Update: this bill did not pass through the funnel on February 16, 2024, and is unlikely to move forward this legislative session.

Legislator wants to repeal every single law

What if I told you that every single law would disappear from the books over a 10-year time frame?  Preposterous, you might say.  But an Iowa legislature envisions a time when every single law is simply repealed.

Representative John Wills has introduced a bill (HF2021) that would repeal every single Iowa law over a 10-year period.  Furthermore, the cycle would be repeated every 10 years thereafter.  The only way that the law remains on the books would be for both the Iowa House and Iowa Senate to pass the bill and for the Governor to sign the bill into law.  If the two chambers and governor could not agree, then the bill would simply disappear.  Bills related to the environment, taxes, education, public health, criminal laws, and many other areas, would simply disappear.

Talk about chaos.  Talk about uncertainty and the effect that will have on businesses who repeat the mantra that they want certainty.  Talk about disrespect for the institutions of government and smooth functioning of that government.  It would be a time-consuming waste of resources, both within the legislature, within the executive branch, and for the taxpayers.

Although there may be items in the Iowa Code that need to be revised, it is easy to do it on an as-needed basis for that individual item.  There is no need to blow up whole chapters of the code in order to accomplish an easy task of updating a single law.

This is a bill that should simply be rejected.