Des Moines, Iowa — The 2024 Iowa legislative session ended over the weekend. The Senate adjourned just before 3:30 a.m. Saturday morning with the house wrapping up at 4:23 a.m., and the House wrapped up the year at 4:23 a.m. Saturday.
The final day of decisions and votes stretched over 20 hours. Lawmakers approved a billion-dollar cut in the state income tax that will take effect next year. A nearly nine-billion-dollar state spending plan was finalized.
The final bill sent to the governor calls for redeploying a dozen Division of Criminal Investigation agents who work at the state casinos to a task force that will work on illegal immigration cases. The governor recently signed a bill into law that authorizes law enforcement to arrest undocumented immigrants — and gives Iowa judges authority to issue deportation orders. It’s similar to a Texas law that hasn’t taken effect due to a legal challenge. Early Saturday morning the House voted overwhelmingly to extend a moratorium on new casinos in Iowa, but the bill didn’t come up for a vote in the Senate.
