They could also issue a striking blow against the entire network of speed cameras throughout Iowa, including those in Davenport and Muscatine.
There’s loosely related precedent, too, for supporters of both bills in Iowa Legislature to let the issue fully bake in the courts. Ohio, like Iowa, is a home-rule state. And, last year, Ohio’s Supreme Court concluded that the state Legislature violated Dayton’s home-rule when, facing similar questions about the constitutionality of traffic cameras, lawmakers imposed strict new rules on local governments.
The Ohio ruling would have no direct legal bearing on Iowa. But it’s possible, perhaps likely, the handful of cities in Iowa with traffic camera programs would follow in Dayton’s footsteps and file suit.
Traffic cameras are divisive and legally complex. Their very existence poses questions about safety, traffic enforcement as a means of revenue generation and citizens’ rights. Pile on top the all-over-the-map research about traffic cameras’ effectiveness in improving safety, and it’s right now impossible to wholly support either bill in Iowa Legislature prior to a ruling in Iowa Supreme Court.
What is true is that certain cities - looking at you, Cedar Rapids - have twisted a technology, pitched as a mechanism for improving highway safety, into an indefensible cash grab.
But the overarching constitutional questions that remain are now working their way through the courts. And any decision in the Legislature would be nothing short of misinformed if made prior to Iowa Supreme Court’s pending ruling.
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