Iowa

This week was the first funnel week of the session. If at the end of this week a bill had not passed out of a committee in either chamber, that bill would no longer be eligible for debate this session and would be regarded as "dead." This funnel does not apply to appropriations or ways and means bills.

This week, the focus remained on passing bills out of subcommittees and committees. Next week is "funnel week." Friday, March 8 is the deadline for House bills to pass out of House Committees and Senate bills to pass out of Senate Committees. Appropriations and tax bills are not subject to funnel deadlines however.

With two weeks left to go before the first legislative funnel, progress was made on both the policy and appropriations fronts. Floor work is heating up in both chambers, peppered between committee work.

This week, the pace of bills being introduced stayed constant from last week, as did subcommittee and committee work. High pace, high volume. Work on high profile issues continues...

This week, hundreds of bills were introduced and many were acted upon. There has been an uptick in the pace at which bills are being assigned and advancing through the subcommittee and committee process, which has resulted in a higher volume of bills eligible for floor debate earlier in the process than has been the case in the past.

Unlike most of the rest of the state, weather did not have much of an impact on the business of the legislature with the exception of the cancellation of a few events.

The second week of the legislative session started out relatively slow due to the observance of Martin Luther King Day on Monday and cancellations of committee work for weather-related reasons on Tuesday.

The 88th General Assembly convened this week, with Republicans holding a 32-18 majority in the Senate and a 54-46 majority in the House.