Day 14

0800 - 1930.

This morning, there were three units of the Iowa National Guard standing on the west side of the chamber, which was quite a surprise! Later, they read House Resolutions honoring those units for their service. The biggest lobbist event of the day was "Nonpublic School Day," which ended up being mostly Catholic schools. I saw the Governor (of Boys State) as well as students and parents from St. James Elementary, which is in my town. Each of the nonpublic schools brought a group of students to do a performance - everything from puppets, to a classical choir, to orchestras showed up. Plus they brought cookies, of which I had 15-25. That was lunch. Representative Bukta brought apples to celebrate her birthday ... nice of her to add nutrition. The Friends of Clear Lake Water brought bottled water, and there was plently left over for us after we distributed to the desks.

Legislatively, not a lot. During a veterans' affairs bill [H.F. 817], someone sneezed extremely loudly right after Speaker Murphy asked for a "second" to approve a motion. That was funny. On the same bill, Rep. Bailey added a amendment [H-1554] to this bill that wasn't really related, but was good to have. It concerned creating a section in the Iowa code that defined abuse of the flag, in response to the judicial overturn of Iowa's current stance as unconstitutional. Other bills discussed (but not really debated) were a judicial "house cleaning" bill [H.F. 777], a pollutant discharce system bill [S.F. 405], and S.F. 131 concerned "publication of property assessment equalization orders," whatever that means.