Today’s guest post is by Larry Hodgden of Tipton. Larry is a retired Viet Nam era veteran of the USAF. He and his  wife of 40 years, Sharon, have three children and seven grandchildren who keep him very busy. Family, education, church and politics have been a lifelong passion.

By now you may be aware there is a bill(HF2215) in the Iowa legislature called “Stand your ground” which allows anyone to use whatever means they wish to deter someone from entering their “property” and further, holds them harmless from legal action. This same law in Florida passed by their Republican legislature and signed by Jeb Bush has resulted in a vigilante slaying of an innocent 17 year old boy. Current law allows you to defend yourself in your own house but this bill goes further to define property as your car, your yard or anything else you could possibly define as your property. Then it allows you to take any action you wish to defend this arbitrary definition of property with any degree of force you want regardless of the extent of the threat to you or your property. I suggest an amendment to add “shoot first and ask questions later”. to the bill’s name.

How do bills like this show up in state after state controlled by Republican legislatures we might ask. We can thank ALEC(American Legislative Exchange Council) for that and many other bills such as Voter ID and the resulting voter suppression, for anti women legislation such as defunding Planned Parenthood and restricting health care choices. In effect Iowa’s Republican legislators are adopting ideas formulated in other states and by groups financed by wealthy corporations and individuals.

While our legislature and legislators waste their time and ours with bills like this, they still have not completed any of the important legislation to operate our state. Twelve weeks into the session and they are no where near a budget and it looks like they won’t even set an allowable growth for K-12 education as they are required to do by law. The Governor’s Education bill and property tax reform bill are going no where fast. Perhaps the worst is the mess they made with Mental Health funding when they took it away from counties and now don’t have a workable plan to replace it. Talk about “getting the cart ahead of the horse”.

The Iowa Supreme Court ruled against Governor Branstad’s veto of funding for 36 Iowa Job Service Centers which effectively shut them down. The Governor took the 30 million appropriated for them and spent it elsewhere and now the legislature has to come up with 30 million in new money to keep them open. All this after last years marathon session which lasted until June 30th and cost the state of Iowa millions in additional per diem and expenses. Does anyone really think we are getting our money’s worth?