Capitol Update
January 2, 2024
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So much say... so much to share... | | |
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“We have to get along, all of us together, as the left does for evil. We have to do it to save our countries.” This could easily have been a statement I would make but I actually read it in the Dec. 20 – 26, 2023 edition of The Epoch Times. It was stated by a Columbian senator after the recent election of new Argentinean president and freedom loving capitalist, Javier Milei. His inauguration took place only two weeks ago and spans a hopeful era of renewal and liberty for much of the world. So why do I as a “freshman” Iowa Representative find myself so fascinated by a single election in a South American country fraught with decades of corruption and problems? Because in it and in the newly elected leader, I see a familiar resemblance to our beloved “We the People” country and because his election broadly reflects my entry into politics. | | |
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Argentina has been the site of a decades long socialist takeover as the oppressive economic and political system has grown its central power but has slightly fallen short of communism’s end goal, “Abolish all private property.” We see America in Milei’s desire to reduce government spending, eliminate Argentina’s central bank and move to a similar ESA education program such as the one Iowa’s recently adopted.
Across the big blue, hope can also be seen in the election of Geert Wilders of the Netherlands who had this to say after his recent election, “We can stop the monstrosities of the 2030 Agenda, of the green pact, of all their permanent meddling into the livelihood [of the people]…” as he conceded, “We have yielded so much in 50 years, 60 years, that we can yield no more power.”
Yield no more power? That’s right. Yield no more power.
As global economic and political systems wrestle for takeover in this never-ending battle, my desire is that my own constituents of Iowa House District 88 not only know and understand America’s depth into the abyss of the Marxist/socialist/communist rabbit hole, but that we also HAVE the hope that freedom can be unshackled, first by Christ, and second, by opposing evil in its many forms. So, as we find ourselves watching liberty be reborn in other countries, may we yield no more to the crushing demands of evil systems pressed upon us locally, nationally or globally.
To a new year and to a renewed hope – bring it on 2024.
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Session begins Monday, January 8th! | |
Fire Assistance Grants Awarded | |
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2023 DNR Volunteer Fire Assistance Grants were awarded this November to 131 rural fire departments. Two departments in Iowa House District 88 were included:
North Keokuk County and Sigourney Fire Department
More than $415,000 in 50 percent cost-share grants to these rural fire departments will help their efforts to protect Iowan’s and their property from wildfires. The grants offer valuable funding assistance for wildfire suppression, personal protective and communications equipment. They were made possible through Iowa DNR Forestry, in cooperation with US Forest Service.
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A Dose of Truth with Chloe Cole | |
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"To the degree to which a person can grow is directly proportionate to the amount of truth they can accept about themselves without shifting the blame upon someone else. "
This precious truth nugget was greatly demonstrated to me in November by Chloe Cole, a 19-year-old detransitionor who spends her young life traveling and sharing her story. This was the second time I have heard her speak and walked away, again, in awe of her experience.
The event was sponsored by Representative Jeff Shipley, Iowans 4 Freedom founder Oliver Bardwell, and the Vivek Ramaswamy campaign. Young Miss Cole followed the guidance of medical professionals and the adults around her as she attempted to transition to a boy at the tender age of twelve. She underwent a double mastectomy at age fifteen. After much heartache, physical and mental distress, look at her genuine happy smile in the photo below! She is now full of life and joy as she pursues wholeness and healing.
So many of us in attendance were led to pray with Chloe in her difficult journey. Even though she is not angry or bitter with family and friends who assisted her in own demise, she is holding her doctors accountable for the lack of medically informed consent in a lawsuit she filed this fall. Her experience highlights why I wholeheartedly supported legislation this past session that banned surgeries for the removal of healthy body, puberty blockers and hormonal therapy for minors. Listen to Chloe here as she testifies before Congress earlier this summer.
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The Finacial Status of Iowa | |
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With the new year upon us, may we each be financially proactive through our planned, responsible financial spending. Each year, the State of Iowa looks intently at its income and expenses as it carefully determines how much it will spend in each state department for hundreds of programs. Known as the Revenue Estimating Conference with the acronym of REC, this three-member board determines revenue estimates and is responsible for evaluating the fiscal and policy impacts of programs and budgets.
For the current fiscal year, the REC panel updated their forecast for 2024 General Fund revenue to $9.7 billion. That would be $92.5 million below the final revenue figures for the fiscal year that ended on June 30. The decline in revenue is largely due to the implementation of this year’s phase of the 2022 tax cuts, which was projected by LSA to return $450 million to Iowa taxpayers.
The 2024 enacted budget was slated to spend $8.5 billion. Based on the current forecast, the state will have an unspent surplus of $1.2 billion at the end of the fiscal year.
For the next budget year – Fiscal Year 2025 – the REC set their spending forecast at $9.7 billion. With an expected revenue intake of over 10.6 billion, Iowa should have a carry forward of almost one million dollars.
After fourteen years of Republican control in the capital, transparency has been a priority when it comes to keeping the public informed about the state budget. And unlike the federal national debt, Iowa does not face the same dire circumstances. I would like all of you to know that the State of Iowa has the following surplus' as we head into the new year:
Cash reserve fund: 721 million
Emergency fund: 240 million
Tay payer relief fund: 3.6 billion
These comfortable numbers allow Iowa to have financial security and increased options in the coming years.
A full report of all departments and their upcoming budgets are available in the 2025 State Budget Preview and can be found on the Iowa Legislature website here.
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Chronic Absenteeism in Iowa Schools | |
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You may have seen a few articles or heard of the issue of Iowa’s chronic absenteeism. But what is it? Chronic absenteeism is defined as missing 10 percent or more of school days for any reason, excused or unexcused – for vacation, health conditions, suspensions, etc. The Iowa School Performance Profiles tracks chronic absenteeism totals, as well as by district, with the most recent numbers being from the 2021-2022 Spring Student Reporting in Iowa (SRI) collection. The percentage of all students who are chronically absent in Iowa based off that data was 25.6 percent which equates to 125,750 out of 491,977 students.
To view the breakdown by program, race, gender, or grade click here. You can also view the data by district here by searching your district.
In August KCRG released an article that discusses why schools are seeing an increase in student absences. “Even with the pandemic officially over – more students are missing school more often.” The reasons stated in the article could be a variety of factors from keeping kids home more if they are sick, to issues going on at home, and just a tough transition for students who feel like they are behind already and trying to catch up seems very difficult. Data from the Department of Education says that 13% of Iowa students were chronically absent in 2018-2019, which was the last full year prior to COVID, compared to 25.6% of students in 2021-2022.
Nationally, research shows that many states are seeing some progress in reducing their chronic absenteeism rates post-COVID, although many are not at pre-COVID levels. However, Iowa is not one of them. Five states actually reported increases in chronic absenteeism from 2021-2022 to 2022-2023. These states are Iowa, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Oregon, and South Carolina. Iowa had an increase of nearly five percentage points.
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How to Harm Children:
expose them to sexually
graphic material at a young age
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That could easily have been the name of all the research articles that are briefly presented below. Time and time again, it has been proven that children are harmed when exposed at an early age to material of a sexually graphic nature. It was also the prime reason why I supported legislation this past session that stated "age-appropriate" school material shall not continue to include "sex acts" as described in Iowa law. The passage of the bill was a basic attempt at common sense and the responsibility that we, as adults, should fulfill in our duty to protect innocent and vulnerable children from harm. This has nothing to do with LGBT and the ever-growing alphabet that follows it. It is also unfair to state that protecting children from sexually explicit material is akin to being an "LGBT hater." I want you all to know that I gladly commit to my continued support of children and healthy, intact families. Please be sure to familiarize yourself with the material below:
* According to the Canadian Centre for Child Protection exposure to sexually explicit material is harmful to children. According the Centre, “Research suggests that early exposure to sexually graphic material is likely to have a negative influence and a potentially harmful impact on children,” and “Most (if not all) of this type of material is legal, it is far from harmless to children and teens who view it.”
On its webpage the Centre explains exposure to sexually explicit material may:
· Prematurely sexualize a child.
· Incite a child to experiment with sexually explicit behaviour to make sense of it.
· Lead a child to normalize and become desensitized to high risk behaviour.
· Shape a child’s expectations in relationships.
· Shape a child’s expectations of physical appearances and certain sexual acts.
· Blur boundaries and increase a child’s risk of victimization.
· Increase a child’s health risks (i.e. sexually transmitted infections, sexual exploitation, etc.).
· Increase a child’s risk of problematic sexual behaviour against other children in an effort to experiment.
· Interfere with a child’s healthy sexual development.
* A 2020 study (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7147756/) found that “Exposure to sexually explicit media in early adolescence is related to risky sexual behavior in emerging adulthood.”
The study’s conclusion reads, “Exposure to sexually explicit media in early adolescence had a substantive relationship with risky sexual behavior in the emerging adulthood. Knowledge of this causal like effect provides a basis for building better preventive programs in early adolescence. One prominent way is early education on media literacy, and physicians themselves may need to be familiar with such content to initiate it.”
* UNICEF finds, “Pornographic content can harm children. Exposure to pornography at a young age may lead to poor mental health, sexism and objectification, sexual violence, and other negative outcomes. Among other risks, when children view pornography that portrays abusive and misogynistic acts, they may come to view such behaviour as normal and acceptable.”
* The National Coalition to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation cites the following:
· Adolescents are normalizing sexual abuse done to them because of pornographic exposure. Females are especially prone to the normalization of sexual promiscuity, which heightens their risk of being victims of unwanted sexual violence and of sexually transmitted diseases.
· The content of today’s media sexualizes and objectifies girls. The effects of self-objectification include eating disorders, low self-esteem, depression, and depressed moods. Far from leading to a healthy sexual development, sexual objectification leads to diminished sexual understanding
· A study of sexually abusive children in Australia showed 25% of the participants accessed sexually explicit material from an older sibling or a friend, emphasizing the unawareness of parents. In the same group almost all parents “reported that they doubted their child would access pornography on the Internet.”
* A Journal of Pyschiatry Reform article in 2021 states, “exposure to pornography is not trivial. It can have traumatic effects leading to significant distress, disruptive behaviors, compulsive sexuality and even suicidal attempts.”
Two lawsuits have been filed in Iowa to prevent key aspects of Senate File 496 from being implemented. SF 496 contained guidelines on what is not age-appropriate material in schools. The lawsuits aim to invalidate those guidelines. Please stay tuned for updates.
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My second legislative session is right around the corner! I am ONE of the sixty-four Republicans in the Iowa House, while the Democrats round the total up to 100 House members. This fall, we have been enjoying many conversations about our priorities for the upcoming session when we gavel in on January 8th and fulfill our scheduled 100 days of the second session for the 90th General Assembly. Here are some of the House priorities set by the caucus followed by my own personal priorities:
House GOP Caucus Priorities (broadly stated, immensely simplified, and not at all complete):
Education: Increase school safety and accountability, implement better focus on history and civics curriculum, and reexamine missions within regent universities.
Iowa's Economy: Continue to address high taxes, support small business growth.
Law and Order: Continue progress in child/labor trafficking, enforce age-verification for online porn access, address illegal immigration concerns.
Government: Modernize state IT systems, address nursing home concerns/costs.
and much more...
My Priorities (a little more specific):
Introduce and pass bill to establish online age verification for minor access to porn sites (this would be similar to accessing online gambling sites.) Also require phone companies to include their porn filter software automatically set to the "on" default for new phone purchases as opposed to the current "off" default.
Address the American Library Association's Marxist ideology that is currently being used in their guidance and training to all Iowa libraries.
Introduce a bill to address the risk to public health and increase of pollution in the attempt to control the Earth's weather through solar radiation modification (SRM), stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), or other forms of weather engineering.
Of course, I am always having conversations on the local and state level as to how best we continue to pursue financial stability as a state in our continued balancing act between delicate relationship of county and state entities.
Carefully watch and continue to research bills/issues that are coming up regarding Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), foreign sale of Iowa land, over the counter birth control, Article V convention, anaerobic digesters and the continuous assault on private property through eminent domain.
Is there more? Yes, much more. This is just a sneak peek....
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Carbon Pipelines and Presidental Canidates | |
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I hope many of you have taken the unique opportunity to meet presidential candidates as they blanket Iowa before the upcoming caucus! Vivek Ramaswamy partnered with Free Soil Coalition in November to "speak the unspeakable" in regard to carbon pipelines, eminent domain and global threats. Other legislators, landowners, and supporters of property rights addressed a national audience at this well attended event in Des Moines.
Texas presidential candidate, Ryan Binkley, and Arkansas' Asa Hutchison visited Oskaloosa this past month. Even though I thoroughly enjoyed an hours long conversation with the brilliant Texas financial businessman whose focus is on solving Americas financial crisis, I equally enjoyed his wonderful and engaging campaign staff. What an experience they must have traveling all around with a presidential candidate!
*My mentions of Americas GOP candidates are in no way endorsements. Please do your homework as you seek out who to caucus for on January 15th! I will be including all caucus locations for my district in the next newsletter.
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In December, I also enjoyed a full tour of the single largest elementary school in Iowa, Oskaloosa Elementary, where almost 1,000 students are enrolled. Three young professional guides gave me the tour of everything on site, including the new "mini-pitch" soccer court where students play a smaller version of the fast-paced game on a condensed field of cushy turf. Oskaloosa School Board members, staff and high school students also treated Senator Dickey, Senator Rosenboom and myself to a well-prepared legislative meeting just days after. They outlined their laudable vision for Oskaloosa Community Schools as they seek to be the "school of choice." | |
My first year in politics has brought me more travel in a single year than I have ever traveled before! Not only have I learned so much at previous conferences and events, but this December took me to Denver where I had the unique opportunity to tour the Space Weather Prediction Center and an engineering firm that hardens critical infrastructure within the electrical grid for the Department of Defense. Experts from various fields introduced legislative ideas and challenged us to keep the discussions alive in our home states. My conference takeaway in a nutshell... you all would be wise to remember that private electrical companies are not required to protect their sensitive components from damaging large scale electromagnetic pulses (EMP's) - weather natural or manmade. What that means... prepare for the worst, hope for the best, leave God to the rest. | |
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What do people like me need for support as elected officials in a state office?
* Prayer (the key!)
* Your input - either for or against the issues
* Volunteers
* Yards for signage (both yard sign and barn signs/4x8)
* "Word-of-mouth" support by expressing your approval to others
* and of course, financial donations:
Hayes for House, Treasurer
1240 170th Street
Pella, Iowa 50219
Thank you all!!
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It's not all politics for me...
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Just so you all don't think I have no balance in my life, I thought I would share this cute photo I recently took! Family life, health, and my Chrisitan faith greatly matter to me but most of my family has requested to keep out of the very public nature of politics so you will not be seeing much for photos of them on Facebook or even in my newsletter. But they really do exist and are extremely important to me...!
I suppose you could say I am reduced to sharing about my beloved chickens instead. With a long history of poultry exhibition in my extended family, I thought I would share this photo of the beautiful breed I am working to develop now; Spangled Hamburg bantams. I hope to have another great hatch coming up this spring so that others can also raise and breed this majestic exhibition fowl. Hats off to all my fellow fanciers out there! May you have a great hatch in 2024!
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