April 9, 2015 From guns to growlers to auto insurance-- those are the topics of just three of the nine bills that passed the House of Representatives in the space of about two hours yesterday morning. All nine bills passed with bi-partisan support with the most controversial, a bill reducing the continuing education requirements for barbers, passing with sixty votes. It never ceases to amaze me the wide variety of subjects and concerns that Iowans bring to the Legislature for our consideration. It is also amazing the amount of time and effort that individual legislators put into research and networking in order to analyze each and every one of these bills. This is the second go round for the House on a Second Amendment bill. Earlier in the session the House passed a comprehensive bill that strengthened Iowan’s protections under the Second Amendment of the US Constitution. It included measures that cleaned up Iowa’s permit to carry a concealed weapon, permit to acquire a handgun, eliminated the restriction on anyone under 14 years of age handling a hand gun even if under the supervision of a parent, and improved the confidentiality of the records of permit to carry and permit to acquire holders. The Senate ignored our original bill and sent us a bill that would allow Iowans to acquire and own suppressors, better known as silencers, a right already afforded to citizens of 39 other states. The only purpose of the Senate bill was to give some of their members the opportunity to vote yes on a pro Second Amendment bill. Yesterday the House amended our original bill onto the Senate bill and sent it back across the rotunda. We will see if they have the will to take up a bill that will better protect Iowan’s Second Amendment rights. I had never even heard of a “growler” until the debate was taken up on this bill. A growler is a 64 ounce refillable glass container used to transport beer. It seems that, due to a clause in current law, microbreweries are not allowed to refill and reseal growlers while other retail establishments are allowed to do so. Unless these microbreweries that market craft beers have the financial ability to install commercial bottling equipment, the market for their beer is limited to on premises consumption. This bill would allow these microbreweries to install a $15,000 machine that would clean, refill and seal growlers for carryout business that would be legal to transport, thus allowing these businesses to expand. As a side note, this bill also applies to “howlers”, a 32 ounce version of the growler. The bill that was passed yesterday that has the potential to have the most impact on Iowans was House File 606. HF606 is a bill that would establish a data base of all autos insured in the state and then compare that to all autos registered in the state. The owner of any auto that has been issued a valid license plate that does not have corresponding insurance in force will be
notified and given adequate time to either insure the vehicle or turn in the plates. If the owner does not respond within the time limit, they will be subject to fines and the plates will be canceled. Current official statistics indicate that 10% of motorists involved in injury accidents in the state are uninsured. Official statistics are not kept on non-injury accidents but insurance company figures would indicate that the number of uninsured motorists is closer to 25%. Current law only allows us to find these uninsured motorists after the occurrence of an accident or a traffic stop even though Iowa law requires proof of financial responsibility. Several states already have these data bases in place and have been very successful in reducing the problem of uninsured vehicles. In fact, Utah believes that they have reduced their rate of uninsured motorists to fewer than 5%. This is one of those rare bills that we pass that will have no net cost to the state, as the fines generated will pay the cost of establishing and maintaining the database while it protects law abiding citizens from the costs and hassles of dealing with the aftermath of an incident involving an uninsured motorist.
