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The Iowa House of Representatives has officially elected Republican Pat Grassley as the new speaker of the House. The chamber voted today (Monday), the first day of the 2020 legislative session.
Grassley is a 36-year-old farmer from New Hartford and the grandson of U-S Senator Chuck Grassley.
Speaker Grassley says his time as chair of a powerful budget-writing committee showed him the importance of building consensus among House Republicans.
“Now that was at a smaller scale, obviously, and there’ll be more decisions and bigger decisions to make. But I think it really prepared me well for this role.”
In his opening remarks, Grassley said growing the state’s workforce is his top priority for this session. Grassley has been elected speaker after former speaker Linda Upmeyer stepped down, saying she wants to spend more time with her family.
Property taxes and prison reform are just two of the major proposals that state senators are expecting to discuss during the 60-day session, which began last week at the Nebraska Legislature.
Nebraska state senators returned to the Capitol in Lincoln Jan. 8 and introduced more than 100 new bills on the first day of the new session.
Senators said they are expecting to hear proposals on reducing property taxes, prison reform, and healthcare.
And, today is the final day for nurses at MercyOne to decide if they plan to go on strike.
Because of the weather, an extra voting session was added for tonight. A post on the local union’s Facebook page says the results of two votes could be released later this evening.
Union members are voting whether to accept a proposed contract from the hospital or to authorize a strike. Voting also took place over the weekend.
