Get the Lead Out or

A Tale of Two Bills

Once upon a time there was a hunter who wanted to bring young relatives raccoon hunting.  So a law needed to be passed that allowed children to go raccoon hunting with their parents’ permission.  The Iowa Senate agreed that this would be a good law and passed a bill that would allow a resident under the age of sixteen to go raccoon hunting with any “competent adult with the consent of the minor’s parent or guardian, . . . so long as the minor is not hunting and does not carry or use a firearm or other weapon.”

The Senate passed this good law with unanimous support and sent the bill to the Iowa House for their blessing.  All appeared to be honest and good at the Iowa Capitol.

But, unknown to the trusting citizens of Iowa was a dark force at the Iowa Capitol determined to circumvent the system to pass a bill allowing hunters to shoot mourning doves with the dreaded lead shot—a deadly poison to children and wildlife including the American symbol for freedom—the Bald Eagle.  Since the Iowa House ran into obstacles for passing the coveted dove hunting bill, an evil plot developed.  The raccoon-hunting bill was amended by the Iowa House in a manner not often seen.

By using a current law that allowed for the hunting, possession, disturbance, and killing of “gray or fox squirrel, bobwhite quail, cottontail or jackrabbit, duck, snipe, pheasant, goose, woodcock, partridge, coot, rail, ruffed grouse, wild turkey, pigeons, or deer,” the dark force added the words “mourning dove” to fit right in between “partridge” and “coot”.

Wait a minute.  What happened to the hunting of raccoons?  A point of order was justifiably raised that the amendment was not germane (meaning pertinent, relevant, or related to the issue).  So, the Iowa House voted to suspend the rule in order to pass the bill.  The bill allowing a youngster to hunt raccoons with grandpa now morphed into a companion bill to SF 464, “an act allowing the establishment of an open season for hunting mourning doves.”

Using this procedural maneuver, in which the dove hunting bill from the Senate wouldn’t have to face the agony of going through another committee meeting in the House, the two companion bills become twins.  This means that the Senate legislation allowing for the open season on mourning doves can be taken up for consideration right away because there is already a bill on the House Calendar that matches it exactly.  Wow!  What a neat trick.  It’s just like magic.  You see, if the bill were to have gone through committee it may have come out with a provision that banned lead shot.  The dark forces did not like that.  Steel shot costs too much!

An amendment was offered that would have prohibited lead shot, but it was shot down without a vote.  The final vote was as follows:

The ayes were, 58:

Alons Anderson Arnold Baudler Byrnes Chambers Cohoon Cownie De Boef Deyoe Dolecheck Drake Forristall Fry Garrett Grassley Hagenow Hager Hall Helland Horbach Huseman Iverson Jorgensen Kaufmann Kearns Koester Lukan Lykam Massie McCarthy Miller, L. Moore Muhlbauer Olson, R. Olson, S. Paustian Pearson Quirk Rasmussen Rayhons Rogers Running-Marquardt Sands Schultz Shaw Smith, J. Soderberg Sweeney Taylor, J. Upmeyer Vander Linden Wagner Watts Windschitl Wolfe Worthan Mr. Speaker Paulsen

The nays were, 39:

Abdul-Samad Baltimore Berry Gaines Gaskill Hanson Hanusa Heaton Heddens Hein Hunter Isenhart Jacoby Kajtazovic Kelley Klein Kressig Lensing Lofgren Mascher Miller, H. Oldson Olson, T. Petersen Pettengill Raecker Schulte Smith, M. Steckman Taylor, T. Thede Thomas Tjepkes Van Engelenhoven Wenthe Wessel-Kroeschell Willems Winckler Wittneben

Absent or not voting, 3:

Brandenburg Murphy Swaim

The bill having received a constitutional majority was declared to have passed the House

-Governor Branstad signed into law.

Will there be a happy ending to this sad tale?

Fawkes-Lee & Ryan will be fighting to get the lead out of this legislation.  It falls under our new Fairness Issue.   But we need your help.  Please subscribe to this issue.

Epilogue:  On March 23, the bill allowing grandpa to take his grandson out to hunt raccoons was referred back to the House Committee on Natural Resources.

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