HF 392 – Competitive bid process not required for professional services
HF 590 – Tax return preparers and providing penalties.
HF 634 – Combing juvenile justice boards
HF 694 – EMS licensure & interstate compact
HF 743 – Uniform electronic storage of official documents
SF 410 – Primary runoff election for a party’s nominee under 35 percent of vote
SF 475 – Allows remote, electronic notarial signatures
COMMITTEE ACTION:
HF 392 – Competitive bid process not required for professional services
HF 392 says the competitive bid process is not required for professional services rendered by certain public employees. Currently, an official, a state employee, a member of the Legislature or a legislative employee may not sell any goods or services having a value in excess of $2,000 to any state agency unless the sale is made pursuant to an award or contract let after public notice and competitive bid. The above section does not apply to a contract for professional services that is exempt from competitive bidding requirements in the Code or Administrative Code.
[4/3: 14-0 (Excused: Zaun]]
HF 590 – Tax return preparers and providing penalties.
HF 590 defines a tax return preparer as an individual who, for a fee or other consideration, prepares 10 or more tax returns or claims for refund under Ch. 422 during a calendar year, or who assumes final responsibility for completed work on such tax returns or claims for refund under Ch. 422 on which preliminary work has been done by another individual. On or after January 1, 2020, a tax preparer must place their PTIN on any tax return or claim for refund prepared by that tax preparer filed under Ch. 422.
The bill provides reasons for the Department of Revenue to seek temporary or permanent injunction if a tax preparer has continually failed to engage in enumerated list of bad actions. The bill also establishes continuing education requirement for tax preparers. It requires a minimum of 15 hours of continuing education courses on subject matters prescribed by the Department of Revenue. Two of these hours will involve professional ethics. These continuing education hours must be taken from an IRS-approved provider of continuing education.
[4/2: Short Form (Excused: Zaun)]
HF 634 – Combing juvenile justice boards
HF 634 eliminates the Criminal and Juvenile Justice Planning Advisory Council, the Public Safety Advisory Board, and the Sex Offender Research Council and replaces them with the Justice Advisory Board. These boards have overlapping members and missions. The new, 28-member board will have 22 voting members and 6 ex officio nonvoting members.
Members will include nine appointed by the governor with confirmation by the Senate and a member representing each of these organizations/agencies: Coalition Against Sexual Assault, ACLU, Iowa County Attorney’s, Department of Human Services, Department of Corrections, Department of Public Safety, Department of Public Health, Courts, a Judicial District, Department of Correctional Services, Office of the Status of African Americans, Board of Parole, State Public Defender, Governor’s Office of Drug Control Policy. The ex officio members will be two district judges designated by the Chief Justice, Chair and Ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the Chair and Ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee or House Public Safety Committee.
[4/2: Short Form (Excused: Zaun)]
HF 692 – Elections bill
HF 692, as passed by the House, implements the statewide use of postal service barcodes to determine the date that an absentee ballot was placed into the federal postal service. If the postmark or postal service barcode indicates that the ballot was mailed by the day before Election Day, the ballot must be counted. If there is a discrepancy between the date indicated by the postmark and the postal service barcode, the earlier date will be used to determine the “mailed by” date of the ballot.
The Senate State Government Committee amended this bipartisan bill with a strike-all amendment that added most of divisive voter suppression policies in SF 575. The amendment includes absentee ballot counting changes included in HF 692 with these changes:
- Moves the required report to the list of already required reports for county commissioner post-election.
- Rewrites precinct board members section 53.17A 4 (b) and adds up to five members from each party to verify uncertain postal service codes as identified by the county commissioner.
- Sunsets a provision that allows the legislature to review enactment of statewide postal service.
- Adds a drop dead date: If no action is taken by May 1, 2023, absentee ballots must be returned to the county auditor’s office before polls close on Election Day. Any ballot, except for uniformed or overseas, received after polls close cannot be counted.
As amended in committee, this bill contains these provisions of SF 575:
- Removes the requirement for a postmark or postal service barcode.
- Removes Secretary of State requirements for publishing proposed amendments to the Iowa Constitution.
- Issuance of Bonds: Public and school bonds will include the term of the bond, current levy rate, proposed new levy rate, the average impact on a home and the average of the averages.
- Self-Promotion: Defines “direct mass mailing” as a mailing sent to 200 or more recipients. It defines the prohibition against public funds for printed material as including those mailings that are sent to request or enroll a person into a program, the purpose of which is to attract public attention to a person, policy, product, service, program, law, legislation or event. Only applies to monies given the Governor’s office.
- Hospital Board of Trustees Elections: Establishes off-setting term limits for hospital boards of trustees.
- SSB1078: Special elections will occur on the first Tuesday in March and second Tuesday in September, with Election Day in November only for an odd-numbered year.
- Nomination by Petition: Nominations by a political party or nonparty political organization require the same number of signatures. It eliminates all percentage formulas.
- Makes dates for filing, withdrawing and replacement for state and county offices uniform.
- County Auditor’s signatures on a ballot are replaced with the county seal. County Auditors cannot participate in absentee ballot drives or collections in cooperation with a candidate or political party. County Auditor or Secretary of State cannot distribute sample ballots. Secretary of State can oversee County Auditor’s election-related work 60 days before and after an election.
- Mandates the use of e-poll books by February 26, 2020.
- Voter registration closes 11 days before an election; voters are still eligible for Election Day registration.
- Requires a special election for tie elections. Offices of U.S. Senator and U.S. Representative will hold a special election 66 days after the final canvass or recount. Statewide offices, Legislature, county supervisors and any partisan countywide election will hold a special election under current parameters. The remaining races, including President and Vice President, are drawn by lot.
- Polling times: closing time for polling places for state primary and general elections, other partisan elections and any other election held concurrently is moved from 9 p.m. to 8 p.m.
- Requests for satellite voting for special election must be made 18 days before the election, down from 32.
- County Auditors can authorize satellite voting without petition requests ONLY for special elections.
- Requires a county auditor to verify a voter voting absentee (e.g., ask for Voter ID or other verification and comparing signatures).
- Requires a county auditor who receives an incomplete absentee ballot request to inform the applicant within 24 hours by telephone or electronic mail.
- Prohibits a county auditor from using the voter registration system to obtain additional necessary information.
- Changes the process by which absentee ballots lacking a signature or appearing to have been signed by someone else are verified. If such a ballot is received by 5 p.m. on the Saturday before a general election or by 5 p.m. on the Friday before any other election, the county commissioner of elections must contact the voter within 24 hours and inform the voter how to remediate the ballot.
- Allows a candidate requesting a recount to have an auditor from another county at the recount.
- Conflicts of Interest: Repeals the prohibition on elected or appointed county employees holding an interest in a contract for the construction, reconstruction, improvement or maintenance of any highway, bridge or culvert. The bill requires a state or county official who is a voting member of a government entity responsible for awarding a contract pursuant to competitive bidding procedures and is the apparent low bidder for the contract to abstain from voting to award the contract and include an explanation of the official’s conflict in the resolution.
- Graduating students from ALL institutions of higher education (i.e., state universities, private colleges and community colleges) must complete a voter registration form indicating if they are staying or possibly leaving the state upon graduation. Those leaving Iowa will be marked inactive instead of removed from I-VOTERS.
- Removing Voters: The bill requires a county auditor during the January immediately following each presidential election to mark as “inactive” a voter who did not vote in the presidential election. Multiple notifications follow. If voter is not reached, the auditor will cancel the voter registration of a person who does not respond to a notice by July 1.
- Oversight of County Auditors: The bill requires each county commissioner to submit a report on voter list maintenance activities annually to the Secretary of State.
- Creates an order for ballot placement. The two political parties receiving the highest number of votes will each appear first on the ballot for one gubernatorial election and one presidential election in an eight-year period. The candidates of a party appearing first on the ballot in half of the counties in Iowa will appear second on the ballot in the other half of the counties.
- Municipal Elections: Secretary of State prefile changes.
[4/3: 9-4 (No: Democrats, Dawson; Excused: Bisignano, Zaun)]
HF 694 – EMS licensure & interstate compact
HF 694 establishes an Emergency Medical Service Personnel Licensure Interstate Compact to allow EMTs and paramedics licensed in Iowa to practice in other states. Participating states must meet standards set by the compact, including registration requirements, training requirements, investigation procedures and notification procedures. The compact allows a person to work within the same scope of practice in any compact state. The home state has sole authority to discipline a licensee. Member states in the compact participate in the Interstate Commission for EMS Personnel Practice.
The bill aligns Iowa Department of Public Health licensing authority language for EMS with language in the bill that establishes a multistate commission. It also establishes authority for IDPH to keep and retain new license application fees, which will include the required background check fee. Current law requires all licensing fees to be deposited into the EMS System Development Fund, which cannot be used by IDPH for administrative expenses. The bill will only affect new licensing applications. Renewal fees (which are the majority of the fees collected) will continue to be deposited into the EMS System Development Fund.
[4/3: 14-0 (Excused: Zaun]]
HF 743 – Uniform electronic storage of official documents
HF 743 sets up a process for the electronic storage of official documents. It’s largely a technical bill based on the Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act (UELMA), prepared by the National Conference of Commissioners of Uniform State Laws in 2011. The bill requires the Legislative Services Agency (LSA), when acting as custodian of information, to provide for the publication of legal material. LSA must also provide methods of authentication and preservation of electronic records. The bill makes a number of other conforming and miscellaneous changes to the same Code chapter to implement the UELMA and to codify current publication practice.
[4/3: 14-0 (Excused: Zaun]]
FLOOR ACTION:
SF 410 – Primary runoff election for a party’s nominee under 35 percent of vote
SF 410 requires a primary runoff election to determine a party’s nominee in the case of an inconclusive primary election for certain offices. Under current law, an inconclusive primary occurs when no candidate receives at least 35 percent of the vote in the primary election. Current law provides that nominations following an inconclusive primary be filled by the party’s state convention, congressional district convention, party precinct committee members, county convention delegates or county convention precinct delegates, as applicable.
For elections with multiple seats on a board, the number of candidates in the primary runoff election will be equal to one more than the necessary number of nominations, and for elections for statewide office, congressional office and members of the Legislature, the two candidates who received the highest number of votes in the primary will be the candidates in the primary runoff.
[3/28: 46-0 (Excused: Breitbach, Feenstra Nunn, Sweeney)]
SF 475 – Allows remote, electronic notarial signatures
SF 475 will allow a notary public to perform remotely through audio-visual technology. The bill strikes a provision that defines the phrase “personal appearance” to exclude an appearance that uses video or optical technology. Under the bill, a public notary who performs a notarial act remotely must comply with certain standards, including rules adopted by the Secretary of State. This includes keeping the audio-video recording of the notarization for at least 10 years. If a public notary complies with these standards, the personal appearance requirement is deemed satisfied. The bill also provides that a county recorder may accept a tangible copy of the electronic record, if a notarial officer certifies that the copy is accurate. An amendment adopted on the floor expands this bill to include all notary acts, not just those involving real-estate transactions. It makes the effective date July 1, 2020.
[4/1: 48-0 (Excused: Breitbach, Zaun)]