Anna Ryon is a Des Moines attorney who practices in the field of utility consumer advocacy. Her experience includes nearly nine years of service at the Iowa Office of Consumer Advocate.

When Brenna Bird was elected attorney general, she took an oath to faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of her office, as state law requires. The official website of the Iowa Department of Justice describes the attorney general as “the state’s chief legal officer.” In that capacity, it is reasonable for Bird to know what duties she is required by law to discharge.

However, Bird’s record suggests she either does not understand all the duties the law requires her to discharge or has simply chosen not to fulfill some of those duties. Her failure to discharge the duties required by law has left Iowa landowners subject to unconstitutional eminent domain and their neighbors subject to the dangers of hazardous carbon dioxide pipelines without the legal representation they deserve.

Second in a series on under-covered stories from the Iowa legislature’s 2023 session.

During the seven years of the Iowa GOP trifecta, the majority party has often enacted significant public policy through eleventh-hour appropriations bills. Just before adjourning in 2019, Republicans amended spending bills to change the judicial selection process, restrict medical care for transgender Iowans on Medicaid, and block Planned Parenthood from receiving sex education grants.

A lengthy amendment to a budget bill approved in the closing hours of the 2020 session made it harder for Iowans to vote by mail and sought to restrict some companies from bidding on electric transmission lines projects.

The Iowa Supreme Court sent the legislature a message in March, blocking the 2020 provision on transmission lines, on the grounds that it was likely passed through unconstitutional “logrolling.”

Republican legislators weren’t pleased with the ruling known as LS Power, but seem to have adapted to it. This year’s “standings” appropriations bill was relatively short and focused on spending and code corrections—a far cry from the usual “Christmas tree” featuring unrelated policy items from lawmakers’ wish lists.

Nevertheless, many surprises lurked in other bills that allocated spending for fiscal year 2024, which begins on July 1.

This post focuses on seven provisions that appeared in budget bill amendments published shortly before Iowa House or Senate debate. Most of this policy language never appeared in a stand-alone bill, allowing Republicans to avoid the scrutiny that comes with subcommittee and committee discussions. Democratic legislators had little time to review the proposed budgets before votes on final passage, which mostly fell along party lines.

First in a series analyzing Governor Kim Reynolds’ plan to restructure state government.

Attorney General Brenna Bird would gain direct control over the office charged with representing Iowa consumers on issues related to utilities, under Governor Kim Reynolds’ proposed restructuring of state government.

House Study Bill 126, which lays out the governor’s plan over more than 1,500 pages, contains several provisions undermining the independence of the Office of Consumer Advocate. Iowa House State Government Committee chair Jane Bloomingdale introduced the legislation on February 1.

The Office of Consumer Advocate’s mission is to represent consumers on issues relating to gas and electric utilities and telecommunications services, “with the goal of maintaining safe, reliable, reasonably-priced, and nondiscriminatory utility services.” Much of the office’s work involves matters before the Iowa Utilities Board, which regulates the state’s investor-owned utilities, Alliant Energy and MidAmerican Energy.

Brenna Bird wasted no time putting her mark on the Iowa Attorney General’s office. Big changes commenced before the Republican’s formal swearing in on January 5.

Shoppers in the U.S. spent an estimated $160 billion on gift cards in 2018, up from around $90 billion a decade earlier. The holiday season is the peak time for those purchases.

State Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald has warned that much of the value will go to waste. Years ago, his office had a tool to help Iowans recoup the cost of unused gift cards. But state legislators had a different idea.

Less than four months after persuading Attorney General Tom Miller to cede some of his power to her, Governor Kim Reynolds has already denied ten requests to sign Iowa on to multi-state legal actions related to federal or state policies on gun safety, immigration, environmental regulation, and reproductive or LGBTQ rights.

During the same time frame, Reynolds has approved five requests to join multi-state efforts on consumer protection, drug policy, or to help Iowa obtain a share of negotiated settlements.

Iowans who buy health insurance through Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield won’t be getting premium rebates anytime soon. Wellmark has a near-monopoly on Iowa’s individual and employer health insurance market. After the company announced last summer that it would not participate in the state’s health insurance exchange during its first year of operation, Democratic State Senators Jack Hatch and Matt McCoy questioned why the company was holding about $1.3 billion in reserves. The senators argued that the Iowa Insurance Division had previously justified Wellmark’s large cash reserves on the grounds that the company would be selling policies through the health exchange created under the 2010 Affordable Care Act. Hatch and McCoy asked Iowa Insurance Commissioner Nick Gerhart to study the issue, and in November, Gerhart retained Risk and Regulatory Consulting to investigate Wellmark’s reserve levels.

The consultants’ report, made public yesterday, concluded that Wellmark’s cash reserves are “reasonable and prudent.” Click through to read the full six-page report at the end of the article by Tony Leys of the Des Moines Register.

I’ve enclosed below a few excerpts from Leys’ report, Hatch’s letter to Gerhart last July, which provides background on the issue, and the joint statement Hatch and McCoy released yesterday. They noted that Wellmark “will be using its current reserves to protect them from risks that do not exist for them; namely, the Insurance Marketplace Exchange.” Hatch and McCoy added that the report “puts to rest the notion that the ACA could ever be the basis for a future premium increase by the company, at least in the next three years.”

After many years of double-digit percent increases in health insurance premiums, Wellmark did not raise premiums for many of its individual customers this year, presumably to deter them from shopping for a better deal on Iowa’s exchange. I predict Wellmark will cite the 2010 health care reform law as an excuse for raising premiums again before too long. Iowa individuals and families can purchase policies on the exchange from either Coventry or Co-Oportunity Health. Only Co-Oportunity is selling employer health insurance plans through Iowa’s exchange.

Thank Gannett for small favors: the successive rounds of newsroom layoffs at the Des Moines Register have spared Clark Kauffman. He’s been tenacious in covering flawed oversight of Iowa’s nursing homes. On Thursday, Kauffman reported on a recent act by Governor Terry Branstad that worries national advocates for senior citizens.

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller was one of 16 state attorneys general to file a federal antitrust lawsuit yesterday against Apple Inc. and three major U.S. publishers. The complaint alleges that the publishers and Apple conspired to raise prices on electronic books, causing consumers to be overcharged by more than $100 million. The U.S. Department of Justice filed a similar lawsuit against Apple and two publishers in a different federal court.

A new report underscores how badly Iowa lawmakers screwed up when they missed the chance in 2010 to enact reasonable regulations on “legalized usury,” more commonly known as payday lending.

Senator Tom Harkin is among 13 senators (eight from the Banking Committee, five from the Agriculture Committee) named to the conference committee that will reconcile differences between the financial reform bills approved by the House last December and the Senate last week. The House will also have 13 representatives on the conference committee. For lists of the key differences between the bills, see Pat Garofalo’s Wonk Room chart and this post by David Dayen. Harkin’s office released this statement on Tuesday:

“Over the last year, Wall Street has repeatedly tried to kill this reform with hundreds of lobbyists and millions of dollars in ads. From my seat at the table, I look forward to ensuring that effort will have been in vain,” Senator Harkin said. “I plan to do everything in my power to preserve the bill’s integrity, strengthen its consumer protections, and stop the reckless financial wheeling and dealing that destabilized our economy and threw millions of Americans out of work. And, given the dangers they pose if not properly regulated, I plan to focus on preserving the key reforms in the Senate-passed derivatives portion of the bill. The Restoring American Financial Stability Act is a step in the right direction, and I look forward to improving it in conference.”

He’ll have his work cut out for him if he wants to preserve the Senate language on derivatives. Dayen wrote last week,

Everyone expects the 716 provision, which forces the mega-banks to spin off their swaps trading desks, to be excised in conference. But Michael Greenberger believes something like it will be retained. The House’s derivatives piece is a mess and nearly useless, but [conference committee chairman] Barney Frank has admitted a mistake on that front, and wants to preserve strong rules against derivatives, like in the Senate bill.

The smart money is on the conference committee dropping the strong derivatives language after the Arkansas Democratic primary runoff election on June 8. Until then, corporate hack Senator Blanche Lincoln needs to be able to brag about standing up to Wall Street lobbyists.

Here’s another battle Harkin should fight during the conference negotiations. On Monday the Senate passed a non-binding instruction to the conference committee supporting “a special exemption to shield automobile dealers from the oversight of a new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.” The House bill already contains that exemption. Harkin was among the 30 senators who voted against that instruction, while Republican Chuck Grassley was among the 60 who voted to limit the oversight of the new consumer protection unit. Of the 13 senators named to the conference committee, six voted against the instruction on automobile dealers, four voted for it, and three did not vote (roll call).

According to the White House blog,

The President has been clear on this issue, repeatedly urging members of the Senate to fight efforts of the special interests and their lobbyists to weaken consumer protections.  The fact is, auto dealer-lending is an $850 billion industry, which is larger than the entire credit card industry and they make nearly 80 percent of the automobile loans in our country.

Is there any question that these lenders should be subject to the same standards as any local or community bank that provides loans?

Auto dealer-lenders sell auto loans to working families every single day, and while most dealers are no doubt above board, some cannot resist the bigger profits that come from inflating rates, hiding fees, and tacking on over-priced add-ons.

In this kind of situation, President George W. Bush would make his demands clear and tell members of Congress to send him “a bill I can sign.” We’ll see how far President Obama is willing to go to keep consumer protection provisions in the Wall Street reform bill.  

Key Democratic lawmakers will push for new limits on payday lending during the Iowa legislature’s upcoming session, which starts on January 12. State Senator Joe Bolkcom, who chairs the Senate Ways and Means Committee, called for restricting the “loan shark rates” the industry typically charges. The Iowa Catholic Conference also supports limiting the interest rate for payday loans to 36 percent. That’s welcome news. Although 36 percent interest is still quite high, it’s a lot better than the 300 to 400 percent interest rates payday lenders are in effect currently charging customers.

In 2007, the Iowa legislature had smaller Democratic majorities yet managed to pass a bill capping interest rates on car-title loans at 21 percent. (Former Governor Tom Vilsack and Attorney General Tom Miller had advocated that reform for a long time, but Republican leaders refused to allow a vote in the Iowa House when they controlled the chamber.)

In theory, it shouldn’t be hard for House Democrats to find 51 votes out of their 56-member caucus to pass payday lending reform. However, at yesterday’s press conference with Senator Bolkcom, State Representative Janet Petersen expressed doubt that an interest rate cap could pass the House Commerce Committee, which she chairs.

I hope we’re not in for another round of a few Iowa House Democrats blocking legislation that would serve the public interest. More thoughts on this issue are after the jump.