Under the Golden Dome
The Legislative Services Agency operates in the State Capitol building in Des Moines, designed to help draft bills and coordinate the overall legislative process in a non-partisan manner. The agency also provides bill drafting services to state agencies, and the judicial and executive branches.
They’ve released data on the 2023 regular session, the first session of the two-year 90th Iowa General Assembly. This does not include the one-day special session held earlier this month.
The legislature was officially in regular session for 116 days, from January 9 through May 4.
In that time, there were 610 bills and resolutions introduced in the Iowa Senate, with another 769 introduced in the House.
But the chance of passage, percentage-wise, is not great. Only 169 bills and joint resolutions were actually enacted…169 out of 610 introduced in the Senate and 769 introduced in the House. Even with overlapping topics between the chambers, it’s a low success rate.
Amendments are a big part of the legislative process…this past session, there were 228 amendments filed in the state Senate, and 368 filed in the House.
On top of all that, there were 222 study bills introduced in the Senate, and 254 more in the House.
The data I have from them goes back five years…and it’s interesting that in the first session of a two-year term, there are many more bills introduced than in the second session…which is in an election year for all members of the House, and half of the Senate. I suppose that larger number in the first year is in the glow of election victory, so they can claim a mandate from voters…and we can guess why they don’t do more—including tough stuff—in election years.
Sure, lots of numbers there…but the basic pattern seems consistent with the recent past.
