InsideSources

Clear a space for Iowa’s name on the growing list of states prohibiting the existence of sanctuary cities, as the state’s Republican-controlled legislature sends the prohibition bill to the desk of Governor Kim Reynolds, a Republican, who is most likely going to sign it into law.

Under Senate File 481, all law enforcement officials are expected to comply with Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (ICE) detainer requests for illegal aliens who have been taken into custody for violating local laws, and who are suspected of being in the country illegally. Several other provisions in the bill further the intentions of the law, including the prohibition of local law enforcement agencies sharing information with ICE and other law enforcement jurisdictions. The bill would prevent law enforcement from interfering in an ICE investigation on a person suspected of entering the country illegally. If a city or county fails to comply with the law, then the state can withhold “any state funds” for up until 90 days, at which point the entity can begin an appeals process.

The bill initially passed the Senate last year and was not taken up in the House until this session, and featured several amendments aimed at appeasing challengers of the bill, who argued that the law’s enforcement would eventually lead to racial profiling, and create hostility between law enforcement and communities with high immigrant populations. The law also states that law enforcements need only an ICE detainer to hold a suspect, and not a signed court order.

After several hours of questioning on behalf of Democrats on the House floor before the bill’s passage in a vote of 55-45, Floor Manager and Representative Steven Holt (R-District 8), told lawmakers that there was no direct instance of officers denying ICE detainer requests that inspired the bill, and no policies that actually called jurisdictions sanctuary cities. Holt did however, cite Iowa City’s current policy, found in resolution 17-27, that said the city will take no law enforcement action nor commit local resources to enforcing immigration law. Holt and other Republicans in the legislature cited the murder of Sarah Root in 2016 as a reason the bill had to be passed.

“I’m not waiting for someone to get killed [by an illegal immigrant] to take action,” Holt said.

Root was killed in a car crash involving the 19-year-old Eswin Mejia, who was in the country illegally and was drunk, causing the fatal car crash. Mejia was arrested and placed on a $50,000 bond, of which Mejia only had to pay 10 percent. Once paying the bond, Mejia fled, leaving many to wonder how he was able to be freed from jail without any question of his immigration. However, in the Root death, a detainer for Mejia was never issued, meaning law enforcement wasn’t obligated to keep him under suspicion of being an illegal alien.

Despite many Democrats calling the bill a solution in search of a problem, the legislation passed the Senate 28-18, with three Democrats and one independent voting for the bill.

Challengers to the bill still argued that it would negatively impact communities with an immigrant population; however, the bill features explicit items that prevent local law enforcement agencies from profiling and discriminating, as well as awards protections to persons who witness crimes or who are victims in crimes at the hands of illegal aliens, who may not be U.S. citizens themselves.

States like Mississippi and North Carolina already have laws on the books banning sanctuary cities, with North Carolina circulating a bill that would strip funding away from cities that go against the legislation. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has repeatedly tried to block jurisdictions that are sanctuary cities from receiving federal grants but has not been able to bring his agenda as far as he and President Donald Trump want. From a state perspective, however, the rule of public monies is a little different. A recent case upholding Texas’ prohibition of sanctuary cities, which could fine jurisdictions up to $25,000 per day of non-compliance, shows the power that states can wield against its cities.

According to Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, the federal government is having problems denying jurisdictions federal dollars for not complying with immigration law efforts. However, when it comes to states themselves, Somin said that any law passed could be legal depending on the state constitution. Laws could be challenged if they infringe on certain federal amendments, but in terms of denying funding, since funding to cities isn’t an issue of the federal government, any law’s legality falls to the state’s constitution and whether or not it allows for the legislature to deny a city funding.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union-Iowa (ACLU-Iowa), the law could be challenged by the organization, but it would not comment on any legal strategy it would use to challenge the legislation.

According to the Iowa Legislative Services Agency (ILSA) several state funds made to cities that could be halted include: road use tax fund allocations, grants, and reimbursements; state property tax replacements, tuition replacement, flood mitigation projects, community college funding, grants made by the Iowa Economic Development Authority (IEDA), and “many other areas.”

While the ILSA did express concern that this bill could negatively target school districts and Area Education Agencies (AEA), Holt said that the bill is only targeting governing entities in the form of cities and counties.

A bill establishing Educational Savings Accounts (ESAs) for non-public school students has been introduced in the Iowa House of Representatives, and is scheduled to be heard by an education subcommittee later this week.

House Study Bill 651 is the House’s second try at establishing ESAs for non-public school students. Last year, a bill that would add approximately $240 million in costs to the fiscal year 2018 budget was unable to be passed into law. The plan would have made 34,000 Iowa students, who were already in non-public schools, eligible to receive state money for their schooling. According to the new bill, the only students who would be eligible to receive state money for non-public schools would be those who are not currently enrolled in non-public schools, and for new kindergarten students. The grants would not be subject to income tax, and could also be used until a pupil turns 23 years old (if the balance in the account has not run out by the time of graduation from 12th grade).

The bill creates Education Savings Grants (ESG). This establishes individual funding per qualifying student to be used towards tuition at a non-public school. In order to calculate how much each grant is worth, the bill uses a formula that establishes the total funding at 90 percent of the sum of seven factors: the student’s weighted enrollment in the current district they reside in, multiplied by the difference between regular program cost and the average foundation property tax per pupil. The remaining factors are the student’s district’s average supplemental costs for teacher salaries, professional development, early intervention, Area Education Agency supplements, and teacher leadership supplements.

According to the Iowa Department of Education, the cost per pupil across the entire state for the 2017-2018 school year was $6,591. Because each student in the state is weighted differently, creating an exact number for each student would require examining a student’s enrollment factor, as well as examining each district’s cost per pupil. Chair of the House Education Committee Walt Rogers (R-District 30) said that the state’s portion of the total cost per pupil is approximately $5,000. The grant would be 90 percent of the state’s portion, which would be equivalent to approximately $4,500. The funding formula runs similarly to the state’s open enrollment policy, where the district pays another district the money that the student’s home district would have received. This bill is less expensive than last year’s bill because the bill would only assist students who are not already in a non-public school.

In addition to creating ESGs, the bill also amends that process in which charter schools can be commissioned within a particular district, rewriting the requirements going forward after July 2018.

“Basically we wanted to open up more opportunities,” Rogers said. “Presently, the way the rules are currently written, it’s really hard to set up any sort of a charter school. The thinking behind opening that up is just to have more opportunities for specific needs and for specific types of charter schools.”

The new protocol sets up three avenues for establishing charter schools:

Founding group-school board model: the charter school entity gets approval from the district school board to establish a new school building or take over an existing one.

School board-state board model: a school board creates a founding group to seek approval from the state board of education to create a charter school to be part of the district.

Founding group-state board model: a founding group may seek approval from the state board of education to be established outside of a school district.

Such application decisions are final, according to the bill, and cannot be appealed.

“We wanted to free up some of the codes so different entities could start up charter schools,” Rogers said. “Different school boards can decide if they want to have a specific charter school in their district. It’s a little easier for them to do that now. They can use potential entities outside the state to start a charter school. So basically, we just want more opportunity and it seemed, over the past several years, our charter laws have dissuaded entities from coming here and school boards from starting a charter school, and so we just wanted to turn that around.”

According to the bill, all charter schools approved would still have to comply with federal, state, and local guidelines when it comes to race, health, and other regulations such as special education guidelines. A student who enrolls in a charter school within a district would follow a similar process as an open enrollment, in which the school district would pay the cost per pupil rate to the charter school. The bill currently states that parents would have to notify the school district by the March before the ensuing school year of enrollment that their child will be attending a charter school. Rogers said that he’d be open to changing that date if there was desire to.

With approximately two weeks to go before the deadline for legislation to be moved out of both Senate and House committees, Iowa public school advocates are confident that the public school system will come out with financial security and equity, as well as come out unscathed by a recent push from school-choice advocates in the 2018 session.

The Iowa Association of School Boards (IASB), an organization that lobbies and advocates for issues that aid local school boards in Iowa school districts, held its annual Day on the Hill conference and lobbying day, in which state superintendents and varying school board members heard testimony from the association’s directors and lobbyists about the impact of the 2018 session on Iowa public schools. While state budget appropriations and initiatives were discussed, and there was a special visit by Governor Kim Reynolds, speakers focused more of their efforts on encouraging board members and superintendents to go on the “offensive” in pursuing two “winnable” initiatives in the 2018 session.

Emily Piper, a lobbying consultant for the IASB, encouraged members to capitalize on the growing legislative support for an extension to the Secure an Advanced Vision for Education (SAVE) program. This program, as of 2008, increased the Iowa state sales tax from five to six percent, with the one percent going to school districts to be used for school infrastructure needs or school district property tax relief. The program was created to alleviate property tax burden by allowing districts to use sales-tax dollars for projects. The program also allows a district to avoid having to bond for money, which often requires a public referendum. The program is scheduled to sunset in 2029. Under a new bill that was authored in the House in 2017, the sunset date for SAVE would be pushed back to 2050. The bill also increases the amount available for the property tax relief fund.

“We have gotten very positive feedback from legislators on both sides of the aisle,” Piper said. “It’s an election year, and [legislators] want to do as much as they can for education.”

The second “winnable” piece of legislation according to Piper is a bill that equalizes current per-pupil funds, currently sitting with the House after being approved by the Senate in 2017. A discrepancy exists between all Iowa school districts. A district in a rural area with fewer students but similar operating costs as a more urban district isn’t given more money to maintain programming. Under the proposed legislation, two divisions would go into effect, creating funding equity throughout all Iowa school districts by 2027.

The first division of the bill proposes a 10-year plan to adjust district cost per pupil (DCPP) for each district until it reaches a “maximum district cost per pupil.” According to the Iowa Legislative Services Agency, the current maximum disparity is $175 per student between school districts. Under the bill, in fiscal year 2018, the state cost per pupil would be adjusted by $5 per student, resulting in a state cost per pupil (SCPP) of $6,669 per student. In fiscal year 2019, the state cost per pupil would be adjusted by an additional $10, bringing the SCPP to $6,679 per student. Every ensuing year, $20 would added to the SCPP until all districts are equalized by fiscal year 2027.

The second division of the bill would focus on transportation cost equity between districts. In more rural districts, the cost per pupil in transportation costs is much higher than those in more tightly knit areas, creating a cost discrepancy. The proposed bill would attempt to equalize transportation costs, focusing on three factors: transportation cost factor, which creates a ratio of each district’s transportation cost per student, as compared to the statewide cost per student for transportation; enrollment factor, which evaluates the district’s enrollment to statewide enrollment; and route miles factor, which creates a ratio of each school district’s transportation miles against the statewide miles.

According to ILSA, if the bill were to go into effect this session, schools would receive an estimated $12.68 million in additional funding in the first year, and $130 million over the 10-year period.

Piper said, additionally, that there is a bill being circulated that would extend the state’s operational sharing dollars program, which allows schools to share up to 21 administrative positions, with a stipend paid to the sharing districts from the state to keep costs low.

One piece of legislation that Piper confirmed was dead is a bill that would move the start date for schools up to August 23, or the first Monday after the state fair. “That bill is dead,” Piper said. “There will be no changes to the calendar. I would love for that to happen but the response I got was that the governor is not interested and the three branches had that fight and they’re not talking about it.”

Piper said a concerning piece of legislation for public school advocates is a bill that would create education savings accounts to allow parents to pay for private education.

“There’s no viable vehicle on [education savings accounts],” Piper said. “We’re waiting to see a bill that chairs of the two education committees produce that will give us an idea. I believe that we’ll see the a 529 plan eligible for k-12 non-public education, but they don’t have resources to do anything else within their own caucuses.”

Other potential legislation would strike income restrictions that currently prevent students from transferring districts, though some advocates claim this could lead to the re-segregation of Iowa schools. An additional bill that could impact transportation costs is one that would extend the maximum amount of time a student can be on a school bus. Currently, a student can only spend a maximum of 75 minutes on a bus, one way. A bill in the Senate Education Committee would allow 15 more minutes to be added to that maximum, and even 30 if parents are notified 30 days prior and the school board holds two public hearings on the matter.

Tax reform is a top priority for the Iowa Legislature as it enters its first round of deadlines for individual bill submissions. While leadership from the Republican-led House of Representatives and Senate would like to see a reduction of the state income tax rate, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds has vouched for the removal of Iowa’s federal deductibility on taxes, due to the federal government’s passage of tax reform creating a higher tax liability on Iowans.

While an exact plan is not in circulation and concrete details are not running on any particular deadline, according to leadership, there is one facet of the state’s tax system that could be revised that could spur state revenues if enacted.

House Speaker Linda Upmeyer told reporters before the 2018 session started that her caucus would investigate instituting a sales tax on the online sales of goods and services (from outlets such as Overstock, Newegg, Wayfair, etc.) to remote companies, as a way to “even the playing field” with stores in Main Street communities, as well as increase state revenues.

However, passing legislation that levies a sales tax on the online sale of goods and services is currently a violation of a state’s authority, as regulating interstate commerce falls under the jurisdiction of the federal government.

Coincidentally, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) decided last week that it would hear a case that could challenge the federal government’s power in regulating interstate commerce.

South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. will be heard by SCOTUS this upcoming April, and will hear arguments from the state of South Dakota as it argues for the state’s recent passage of its 2016 Remote Seller Compliance law which levies a 4.5 percent tax on online retailers who sell over $100,000 in goods and services, and do not have a physical plant in the state. Arguments for Wayfair will be in favor of SCOTUS’ earlier decision in 1992’s Quill v. North Dakota. SCOTUS’ ruling in this case stated that due to the Congress’ “dormant commerce clause” regulating interstate commerce, states could not collect sales tax from purchases made from companies outside of the state the purchase is made, unless congress were to enact a law regulating sales tax.

According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), 45 states in the U.S. levy a tax on businesses including remote (internet) businesses. However, due to SCOTUS’ 1992 ruling, these states can’t pass a sales tax onto remote sellers, but can levy a use tax on purchasers of the goods and services. GAO estimates that states could generate between $8 billion and $13 billion in revenue if they were allowed to demand sales tax from remote sellers. This number represents between two and four percent of 2016 state and local government general sales and gross receipts tax revenues.

In an earlier SCOTUS case, Direct Marketing Ass’n v. Brohl (2015) — involving a 2008 Colorado law that required retailers to supply information to the state regarding their sales — the court deferred judgement back to the state, which stated the law complied with the state’s authority as it would not charge fines. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote a concurring statement on the decision stating that when Quill was ruled on, mail-order based sales were only valued at approximately $180 billion, annually. In 2008, online sales exceeded approximately $3.16 trillion, annually, and that the court’s decision would need to be reviewed.

Recently appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch, who ruled on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals at the time of the case, wrote a concurring statement in 2015, explaining that there is a need to re-examine Quill if the correct case came up.

Current Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee Guy Vander Linden said that if the Iowa legislature and the committee did write legislation levying a sales tax to online retailers, there would be a clause in the legislation that would allow the law to go into effect if SCOTUS ruled in favor of South Dakota.

Several federal legislators submitted a petition to SCOTUS to hear South Dakota’s case in order to guide Congress in making effective interstate sales tax legislation.

With the release of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai’s proposal to roll back regulations classifying broadband internet as a utility under Title II of the 1934 Communications Act, many are wondering what the future holds when it comes to both innovating and expanding wireless and broadband infrastructure to rural areas and communities, like those found in Iowa and across the U.S.

During the debates leading up to broadband’s classification under Title II, between 2011 and 2015, trends in wired and wireless infrastructure spending were down 20-30 percent, about $30-$40 billion annually, according to George Ford, chief economist of the Phoenix Center. It’s suspected this decrease is closely tied to the threat of the new regulations. Others have found a continued decline in investment since the rules came into effect.

Peter Rysavy, president of Rysavy Research, LLC, a consulting firm that has specialized in wireless technology since 1993, believes that the lack of spending has slowed growth in technological advancements when it comes to creating faster networks and the development of 5G technology.

“The last couple of years, with the ban on paid prioritization and uncertainty on being unable to limit prioritization,” Rysavy said, “innovators haven’t taken advantage of what these networks are capable of.”

While the reclassification of broadband under Title I won’t directly impact laying infrastructure for broadband in rural communities, Rysavy believes that the easing of regulatory oversight will benefit the development of 5G technology, which may be a solution to the lack of internet accessibility in these areas.

“With this new approach, there is the likelihood of 5G technology becoming more broadly realized and greatly commoditized,” Rysavy said. “The technology will be less expensive to extend, as it may improve rural markets. 5G is what we’ll have to be looking towards to what we’re seeing in the rural markets.”

Former FCC Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy (2001-2005) states that the regulations entailed in the Title I and Title II classifications aren’t the barrier to accessible broadband internet in these specific communities.

“I spent a lot of time in a wireless company looking at investing in broadband in rural parts of the U.S.,” Abernathy said. “Net neutraility isn’t going to help in building out these markets.”

Abernathy, a senior executive at Frontier Communications in 2010, explained that lack of population density in rural America is the challenge, due to the fact that there is a low concentration of revenue to finance large projects like laying a fiber-optic line.

Instead, Abernathy says, the FCC’s efforts in Universal Service Funding (USF), specifically, the Connect America Fund (CAF) are the tools that will aid in delivering services to rural markets.

Expanding broadband access is a priority for FCC Chairman Pai, who hails from rural America himself. The commission is already in the process of examining wireless network capabilities by implementing another key universal service program in the Mobility Fund. This past February, the FCC adopted a Mobility Fund framework, allocating up to $4.53 billion over the next 10 years to advance 4G LTE services, primarily in rural areas.

According to data collected from the FCC and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) by broadbandnow.com (2016), Iowa ranks 38 in the nation for most-connected state, with 82 percent of people covered by some form of broadband, at an average statewide 23.2 Mega Bits Per Second (mbps) download speed. Conversely, 22 percent of the state is considered “underserved.”

According to Broadbandnow, there are approximately 541,000 Iowans without access to a wired connection capable of 25 mbps download speeds; approximately 517,000 Iowans have access to only one wired provider. Approximately 153,000 Iowans don’t have any wired internet providers available where they reside.

Betsy Huber, president of The National Grange — an organization that encourages families to band together to promote the economic and political well-being of the community and agriculture — and member of FCC’s Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee, said that she supports Pai’s proposal to rollback the Title II classification, but she also urges members to call legislators in support of the farm bill and infrastructure bills, which contain increased government funding for installing broadband in rural areas.

“The National Grange commends FCC Chairman Ajit Pai for his leadership on commonsense internet policy that will help provide critical broadband access to millions of more Americans and especially those in our rural communities,” she said in a statement when Pai released his plan.

“We really see it as an economic issue in rural areas,” Huber told InsideSources. “[Broadband] costs more to run service in sparsely populated areas. From the government standpoint, it’s important to make this happen sooner rather than later.”

The FCC has been steadily investing billions through the Connect America Fund (CAF). According to the FCC, as of 2015, $9 billion over the next six years will be used to fund infrastructure upgrades to over four million homes and businesses, and another $2 billion was dedicated over 10 years to help small ISPs. In Iowa alone, as of 2015, over $50 million in grants have been accepted (CenturyLink, Windstream, Frontier, and consolidated carriers) to expand broadband service to over 85,000 people across the state, according to Connect Iowa, a non-profit part of Connect Nation under the FCC. With an increase in funding to both lay broadband and increase cell services, the conditions could be just right for both providers and customers to take advantage of increased access to the internet.

Connect America Fund (CAF) Phase II commitments as of 2015 in Iowa. Courtesy Connected Nation.

Americans will get their first electoral indication of potential 2016 presidential nominees in record time from Iowa tonight courtesy of Microsoft — the company behind the tech both parties will use to tally up what will supposedly be the fastest, most accurate results any caucus state has ever seen.

The Windows developer says it will achieve such a feat via mobile and PC device apps created in partnership with software developer Interknowlogy and powered via Microsoft’s Azure cloud technology, empowering party representatives in more than 1,680 precincts to upload and double-check results in real-time.

“Built on Microsoft technology, the new platform will feature a secure system, which will enable precincts to report their results directly by party and will ensure that only authorized Iowans are reporting results,” Microsoft’s vice president of Technology and Civic Engagement, Dan’l Lewin, said in a statement. “This announcement represents the first-of-its-kind major technology component to caucus reporting.”

Microsoft has been working with Republican and Democratic parties in Iowa for over a year to offer apps to each party for free (which, if the results come in as predicted, will be a major marketing boon to the company’s growing mobile, cloud computing and big data endeavors).

Only credentialed party chairs in each precinct will tally, be asked to re-check, and upload results to additional apps manned by party leaders. These apps will constantly monitor incoming results and automatically flag anomalies and problems before the results are validated. Afterward, the software will report the results to the public and press through an online app, breaking results down to each county and precinct on an interactive map, updated in real-time, that users can zoom in on.

Party leaders will have access to data in even greater depth and detail on the back end, and Microsoft’s Azure cloud-computing platform will back up the entire system, which can handle “as many users as it needs to without skipping a beat,” according to Microsoft.

“It’s robust, it’s reliable, and most importantly — it’s accurate,” the company explained in video providing an overview of the system.

The apps replace the previous telephone touch-tone keypad method used in 2008 and 2012 — a system lacking user verification and vulnerable to errors by simply typing an extra digit. Incorrect telephone results from 2012 identified former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as the Iowa Republican caucus winner. Romney campaigned as the Iowa winner for two weeks until correctly-tallied results found former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum had a 34-vote lead over Romney.

Last week the Republican Party of Iowa reported successful tests in all 1,681 precincts, including at least two per county and a total of more than 300 overall “to prepare caucus night reporters to quickly, accurately, and securely report results using the new Microsoft app on February 1.”

“For more than a year the Iowa GOP has been preparing for the evening of February 1, strengthening our relationships with county parties, opening new offices, hiring staff, and developing a new reporting system with our partner Microsoft,” Executive Director Chad Olsen said in a statement.

The Iowa Democratic Party said it was proud to partner with Microsoft and even Republicans to deploy the technology, which “once again puts Iowa at the forefront of politics and technology,” Iowa Democratic Party Chair Dr. Andy McGuire said in a statement.

While both parties have embraced the tech, not all of their candidates have. Last week Microsoft, using data from its Bing search engine, predicted business mogul Donald Trump would win all four Republican caucuses in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, and that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will take Iowa, Nevada, and South Carolina for the Democrats, leaving Vermont Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders with a sole victory in New Hampshire (Microsoft previously used the same big data analytics to accurately predict more than 95 percent of the 2014 mid-term elections).

The results didn’t sit well with the Sanders camp, whose representatives pointed to hundreds of thousands in campaign contributions from company employees to the Clinton campaign, and described the use of the app a conflict of interest.

“You’d have to ask yourself why they’d want to give something like that away for free,” Pete D’Alessandro, Sanders’ campaign director in Iowa, told MSNBC Wednesday.

In a statement to the network Microsoft said it “is providing technology and services solely to administer and facilitate a neutral, accurate, efficient reporting system.”

Both the Sanders and Clinton campaigns said they would be using their own backup systems to ensure accuracy Monday.

“The future of civic engagement technology is here, and it all starts in Iowa,” Microsoft said.

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