Representative Tom Jeneary — April 3, 2019
This past week several bills were passed in the House. I will highlight some of them.
First is the medical marijuana bill. As part of this legislation, a board of medical professionals and law enforcement was created and tasked with reviewing research and studies to help guide the legislature in making policy decisions. This bill would allow medical doctors, physicians and nurse practitioners to recommend medical marijuana or cannabis (CBD).
The bill also removes the 3% THC (the hallucinogenic portion of marijuana) and replaces it with a 25 gram limit over a 90 day period. These changes would put clean boundaries in place to prevent abuse of CBD medications.
Throughout the course of this legislation, House Republicans worked closely with House Democrats and medical professionals to find solutions.
Another bill that was passed was the animal protection act. This bill makes it a felony to purposely abuse a pet. It does not deal with puppy mills, which is a separate issue and a bill will be debated dealing with this problem.
One of the pieces of legislation that Gov. Reynolds outlines was restoring voting rights to felons who have served their sentence. The bill will require passage in two consecutive legislative sessions to be placed on the ballot in an election year, so the people of Iowa can decide if they want to restore felons’ voting rights.
There will be amendments placed on the bill to prevent people who have been convicted of violent crimes such as rape, child molestation and murder from ever getting their voting rights restored.
Over the past few weeks, much of our state has experienced severe flooding Gov. Reynolds requested Presidential Disaster Declaration of $1.6 billion in aid, which President Trump quickly approved for 56 counties, making them immediately eligible for federal disaster relief. For more information on the flooding and disaster aid, please visit the flooding websites: floods2019.iowa.gov and disasterassistance.gov.
This Friday, April 5, is the second funnel deadline and any bill that has not been passed out of committee for floor debate will not be considered in this legislative session.
On Saturday, April 6th at 9:00 at the Hinton Community Center you can meet with Senator Carlin and myself to talk about what is important to you and to have more in detailed conversations on how we can accomplish the goals of District 5.
As always, please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions, comments, or concerns that you may have.
