Comment on Most of Iowa GOP agenda clears first legislative hurdle

DES MOINES — Legislation seeking to reinstate a limited death penalty, repeal the state’s bottle deposit law and require young moped riders to wear helmets fell by the wayside while Republicans voted Thursday to sanction high-tech companies for censoring social media free speech on a critical day for bills to win approval or languish for the 2021 session.Majority Republicans moved ahead with a conservative agenda they said would advance individual rights while reining in government, but Democrats decried this year’s legislative work product as “mean-spirited and divisive” in lamenting a crop of measures they offered to address Iowans’ needs in responsive to the COVID-19 pandemic left dying on a partisan vine.“We had a very successful fall in the House and the Senate and we’re moving the things forward that we campaigned on,” said House Speaker Pat Grassley, R-New Hartford, in response to the complaints.