Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds has signed a new school choice bill into law but what does it actually mean? Democrat Senator Nate Boulton and Republican Senator Brad Zaun explain what the new school choice bill means for Iowans. They have disagreements on this bill, of course, but they have a shared vision of helping children.

Understanding Iowa’s New School Choice Law

There are quite a few myths about the bill they debunk, and there are some areas of agreement too. Can a private school educator really buy a convertible, are there really “backpacks of cash” that will go home to parents? Is there any accountability for private schools, and can they discriminate, or does federal and civil discrimination law still factor in? Are the reporting standards fair for public and private schools? Boulton and Zaun cover it all and even agree on a few points.

In an age of political divisiveness and anger, they demonstrate how politicians on opposing sides can disagree strongly, but do so with respect for the other. Iowa, as always, sets the tone for appropriate national political discourse.

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Full Transcript

Justin Brady (Host):
Come with me to a magical place where being labeled the Pork Queen is a compliment. Where being nice is just a way of life and where all leaders of the free world must pass through. Welcome to Iowa. Whether you’re a current Iowan and Iowa expat or an Iowan at heart, this show is for you. This is The Iowa Podcast, real Iowans, real talk, no drama. I’m Justin Brady, and joining me today are Senators Brad Zaun and Nate Boulton. Obviously the reason we’re here is to talk about summer and lake life. That’s not accurate at all. There was a school choice bill that has gone through, very big bill. As of recording this. It’s been signed by Governor Kim Reynolds into law for anyone who’s on Twitter or social media, they’re hearing a lot of inaccurate information coming from more left view and a more right view. So what better way to get to the root of what just happened than to have both of you on. I really appreciate you joining me on the Iowa Podcast.

Sen. Nate Boulton:
Happy to be here.

Sen. Brad Zaun:
It’s my honor, Justin.

Justin Brady (Host):
So let’s get into it first. You guys have very limited time, so thank you very much for spending it with us. You are both very levelheaded, that’s why you’re on the show. Let’s start though with the income gap that people have been talking about. So that’s going to be with us for two years, but then after that, anyone can apply for and qualify for this school choice program. I think it’s somewhere on ’24 and 2025. So why was there an income cap set and why does it expire? Let’s start with you Senator Boulton.

Sen. Nate Boulton:
Yeah, I think it is worth pointing out this is a different proposal than what we saw in the previous session that was much more targeted to match that message of trying to increase school choice and give opportunities for school choice to lower income students that may not have the ability to access private school. The proposal this year was much bigger and eventually gets to the point where it’s a credit or a voucher or funding for any and all comers regardless of income, which is a big concern for members of my caucus because the end result is going to be people who are already able to afford private school educations and doing so easily are going to get the same benefit from this as individuals who could not. So that added I think some opposition to this. I don’t want to speak for any of the members of the other party who voted in opposition to this in both chambers, but I have a feeling that that was a factor in increasing some of even the Republican opposition on this.

Justin Brady (Host):
Sure. Senators Zaun.

Sen. Brad Zaun:
Well first of all, it’s really good to be with you Justin and my good friend Nate. I really enjoy my friendship with him and I agree with what you said. He’s a very level-headed person. Most of the people see on TV and we don’t agree, but so many times we work together. With that said, I was very happy about the bill. I’ve been working on this for 18 years with, and I would also note that Kim Reynolds, our governor, ran on school choice. As you probably know, she got involved in some Republican primaries. It’s something she was very passionate about and she won by landslide. So it gave her an opportunity. It seemed like the votes have always been in the Senate but not in the house. But let’s go back to the question you ask. The real reason that I know of to go from year one, 300% poverty level to year two, 400% poverty level and then year three, obviously there’s no income requirements.
The reason why is to phase it in and I want to tell everybody I’ve studied this school choice and it is an education savings account everybody wants to call it a voucher. It is not a voucher. And I could elaborate if you want me to on that, but with that said the record, I just talked to someone this morning because implementation’s going to be huge. We got to get that right and then obviously there’s going to be a company, it was in the bill that’s going to implement do the implementation in regards to the money and distributing the money. But with that said, the record that was set, the first year this program’s ever done in any other state was set in Massachusetts and the first year that had happened, 1.7% of all parents decided to switch schools from a public to a non-public. So it’s not something that’s going to close schools up. There has never been a public school closed in all the states that have passed this legislation.

Justin Brady (Host):
So you do touch on something interesting there and I think a lot of people, and I should say real quick, I do want to get back to why there is a phase-in period and why there is an income cap if it’s for all students, if you want address that. But I do want to jump next to what you said. There is concern that schools will simply run out of funding. So let’s briefly go back to why phase it in and have income levels. Why start that at all?

Sen. Brad Zaun:
Okay. I do apologize for not answering that question. Really the reason why we’re doing this is first of all, it’s less of a financial hit on our budget, but most importantly the phase in is to make sure that we get all of our ducks in a row in regards to implementation. And obviously year three it’s open to everybody. And so I would assume the reason why we do a lot of things down at capital is it’s a phase in, we did it with a tax bill that we passed and a lot of other legislation. And I’m assuming that that’s a reason why it’s a phase in with a 300% to 400% to full school of choice.

Justin Brady (Host):
Sure. Senator Boulton, any response to that at all?

Sen. Nate Boulton:
Well, there’s a way to approach things that doesn’t have this kind of pre-planned ballooning thing. We can come back and reassess a program as a legislature next year and the year after that without committing ourselves to something that will be frankly, very hard to undo If problems are noticed and the things that were raised by my democratic colleagues do start coming true, it’s much harder to repeal something than to have a measured program and then expand it later. So again, it just concerns that we’ve raised and continue to have pre pretty serious levels of concern about what eventually happens when this program takes full force.

Justin Brady (Host):
So one of the concerns is underfunding, and I’ll be honest with you and all the listeners today, usually I come down clearly on one side or the other on any particular issue. But this one, even after its law, I’m still very much up in the air and I’m not sure where I fall on this issue. So one of the issues that comes up is the underfunding of public schools. Of course there are debates on both sides of this, which is why would anybody be worried about that? The schools are going to be fine if they perform well. But the other issue is if the funding is per student, what is that public school actually losing? And I believe there’s a provision that sends millions to public schools if students are privately enrolled in that district. So why is there a concern about public schools being underfunded? Anybody can answer this.

Sen. Nate Boulton:
Well, I guess I would start with we’ve had concerns about the lack of adequate support for supplemental state aid or allowable growth for years with those numbers not keeping up with the rate of inflation for our school districts. So that that’s a starting point. And then you layer this on top, yes, this is going to have a detrimental impact on our community schools. And one of the things that is hard to kind of factor into this is you’re going to have school districts that are setting their budget, that are contracting with teachers for a coming academic year and not know who all is going to be taking advantage of these voucher programs and essentially removing resources.
Just because a class size goes from 20 students to 18 does doesn’t mean we cut a teacher out of that equation. There are lots of fixed expenditures that go into this as well. So it kind of oversimplifies what that allocation of resources can be and should be. And I guess I have to come back to the point of our schools have already been sharing with us their dire concerns about being able to continue to operate at the levels that are commensurate with quality public education and this is not going to help the situation.

Justin Brady (Host):
I appreciate that Senators on any response.

Sen. Brad Zaun:
Yes. Okay. Well, let’s just talk about some misinformation that’s out there. Have we, and I said this on the floor a couple years ago, when it comes to the SSA number or the per pupil appropriation that we make, what is enough? What is enough? And I’ve asked this on the floor and I’ve never been able to get a direct, is it 10%? Is it 8%. Right now 62% of our budget goes to education. We have never defunded our schools since the Republicans got control six, seven years ago. I was down there during the Culver administration where it was a 10% across the board cut. We have increased their funding. I’m at my office, my full-time job office. I don’t have these figures in front of me, but every year we have appropriate lease, $100-300 million per year increase over the year before. Now how are we going to pay for this?
This is one thing that’s being asked, okay, you’re going to go in here and how are you going to pay for this? LSA does projections in regards to what our revenue stream’s going to look like. We have got incoming in this next year is projected we’re going to have over a 300 million increase in revenue that has not been spoken for. So we’re not going to defund the public schools. We want the public schools to be healthy. In regards to the inflation that the current president has created. We’re trying to keep up with it as much as we can, but there’s other agencies that we’re not being able to do that as well. I stand by that we have done the best job we can, but most importantly, and this is what I think is important, is when these school boards certify their budgets, they know where they’re at and we will have that SSA number out, I’m guessing the next week or two. And that’s not always been done. And I blame the Republicans and the Democrats for that in the past.

Justin Brady (Host):
I do want to move forward to oversight, but obviously I want to give Senator Boulton an opportunity to respond.

Sen. Nate Boulton:
Well, we weren’t keeping up with the cost of inflation before the Biden administration. We weren’t keeping up with the inflation during the Trump administration. And the Biden administration isn’t creating inflation. You look at economies across the globe, they’re seeing inflation happening. That is a real world factor in a global economy. But going back to the very simplistic comment of we’re increasing funding, we’re increasing funding for public schools. The reality is Iowa spends $1,300 less in state funding per student than the national average. And that is something that is catching up with our public schools and their budgets.

Justin Brady (Host):
Thank you Senator Boulton. I appreciate that. I do want to move on to oversight. This is another area where there’s a lot of confusion and I know a lot of Iowans want clarity on this. I’m sure you’re both familiar with state auditors, Rob Sand who, and he’s concerned about not having proper oversight. He gives an example that a teacher could buy a Mustang convertible obviously. Now I like state auditor Rob Sand. I think he’s done a great job. But there are accreditation and there are certain standards.

Sen. Brad Zaun:
I would like to talk about that. Obviously the bill said that the all idiot school, if you do decide to go to a non-public school, has to be an accredited school. I’m probably am slipping something out right now. There is another bill that’s coming out that is going to change, we call it’s in chapter 12 of Iowa code. And that’s in regards to all the accountability and paperwork that’s required for public schools. At the current time, non-public schools are treated a little differently. That’s not fair. We’re going to correct that problem with the out coming bill. I have not seen the bill, but I know what the intent of the bill’s got to be and it’s going to give our schools more flexibility in regards to their spending. And there’s other components of that bill as well. So in regards to the Mustang, that will not be allowed.
It is expressed in the language of the bill what is allowed with the education savings account. And there is going to be stiff penalties if someone violates that and then they’re automatically out of the program. But if there is a abuse that we find out about, and like I said, that’s why this first step in regards to who’s going to be managing this is very important, but it’s not allowed to be able to go out and buy a car there. It’s strictly set in the bill what is allowed and what’s not allowed. Tutoring, a laptop computer, some other learning aids, some curriculum, but it’ll be closely monitored.

Justin Brady (Host):
Okay, got it. So there is, it is interesting to hear you say there are a few things you don’t think senators on are fair between public and private schools, which will be rectified in the new bill. However, it is against the rules and it’s explicitly laid out in this new bill that you can’t be paying for crazy stuff. There are rules. Senator Boulton, your thoughts?

Sen. Nate Boulton:
Well, I think one of the key things about this is if we find out about it, there is the key statement. That level of oversight and transparency is far different with private schools and public schools. So everything from reporting to open meetings to public election school board members, there is a lot of sunshine that goes into our public school system and that’s just missing in a private school system. And sure if constituents come to us with concerns of misuse of funds or abusive practices, then yeah, there is a level of oversight there, but it’s nowhere near the same. And I appreciate Auditer Sand stepping up and clarifying some of the things that can happen when you don’t have that same level of oversight.

Justin Brady (Host):
Right.But to be clear, you can’t buy a Ford Mustang convertible because it’s laid out in the law or can you? I do want to get clear on that.

Sen. Nate Boulton:
Well, there’s a difference between what you can and can’t do, and oversight of what you are doing. And I think, I don’t want to speak for Rob Sand and what he wrote in his letter, but one of the concerns that we have is even if abusive practices are happening, we don’t have the same level of oversight of those as we do in a public setting.

Justin Brady (Host):
Okay. So let’s talk about penalties then. What would the penalties be? Is that laid out in the bill or is that not clear? This is probably a question for you senators on

Sen. Brad Zaun:
Yeah, it is laid out in the bill. Obviously you’re out of the program. You’re out of the program. And the other thing about it is there is a process from a public safety perspective through the county attorney, there could be charges that could be filed in something like this. So I know that in the bill it says you’re automatically out of the program.

Justin Brady (Host):
Okay. So what is the process for those that want to start a charter school? I believe there was one guy made a funny viral video. A viral joke about talking about Little Devil’s Academy and giving the devil his due. Yeah, it was a funny clip. No one takes that seriously obviously, but I’m assuming not just anyone can start a school and start collecting cash. Right? I’m assuming there’s a process and can either one of you elaborate on that process and what it is and if it needs to be tweaked at all?

Sen. Brad Zaun:
I would just start and if Nate wants to add anything, that’s great. But it was kind of controversial. But you have to be an accredited school which your accreditation comes to Department of Education, which they’re going to… There is some curriculum right requirements. I don’t recall all the requirements, but it’s not like someone could just set up a school and say that they’re a non-public school. Certainly you’ve got to be at accredited school approved by the Department of Education.

Justin Brady (Host):
Senator Boulton. I’m assuming you agree with that or is there some clarification that is needed?

Sen. Nate Boulton:
No, I agree with that. You still have to be accredited, but the kind of tongue in cheek of the little Devil’s Academy or whatever, I mean it does go into you also though as a government can’t just say, well, this can only be for Christian schools. That is line that cannot be crossed. And I think again, people talking past each other, a lot of some misunderstandings about how things work. I think there are some people that simply believe that this is investing in currently existing Christian school systems and that that’s not quite the case. And I’m not saying that Senator Z or other people put that message out there, but there just is some sometimes fundamental misunderstandings of how these funds can be used. And I think that that is part of it.

Justin Brady (Host):
Okay, cool. I appreciate you clearing that up. So where do the payment… Okay. Oh sorry go ahead.

Sen. Brad Zaun:
Justin, I want to make it clear because there was some stuff out there that Brad Zaun’s promoting devil schools. I agree with what Senator Boulton said. They have to be accredited. It is not the intention, my intention that it be for Devil schools, but if they go through the process and they are accredited through the Department of Education, that’ll be a decision that the Department of Education

Justin Brady (Host):
Will make. Okay. Well I’m really glad to hear that the title of this show should probably be Senator Brad Zaun Not in Favor of Devil Schools.

Sen. Brad Zaun:
Yeah.

Justin Brady (Host):
So where do the payments go? I do remember there was, I want to say a legislator from Ankeny was saying something like, we’re going to be sending backpacks of cash to these parents, but is the cash going directly to the parents or to the schools? How does that work?

Sen. Brad Zaun:
This will be an account that’ll be set up that’ll be managed. There’ll be a third party that’ll help assist with this. But ultimately it goes through the Department of Education. It’ll be an account that this account will pay for the expense of a non-public score or some of the other eligible expenses that have been laid out in the bill. But it is not cash. It’s not cash. It goes into a backpack. I think there’s a lot of my colleagues that think, hey, from a senatorial standpoint that the money goes in the backpack and it follows a kid rather than the money goes right to the school. So remember the other thing I want to remind you is that if a child would transfer out of a non-public school, first of all, that nonpublic school is going to keep $1,200 and then they’re also going to keep any property taxes and the federal dollars that come their way if that’s the case. So there we tried to make the financial blow a little less, and I didn’t write the bill, but that’s what’s part of the bill.

Justin Brady (Host):
Okay. Now, Senator Boulton, I know one of the concerns, I think I know for sure at least this is on the Democrat side, is the concern that people could discriminate against students. So my question for you, and of course Senator Zaun is doesn’t federal and civil discrimination laws still apply here? Or is there some kind of workaround because these schools are religious in nature?

Sen. Nate Boulton:
So absolutely there are workarounds. And one of the concerns that was raised in a, I think a very powerful way by Senator Yoakum and her experiences with her daughter is that public schools don’t get to say “You can’t come here because of your special needs. We are not equipped to educate you.” That is something that a private school can do. And there’s nothing in this legislation that makes those kind of open acceptance or required education to all comers effective for private schools. And what the concern is, and I’ve talked to school board members and superintendents and teachers in my district, in the schools that I represent, Sadel, [inaudible 00:23:22], I have a small part of my district that’s there, of course the one public schools in Southeast Polk.
And that really is something that weighs heavily on some of these school districts is what can happen down the line is public schools retaining the students that are more expensive to educate because of their special needs because of the additional programming that will happen. And so again, when you go back to the number of, well, this amount of money that is per pupil spending is going out, well, many of these students cost more than that to educate simply because of their special needs in the classroom or in specialized one-on-one settings based on their educational needs.

Justin Brady (Host):
Okay. Senator Zaun, is that a concern for the Republicans? Is that not a concern? What are your thoughts on that?

Sen. Brad Zaun:
It is not a concern based on all the other states that have passed some kind of ESA or voucher. And I’ll give an example, the state of Arizona who has a very aggressive school choice program. There is schools that have been created, in particular a charter school that was created for blind students in Arizona. And I read that on the floor last year about what the student performance is with that school. It was a bunch of parents who were frustrated that got together and it was accredited as well. And I have talked to all the metropolitan non-public schools, and I’m not talking about every elementary, but the big ones, the high schools, and they are, and some already are expanding the programs for I E P students and students with special ed needs. I can tell you based on all the other states is that will happen. We had the bill signing this morning, I talked to two of the metro high schools, non-public high schools, and they’re already in the process of doing that. I do think that they should accept specialty and IEP students and it will happen.

Justin Brady (Host):
Okay. Obviously I’ve been to some private schools that have disabled students and have anti-discrimination policies. So I guess the concern is from Senator Boulton that it’s kind of a no man’s land and so we’re kind of hoping and waiting. Is that the concern? Otherwise I have plenty of other questions too, obviously.

Sen. Nate Boulton:
Yeah, I think that that’s the nail on the head. I certainly am not saying that we don’t have excellent private schools that are taking on students with special needs that I think that that is great and that is happening. The difference is whether they’re required to do so or not and that the reality is our community school districts don’t have the option to say your student that’s too expensive to educate here. And that’s something that is going to continue to exist in the private setting.

Justin Brady (Host):
Yeah, I get that. I also get where Senator Zaun is coming from here, which is fascinating. It’s something I never even considered that once you open these schools… Okay, so this is not a good comparison. You can both call me on this, the listeners can call me on this, but it’s almost creating a free market of education, like a free economy where people see value in creating these specialized schools. Obviously the comparison’s not great, but unless you have any thoughts on that, I’ll move on to some other things. So one of the other questions is around, I don’t know how to phrase this correctly, but some on the left have said money for schooling is going to right organizations and will fund Republican campaigns. Now of course, some on the right have said public school money was already going to teachers unions and entities funding Democrats. So is there truth to either of these ideas or is the truth a bit more nuanced in the middle? And of course anybody can respond to that.

Sen. Brad Zaun:
Well, I can start. I can tell you, I’ve worked on this for many years, never once has it ever come to my mind the reason why we’re doing this is to indoctrinate a student to be right leaning through this legislation or conservative leaning. I just want to give opportunities for students. What happened here is the momentum changed since Covid. What happened is a lot of the public schools closed, but a lot of non-public did because we didn’t know what was going on with Covid. And then of course at parents are watching their kids in their laptop seeing what the curriculum looks like, parents got more involved. There’s been some controversial things that have happened with through curriculum, transgender sports and various issues that’s upset a lot of parents. And what’s happened, the truthfully is all these accumulation of all these different events have made this movement to school of choice or free market, like you say, Justin, happen.
And really the good news is parents are more involved now. And I spoke recently at the Des Moines partnership, Nate, there wasn’t the last one. There was one before and it got brought up about banning books or whatever it was. I’m a small business person and we hire a lot of people and I want our schools to teach our kids the skills they need to prosper once they get out. The basics, the reading, the math, the science, the writing. And I think there’s a frustration out there, and it is not the majority of teachers, it’s such a small minority of teachers. We have the best teachers and I’m married to one, by the way, that’s a former Des Moines public schools teacher. We’re the best teachers in the United States here in Iowa. So I think there’s a frustration and that’s kind of why we moved this way. And I also want to add one thing.
When we get done with this, these schools are going to have more flexibility on spending because we have demanded through all these years that everything goes into certain funnels. With that said, part of this bill allows schools if they’ve got this teacher mentoring program that they’re not using, or if there’s funding that’s in that pool of money to give teachers pay raises. So that’s another component of this bill.

Justin Brady (Host):
So with our last 30 seconds, I do want to give Nate, excuse me Senator Boulton. For those that can’t tell. I’ve known Nate for quite a while, so I want to give Senator Boulton a chance to respond here and we’ll wrap it up and then I’ll let both of you give a little close.

Sen. Nate Boulton:
Yeah, I guess just to get back into a little bit of a final thought mode on this, it feels like it’s I’m taking sides of private sch public schools and Brad is taking sides of private schools and really I think we’re just trying to figure out the right way to deliver the best quality of education for Iowa students. And we come at it from a couple different perspectives. I certainly see the value of private schools in our state, and I’ve supported funding in a variety of ways, different resources to help deliver good education opportunities in private and public school settings. Just a couple years ago, I introduced an amendment to expand funding for the Iowa tuition grant. We’ve supported funding into K-12 private schools. This bill is a little bit different on how our approach, in our perspective starts to cross that line going from being able to support healthy private school education opportunities and beginning to distract funds and do harm to public school education.
So that’s really what this debate is about. From my perspective, I would love to see Iowa really keep talking about education and see what we can do to make Iowa schools world class public and private for the next generation and really roll up our sleeves and get to work on it. Getting beyond this voucher or no voucher kind of debate and getting into the real work of delivering quality education. And one thing I will correct, there’s a lot of rhetoric on is this a voucher? Is it a savings account? Well, education savings accounts already exist. You can have 529 plans. This is putting money into those types of accounts from the budget. So this is different than just allowing opportunities to save money.

Justin Brady (Host):
So Senator Zaun and Senator Boulton, obviously I appreciate both of you coming on the show. Senator Zaun with the last 30 seconds can you do a wrap up?

Sen. Nate Boulton:
I’ll try to.

Justin Brady (Host):
And tell people how they can reach out to you as well if they have questions.

Sen. Brad Zaun:
Well, it’s an honor to be on your program, an honor to be with Nate. Good friend of mine. I have five kids, one graduated from Urbandale High School, the other four graduate from Downing High School. From this point on, from an educational standpoint, our mission is to improve the student performance in public schools and non-public schools. And I think that’ll happen. And this is the first step. I have seen so many lives that have changed from the experiences I’ve had at Downing where they do have the STL, which it’s a scholarship that we’ve set up and they’re not all football players and wrestlers and basketball players. I’ve seen lives changed. I don’t think it’s fair that wealthy people get to make a choice on where they send their kids. I think it should be open to all parents and that’s what we’re trying to do with this bill, impower parents.

Justin Brady (Host):
Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And how can people reach out to you?

Sen. Brad Zaun:
Yeah, it’s Brad, B-R-A-D.Z-A-U-N@L-E-G-I-S.iowa.gov. Or just Google my name.

Justin Brady (Host):
And I’ll make sure to put that in the show notes. Same to you Senator Boulton. 30 seconds and how people can reach out.

Sen. Nate Boulton:
Sure. The email address is the same, it’s the name is different. Nate.Boulton B-O-U-L-T-O-N@legis.iowa.gov. I really appreciate the conversation we’ve had today. Appreciate you giving us this opportunity, Justin. Going back into the we’ve known each other for quite a while, we’re we’re former neighbors and that I appreciate how you frame these debates to make sure people get the most information in the most reliable way. And I appreciate that Senators Zaun has appeared here as well and done that. We may disagree a lot on the ultimate conclusions, but I know that Senator Zn is someone that I can always approach with issues and have a thoughtful discussion whether we agree or disagree. And I think we have a lot of work to do on that front in terms of the best way to deliver high quality education to every Iowa student so they can achieve the successes that they need to and lead Iowa and the generation to come.

Justin Brady (Host):
And I should also say, I appreciate both of you modeling what a positive dialogue looks like, especially in a time right now where there’s a lot of division, there’s a lot of animosity coming from both sides. I hope even from a federal level, our lawmakers can follow both of your examples. Senator Brad Zaun and Senators Nate Boulton. Thank you both for coming on the Iowa Podcast. I appreciate it.

Sen. Brad Zaun:
Thank you.

Sen. Nate Boulton:
Thank you.

Justin Brady (Host):
And to my fellow Iowans, Iowa expats and Iowans at heart. Thanks for listening and subscribing to The Iowa Podcast.

Contact

If you have questions, you may reach out to Senator Boulton at Nate.Boulton@legis.Iowa.gov or Senator Zaun at Brad.Zaun@legis.iowa.gov.

CLARIFICATIONS:
– The host’s spouse works for Des Moines Public Schools.
– Due to technical difficulties, the host’s audio track has been edited for clarity. Senators Boulton and Zaun’s audio was not edited in any way.