Easy to see where this is going. Republicans envision they can get rid of every law they don’t like and keep only the laws they like.  To borrow a phrase from Art Cullen talking about the GOP book banning nonsense, here’s another anti-democratic idea no doubt from a “right-wing propaganda machine in Virginia.”

sierraclub.org/iowa/blog/2022/01/legislator-wants-repeal-every-single-law

[Republican] Representative John Wills has introduced a bill (HF2011) that would repeal every single Iowa law over a 10-year period.  Furthermore, the cycle would be repeated every 10 years thereafter.  The only way that the law remains on the books would be for both the Iowa House and Iowa Senate to pass the bill and for the Governor to sign the bill into law.  If the two chambers and governor could not agree, then the bill would simply disappear.  Bills related to the environment, taxes, education, public health, criminal laws, and many other areas, would simply disappear.

Talk about chaos.  Talk about uncertainty and the effect that will have on businesses who repeat the mantra that they want certainty.  Talk about disrespect for the institutions of government and smooth functioning of that government.  It would be a time-consuming waste of resources, both within the legislature, within the executive branch, and for the taxpayers.

Although there may be items in the Iowa Code that need to be revised, it is easy to do it on an as-needed basis for that individual item.  There is no need to blow up whole chapters of the code in order to accomplish an easy task of updating a single law.

This is a bill that should simply be rejected.  The bill has already passed a house subcommittee and will soon be reviewed by the House State Government Committee.

You can write to the committee members and ask that they do not pass the HF2011.  Their email address are

rob.bacon@legis.iowa.gov, Jane.Bloomingdale@legis.iowa.gov, Brooke.Boden@legis.iowa.gov, Jacob.Bossman@legis.iowa.gov, dennis.cohoon@legis.iowa.gov, Molly.Donahue@legis.iowa.gov, Eric.Gjerde@legis.iowa.gov, bruce.hunter@legis.iowa.gov, Jon.Jacobsen@legis.iowa.gov, megan.jones@legis.iowa.gov, bobby.kaufmann@legis.iowa.gov, Monica.Kurth@legis.iowa.gov, Shannon.Lundgren@legis.iowa.gov, mary.mascher@legis.iowa.gov, Ann.Meyer@legis.iowa.gov, Joe.Mitchell@legis.iowa.gov, Tom.Moore@legis.iowa.gov, Amy.Nielsen@legis.iowa.gov, Carter.Nordman@legis.iowa.gov, Mike.Sexton@legis.iowa.gov, Brent.Siegrist@legis.iowa.gov, cindy.winckler@legis.iowa.gov, mary.wolfe@legis.iowa.gov