State Senator Jesse Green, Legislative Review, March 26, 2026

on our program today visiting with State Senator Jesse Green. Senator, thanks for taking a little time to visit with us this week. Hey, you bet. Good to be with you.

Well, busy week, you guys, well, we made it through that funnel and we knew that was going to, you've been kind of looking at this because you want to get into this budget stuff.

I know you got a lot of policy bills and things like that that are still trying to get pushed through, but budget, one of the big things, over the time you're down there, you kind of go, you know, bottom line is the budget. We got to get that done. Yeah.

So this is one of the most tense times during every session is right now because there's so many different things that are happening. It's our last funnel deadline. So if you pass out one of your bills in the Senate and it doesn't go through a House committee, then it's dead.

And so you're sitting there trying to track around where your bill is at, did it survive or not? And then of course you have your own obligations of bills that you're in charge of that you're trying to pass and get to the governor's desk.

So for example, right now the policy items that are still on my personal plate would be the Kratum ban bill that passed out of the House. It's over in the Senate. And when we're negotiating through that, trying to see where people are at on it.

Then of course, the governor's anti-Semitism bill. We're still sitting on that and it could be called up anytime. And then I'm also running the governor's charter school on to this bill. And there's about 10 different provisions that are within that bill.

And so I'm trying to thoroughly go through that and be prepared for the floor on that. Next week, I should be able to get my budget targets and start negotiating the head budget, which just to remind people is everything outside of state supplemental aid.

So community colleges and regions are the two big pieces of that pie within that budget. So this is the time of year where you start to see light at the end of the tunnel of session and you just don't know exactly when that's going to happen.

Of course, the two biggest issues left on the table that everybody is kind of on the edge of their seats on is what resolution, if any, will come up with the pipeline. And of course, the two different property tax bills that are out there.

Looks like on the property tax side, we're getting some agreements. Even the governor this week had said, you know, you're not going to get everything you asked for. That's compromising, negotiating and working that through and trying to come up with the best plan.

Yeah, on the property tax bill, I think it is. The two concepts are definitely coming together a little bit each week. And the most controversial component to the Senate bill is the gas tax provision. It's got an automatic inflator on that, which I personally do not agree with.

I don't mind voting on the gas tax every single year. It's a consumption tax and it fits within my philosophy of taxation. And secondary roads and bridges are a huge part of our autonomy. And we still rank pretty low on that. And so the gas tax should be a part of that equation.

And some people say, well, why is that a part of the property tax bill? Well, because in rural Iowa, secondary roads are one of the highest expenses for rural Iowa counties. And so I think as a rural legislator, I think it's really important that I advocate for that.

The House does not have that within their proposal. The other thing that is somewhat controversial, I think, in all aspects is the senior provision.

So in the Senate, there is a provision that if you are a senior citizen, you own your home, there's a pathway to be able to eliminate your property tax and not have to, so you can actually own your home and not have to pay a property tax. And it's an intriguing concept.

But my fear is that when you're talking about generational property tax reform, is it really healthy to be having carve outs of certain demographics of people in our society? Property taxes pay for the most essential services that we all use.

And if you're trying to actually lower property tax for everybody, the main thing is to try to broaden the tax base and simplify it. And so it'll be interesting how the bill moves forward with that and see if the House can negotiate with some of that. Yeah.

Well, we'll see what works out. I know there's plenty of things on the table. And again, this is the time of the year when we get a lot of, you know, the real hard discussions. And again, you have to learn to agree.

Didn't want to ask you a question because you mentioned, you know, working on the governor's bill and the different provisions that are in there. Again, how much studying?

Because a lot of people don't realize that you have to, if you're going to be prepared to take this out on the floor, you got to work on this. You got to be prepared. It's like doing homework. And you have to spend a lot of time studying on that.

I know they'll give you highlights and things like that. But someone will always come up, well, this line says, you know, so. Yeah. Take a look. Yeah, this charter school bill is the biggest bill I've ever dealt with. It's, as I said, it's got about 10 different provisions to it.

And it's, and somewhat of a controversial topic. And so I just know that every everybody on the opposition will be trying to poke holes in the bill when it comes to the floor. And so it's like trying to, trying to understand where are they going to come from?

And obviously, since it's been through subcommittee and committee process, I've heard some of the arguments. But of course, maybe they're holding some of their arguments back or they're going to attack something new that they haven't attacked before.

And, and so it's really forced me to dig in and try to be prepared for any possible attack that could come on on the bill. And it's just really grown me and deepened my roots as a legislator.

And when it comes to policy to, to go through this type of experience, I am slightly nervous with it. And if you're not a little bit nervous, and there's probably something wrong with wrong with you, but you want to be ready for the floor for whatever's going to come at you.

And so, so what is in this charter school bill? It's the most controversial provision would be the TSS money following a public school student into a charter school. And so number one, all charter schools are public schools, all charter school teachers are public school teachers.

And so the teacher salary supplement supplement is the last categorical that does not follow a child into a charter school. And so that averages out to be about $650 a student.

When you add that up right now statewide, that's not a lot of money, because there's, there's about 1000 students that are in charter schools. But as the charter school expansion keeps going on, that number is going to get bigger and bigger.

And so some of the public school advocates, the traditional public school advocates are saying, Hey, this is this is our money. It's not charter school money.

Whereas my argument is it's, it's that's that money is supposed to help that public school students support the salary of that public school teachers in a charter school. So that's going to be the main debate.

The other provisions that I'm sure they will not support is, it's going to add extra particular activity options for charter school students that do not have sports options. And we did something similar with that with private schools last year.

Another one would be the new window of enrollment for ESA. So right now there's just one window of enrollment prior to the school year.

Most school choice states have another window just before second semester for people to sign up for, for education savings accounts to go to a private school. Then there's some other things.

We would be the first state with this charter school bill to allow schools to opt into the revolving loan fund to be able to fund their infrastructure projects. So charter schools cannot bond like, like public schools can.

And so, so they need to be able to have additional options for their infrastructure. And currently the revolving loan fund is mainly used for water infrastructure or sewers. So anyway, so that gives a glimpse into that bill. But, but you're right.

It's a lot of study in and it's been a really growing experience. Well, it'll be, it'll be interesting to watch and see how that goes. And again, I know, you know, some people are going, well, why is a charter school a benefit for like here in Boone County?

Again, again, it depends what your, your public schools are doing and the kinds of needs that they are meeting. Yeah.

So the benefit of a charter school is you have more flexibility in how you go about your mission and curriculum activities, but there is a higher expectation on grades and outcomes.

And if you don't meet those expectations, the department education could take away your, your charter status. But I would give an example like Peyton's or Dan would be a classic case in my mind of a school that, that could be thinking about being a charter school.

If you look at Peyton's or Dan, they have a large manufacturing base that is unique to that county and to that area.

And so I could see the businesses within that community buying into this concept of having a manufacturing charter school that's designed to, to try to help meet the needs of that community, kind of like community colleges are different sometimes in their, in their missions for that community.

And, and so I kind of think, especially when it comes to the rural, small public schools, instead of them reorganizing, I think before they reorganize, it would be a smart idea to try to investigate. Maybe they should be a charter school instead of consolidation. Sure.

Gives them an option to look at another option to consider to meet the needs of meet the needs of their district or their area. So that it's not limited just to the district itself. So yeah, there's quite a variety of things that can be done there.

Well, let's talk a little bit about again, as we get into doing a lot of the other work. Well, we know that the eminent domain thing is going up. There still seems to be a couple of pretty, pretty deep lines drawn on that so far. Do you see anything given anywhere?

Well, it's, we all know that conversation is going to come eventually. It's, it's a matter of time. And, and I would suspect that, you know, some are fearful that the budget would get held up until a final, a final bill is made.

But I think it's pretty cut and dry that the house doesn't want eminent domain for carbon pipelines. The Senate wants to get rid of the notice corridor. And so we're one of three states that have a notice corridor.

And so the idea of getting rid of the notice corridor is to allow any utility to be able to enter into as many negotiations as possible so that you can have 100% voluntary easement. That is the goal of any utility project is to get as many voluntary easements as possible.

So in order to accomplish that, you have to get rid of the corridor. So, so right there on the surface, you see that, is there any way that we can marry those two concepts together to join the House and the Senate and unite that and I think it's somewhat close.

But nevertheless, there's, there's some areas where I think to be fair to any utility, you got to cross rivers, you got to, you got to cross, get out of the ethanol plant area.

And there's a couple ethanol plants in the state where there's just one landowner that surrounds the entire ethanol plant. So you can see how those would be difficult conversations for those utilities.

And I truly think if we passed out a bill that said you have to reach 90% voluntary easements before eminent domain is even considered or before the IUC board, I think that's common sense in my opinion. And so now it just comes down to personalities.

Is the anti-pipeline group going to dig in their heels and say, absolutely nothing. Well, my word to them is, well, if we don't do anything, nothing's going to change and that pipeline is going to happen under the current rules.

And so will there be some pressure for them to negotiate? I don't know if you have to be saying that. Yeah, we'll see what happens with all of that. There's so much happening there. Did you have some personal bills, things that you, that were still alive that made it through?

And again, how have they been progressing? Yeah. So the two concurrent enrollment bills that I had, they are out of the house education committee now and ready for the floor.

What those bills do is just gives the local school district more authority to control the mode by which the student takes those courses, whether it's online, in person or wherever.

And then the other one is to charge the student and the family the tuition of that concurrent enrollment college course if the student fails. And of course they complete their case to the school board to override that charge.

But we all know that there's sometimes circumstances that by which the student's really struggling and, you know, we need to accommodate that as well. So two really good bills that are come right from this district and are just one step from the governor's desk.

The Kraydom bill is probably taking up about 25% of my thought right now and trying to figure out what is the final bill. I've talked to legislators in Michigan that just banned it. And Michigan and so the Republicans control the house there.

And it's interesting to hear the compromises that they had to make in order to get that. Michigan ended up saying, hey, we're going to ban Kraydom until the FDA acts. And so there's this idea that the FDA this year is going to weigh in on Kraydom.

And so the lobby is kind of saying, well, you shouldn't do anything until the FDA acts. Well, it's like, okay, well, the opposite can be true, too. How about we just ban until the FDA acts?

And so I think that's going to be the compromise bill that I try to propose to the Senate caucus to get something done. As far as my other personal bills, it's been a wild year. Certainly, some have died. And I look forward to picking some of that up.

The marriage bills are still on my radar. I think that there's more that we can do in the state of Iowa to support families and marriages so that they're successful. Divorce is such a terrible thing with kids.

But then sometimes divorce is, you know, we all understand that sometimes divorce is the best thing that can happen to get two people that are fighting and need to separate. But nevertheless, I think I want to tackle that some more in the future.

But other than that, it's been a pretty successful year for me so far and not a lot of bills have died. All right. We'll keep plugging ahead and keep moving forward.

Coming up more like you said, you got a couple of bills that you need to help work on the floor and do some of those things.

Otherwise, as you said, budget numbers will be coming out here and it gives you a chance then to start to crunch some of those things and it gets us closer to the end, literally weeks away. Yeah. So it's, well, if things go smooth, I think we should get out on time.

It'll be interesting. I think it all comes down to the pipeline property tax. But the budget is going to be tight and it's going to be interesting to negotiate that. This past week, many residents got text messages about this HMO tax that we just passed.

You know, an increase on healthcare premiums and in the grand scheme of things, we're still on average when it comes to HMO premium taxes. But there's a gap within our Medicaid budget that we need to fill.

And it was kind of by accident where because of the big beautiful bill changes and that we have this small window where if we increase our premium tax, we could draw down some about $300 million of federal dollars to help fill our Medicaid gap.

And so I think it was a no brainer from my perspective that we had to do this. This is just a temporary nine month tax. But the reason I bring that situation up is right before budget negotiations and other topics.

And so we had to do that in order to make sure that we can continue moving forward with these negotiations. And I remember you, yeah, not that long ago telling us that was one of the big issues.

You had that gap in the Medicaid and how to get some additional resources in there to do that. This is the way to bring down, well, at least $120 million that you needed. Yeah.

So between this and shifting some money out of the taxpayer relief fund, I think we're being responsible with the budgets and with the taxpayer dollars. All right. Okay. Well, we'll keep our fingers crossed everything comes together for you.

And that you're not down there waiting in between things when we get towards the end here.

I know once we saw it last year, you guys, you know, when they drew the line in the sand on the imminent domain bill, that kind of slowed everything down for kind of a screeching halt there. So yeah, it's going to be a wild ride.

There's going to be times where you're really busy and then all of a sudden you're sitting there twiddling your thumbs for hours while negotiation happens. So it's from here on out, it's going to be a wild ride. All right.

Well, we look forward to keep it updated with you and learning what's going on. Again, State Senator Jesse Green, our guest on our program. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me.