Third in a series on the new Iowa law that removed legal protection against discrimination for transgender and nonbinary Iowans, as well as any path for the state to officially recognize their gender identity.

Given the choice, most legislators will not cast a potentially career-ending vote—especially when they know the outcome isn’t riding on their decision.

But on February 27, five Republican members of the Iowa House voted against Senate File 418, the bill that laid the groundwork for future discrimination against transgender Iowans and others. A sixth GOP lawmaker (who left the capitol during the floor debate) later put a note in the House Journal to confirm he would have voted no.

These lawmakers come from different political backgrounds but have a couple of things in common. All represent heavily Republican areas, not swing districts—which means they are at greater risk of losing to a GOP primary challenger than to a Democrat in a general election. In addition, all have opposed at least one other high-profile bill the House approved during the past few years.

This post is mostly about the six Republicans who took a public stand against Senate File 418. I also discuss eight of their colleagues, who signaled they were uncomfortable with discrimination against transgender Iowans but eventually fell in line.

TWO OPPOSED BILL BEFORE THE HOUSE VOTE

Many House Republicans were rumored to oppose the anti-trans bill, but only two made that view known before leaders rushed the bill to the House floor. Having observed many Iowa legislative battles, I’ve learned lawmakers who publicly confirm they won’t support a bill are far more likely to stick to that position.

Austin Harris was first elected in 2022 and represents House district 26, covering all of Monroe and Davis counties, most of Appanoose County, and part of Wapello County outside the city of Ottumwa.

Parts of this area elected Democrats to the state legislature in the recent past. But House district 26 is solid red now, containing more than twice as many registered Republicans as Democrats. Donald Trump received almost 72 percent of the presidential vote here in 2020 and more than 74 percent in 2024.

Harris got an early start in politics, working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture during the first Trump administration after finishing college. He then held several staff positions in the Republican Party of Iowa and managed Mariannette Miller-Meeks’ 2020 Congressional campaign. Harris served as her deputy chief of staff in Washington in 2021, then returned to his family farm in Appanoose County and ran for the legislature. He won a tough primary against former State Senator Mark Chelgren and was unopposed in the 2022 general election. Last year, Harris was re-elected with more than 71 percent of the vote against Democratic and Libertarian opponents.

Harris chairs the Iowa House Education Appropriations Subcommittee—an important assignment for someone in only their second term. He also serves on the Commerce, State Government, and Natural Resources committees.

Only a few hours after the gender identity bill appeared on the legislative website on February 20, Harris posted on the platform X (formerly Twitter), “I will oppose stripping Iowans of their civil rights protections with every fiber of my being.”

His post attracted a lot of attention, inside and outside the legislature. It likely galvanized GOP colleagues who had doubts about the bill.

Harris declined further comment to Bleeding Heartland about his reasons for opposing the legislation. Like the other Republicans who voted against Senate File 418, he did not speak during the House floor debate.

Although he is usually a reliable supporter of the GOP’s legislative agenda, Harris has not always toed the line. In 2023, he voted against an early version of Governor Kim Reynolds’ education bill, which contained school book bans, “don’t say gay/trans” teaching restrictions for grades K-6, and forced outing of transgender students to their parents. (He voted for the final version of that bill, known as Senate File 496.) Harris also voted against a 2024 bill that banned local governments from participating in guaranteed income programs.

Harris is the only out gay Republican ever to serve in the Iowa legislature. He was also the first Iowa House member to endorse Nikki Haley for president in 2023, after dozens of his colleagues had chosen a safer path by backing Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis.

I am not aware of anyone planning to run against Harris next year. But Jacob Hall of the Iowa Standard website, which has backed many challengers to GOP incumbents, highlighted Harris’ post criticizing the gender identity bill. That article chronicled other social media actions by Harris likely to inflame MAGA Republicans, from sharing a photo of new parents Pete and Chasten Buttigieg to “liking” tweets that condemned the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

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Brian Lohse was first elected in 2018 and represents House district 45, covering the reddest areas of mostly-blue Polk County.

Republicans enjoy a large voter registration advantage in House district 45. Iowans living in these precincts gave Trump almost 60 percent of the presidential vote in 2020 and more than 61 percent last year.

Lohse is an attorney who served on the Bondurant City Council before running for the legislature in 2018. (The House seat covering that part of eastern Polk County was open due to Zach Nunn’s decision to run for the state Senate.) He was elected by double-digit margins in 2018 and 2020, did not have an opponent in 2022, and was re-elected to a fourth term last year by nearly 30 points.

Lohse has chaired the House Justice Systems Appropriations Subcommittee since 2023 and also serves on the Agriculture and Judiciary committees.

He explained why he could not support the anti-trans bill in a February 22 Facebook post and subsequent interview with Bleeding Heartland. He was concerned about unintended consequences as well as equal protection problems, particularly in the provisions related to birth certificates. He added, “I cannot, in good conscience, vote to take away existing statutory rights from Iowans currently holding them, especially when it means the prospect of being denied basic human needs.”

Lohse cast the lone Republican vote against the anti-trans bill on the House Judiciary Committee. The day before the full chamber debated the bill, he co-sponsored a Republican amendment that would have kept gender identity in the Iowa Civil Rights Act as a protected class against discrimination in employment, housing, and credit. As I’ll discuss below, House members never voted on that amendment.

Anyone who has followed Lohse’s legislative work would not be surprised to see him land in the “no” camp on Senate File 418. He was among the small group of House Republicans who voted against the 2023 school bathroom bill and ban on gender-affirming care for minors. Like Harris, he voted against an early version of Senate File 496 (school book bans, “don’t say gay/trans”, and more) and for the final version of that bill.

Lohse has opposed quite a few other leadership priorities, including the governor’s school vouchers proposal, medical malpractice damage limits, restrictions on local government regulation of stormwater and topsoil, and last year’s overhaul of Area Education Agencies.

As if that were not enough to antagonize segments of the GOP base, Lohse supported Haley for president before the 2024 Iowa caucuses. He has voted against multiple bills seeking to restrict the use of eminent domain or otherwise impede the construction of CO2 pipelines. Furthermore, he did not attend the one-day special legislative session in July 2023, during which Republicans passed a near-total abortion ban. He was a “no” on a 2024 bill containing fetal “personhood” language. He also voted against an amendment that would have banned automated cameras used to issue speeding tickets in Iowa.

Despite his long list of votes against Republican-backed policies, Lohse did not face primary challengers in 2022 or 2024. I have heard speculation that he cannot be beaten because he is independently wealthy, thanks to his wife’s Powerball jackpot win in 2012. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see a MAGA Republican or social conservative take him on in 2026. Voter engagement can count for as much as campaign spending in a primary election.

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THREE MORE VOTED NO ON THE HOUSE FLOOR

No one doubted House leaders had the votes to pass the anti-trans bill on February 27. The only question was how many Republicans would join Democrats to vote no on final passage. The answer turned out to be five, including Harris and Lohse.

Michael Bergan was first elected in 2016 and represents House district 63, covering Winneshiek and Howard counties, and part of Fayette County.

A tax accountant and former Winneshiek County supervisor, Bergan prevailed in the closest Iowa legislative race of the 2018 cycle. He was declared the winner in his House district by nine votes, after 29 absentee ballots that voters cast on time were never counted.

But a lot has changed politically in northeast Iowa during the Trump era. Registered Republicans outnumber Democrats by a comfortable margin in House district 63. Iowans living in these precincts gave Trump 56 percent of the vote in 2020 and around 58 percent last year. Bergan was re-elected with more than 61 percent of the vote in 2022, and Democrats did not field a candidate against him last year.

Bergan has chaired the Administration and Regulation Appropriations Subcommittee since 2022 and also serves on the State Government and Health and Human Services committees.

I have not seen any public statements explaining his vote against the anti-trans bill, and he did not respond to an email seeking comment. It was no surprise, given his stance on earlier legislation targeting trans Iowans. He was the only Republican lawmaker to vote against Iowa’s 2022 ban on transgender participation in girls’ sports. He put a note in the House Journal indicating that he meant to vote against the 2023 ban on gender-affirming care for minors.

That year, Bergan twice voted against Senate File 496, containing book bans and various anti-LGBTQ provisions.

He has strayed from Republican orthodoxy on other issues, voting against the school voucher bill, restrictions on local stormwater regulations, and an amendment that would have banned all traffic cameras used to catch speeders. He did not attend the 2023 special session to pass an abortion ban.

Bergan hasn’t faced competition in a GOP primary since the first time he ran for the legislature in 2016. If challenged by a MAGA Republican, he may draw a sizeable crossover vote in the Decorah area. That relatively liberal college town is also the largest city in House district 63.

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Norlin Mommsen was first elected in 2014 and represents House district 70, covering a large area in Clinton County, parts of northern Scott County, and a small part of Jackson County including the city of Maquoketa.

Republicans have a large voter registration advantage in this area. Iowans living in precincts now part of House district 70 gave Trump more than 60 percent of the vote in 2020 and more than 63 percent last year. Democrats have never targeted this House district, and Mommsen received more than 63 percent of the vote in his latest re-election bid.

Mommsen’s path to the legislature is similar to many other Iowa lawmakers: he is a farmer who served on his county’s Farm Bureau board before running for office. He has chaired the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Appropriations Subcommittee since 2016 and also serves on the Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Transportation committees.

I would not have guessed Mommsen would go out on a limb for trans people’s civil rights. He voted for the sports ban in 2022 and for all of the 2023 bills in this area (gender-affirming care ban, bathroom bill, “don’t say gay/trans” for grades K-6).

Moreover, Mommsen ended up voting for Governor Reynolds’ school voucher plan in 2023 after criticizing earlier proposals to direct public funds to cover private school tuition. So even if he wasn’t initially on board, I would have expected him to come around to supporting the anti-trans bill.

I didn’t see any public statement from Mommsen about this issue, and he didn’t reply to my emailed inquiry. When Quad-City Times reporter Sarah Watson asked him about the vote, he gave her a short answer, she recalled during the On Iowa Politics podcast: “I’m against discrimination for anybody. It’s just that simple.”

Mommsen has voted against the majority of his caucus a few other times. For instance, he opposed a 2024 bill limiting local governments’ ability to regulate stormwater and topsoil and an amendment to ban the use of traffic cameras for speeding. He has also voted against eminent domain bills aimed at stopping the Summit Carbon Solutions CO2 pipeline, an issue that riles up many Republican voters.

Mommsen has never faced an opponent in a GOP primary. I will be curious to see whether anyone steps up in 2026.

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David Sieck was first elected in 2015 and represents House district 16, covering Mills and Fremont counties and part of Pottawattamie County.

None of these areas have elected a Democrat to the Iowa legislature for decades. House district 16 contains more registered Republicans than Democrats and no-party voters combined. Trump received about 69 percent of the 2020 presidential vote and 70 percent in 2024. Sieck won his latest re-election bid with about 75 percent of the vote.

A farmer and past president of the Iowa Corn Growers Association, Sieck is vice chair of the newly created Federal and Other Funds Appropriations Subcommittee. He also serves on the Agriculture, Transportation, and Economic Growth and Technology panels.

I hadn’t considered Sieck a likely vote against the anti-trans bill. Like Mommsen, he voted for previous bills targeting LGBTQ Iowans. I haven’t seen any public statements explaining his thought process, and he didn’t respond to my email.

Sieck was one of the co-sponsors on Lohse’s amendment, which would have kept gender identity in some portions of the Iowa Civil Rights Act.

Sieck stood up to pressure from the governor and others when he voted against the school voucher bill. Nevertheless, no one challenged him in last year’s GOP primary. So maybe he can keep that streak going.

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ONE MORE ON RECORD AGAINST THE BILL

Chad Ingels was first elected in 2020 and represents House district 68, covering most of Fayette County and parts of Black Hawk and Buchanan counties.

Republicans have a large voter registration advantage in House district 68. Trump increased his share of the presidential vote in this area from about 60 percent in 2020 to more than 64 percent in last year’s election.

Legislative races in this part of northeast Iowa were sometimes competitive during the 2010s, but no longer in the Trump era. A farmer, business owner, and former Iowa State University Extension watershed specialist, Ingels won his first legislative race by double digits. Democrats did not field a candidate against him in 2022, and he defeated his Democratic opponent by a two-to-one margin in 2024.

Ingels chairs the Administrative Rules Review Committee and also serves on the Education, Health and Human Services, Labor and Workforce, and Veterans Affairs panels.

Sometimes legislators facing a tough vote “take a walk” during the floor debate to avoid going on the record. That wasn’t the case for Ingels. Before leaving the chamber due a prior commitment in his district on February 27, he was the only Republican to cross party lines in support of a Democratic amendment to the anti-trans bill. That amendment would have restored protections against discrimination on the basis of gender identity in housing.

Ingels put a note in the House Journal for February 28, indicating that if he had been present for the vote on final passage of Senate File 418, he would have voted “nay.” He explained his reasoning (which was similar to Lohse’s) in his weekly newsletter. Excerpt:

There are at least three places where I believe the bill is problematic.

One: on page one separate accommodations are defined as “not inherently unequal.” The separate but equal doctrine determined in the 1896 Plessy v Ferguson Supreme Court case was reversed in the 1954 Brown v Board of Education. The separate but equal doctrine drove racial segregation by providing a legal justification for separate accommodations. The 9-0 court ruling in Brown stated that “separate is not equal.”

Two: the bill requires that the sex determined at birth must remain on the birth certificate regardless of whether the individual has transitioned to the other gender. This provision, in my opinion, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment because an individual born, transitioned, and living in Iowa would be treated differently than an individual born and transitioned in another state, but now living in Iowa. 

And third: I do not believe that it is constitutional to take away protections from a class of citizens after protections have been granted. In Romer v Evans the court determined that a Colorado constitutional amendment removing protections based on sexual orientation violated the Equal Protection Clause. This bill would do the same.

While I am 100% in support of protecting girls’ sports and providing safe spaces for women, I could not support this bill for the reasons stated above. This bill will not assure those protections for girls and women, and I believe the ultimate decision on these issues will be made by federal courts.

I expected Ingels to oppose this bill, since he had voted against the 2023 bathroom bill and ban on gender-affirming care for minors. He delivered a memorable speech during the gender-affirming care debate, telling colleagues, “I was raised not to judge other people. And we do a lot of judging of people in this building.” He criticized the state’s intrusion into decisions that, in his view, should be left to parents.

These are deeply-held beliefs for Ingels. Last year, he was the only Iowa lawmaker to sign on to an amicus brief submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of “Republicans and political conservatives from diverse backgrounds.” That brief asked the court to strike down Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors on the grounds that “the Constitution safeguards the fundamental right of parents to make important medical decisions for their minor children without interference by the State—and it grants that right equally to parents of all children.”

As a former school board president married to a public school teacher, Ingels has parted ways with his caucus on many education-related policies, including the school voucher plan and Senate File 496 (book ban/don’t say gay and trans). He has also opposed lesser-known education bills, such as a 2023 measure to reduce teaching and curriculum standards.

Already this year, Ingels has voted in the House Education Committee against bills changing regulations for charter schools, funding for charter schools, and rules for homeschooling families. In the same committee, he voted against a bill that would remove the obscenity exemption for public libraries.

He opposed last year’s bills restricting stormwater regulations and guaranteed income programs.

In case MAGA Republicans are looking for more reasons to be angry, Ingels has opposed eminent domain bills and a total ban on traffic cameras. Plus, he endorsed Haley for president.

I expect a competitive GOP primary next year in House district 68. Then again, I felt the same way in the last election cycle. No one stepped up to challenge Ingels.

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REPUBLICANS WHO WAVERED BEFORE VOTING YES

I’m not aware of any Republican state senator who seriously considered voting against the transgender discrimination bill. But in the days leading up to the floor debate, many speculated that House leaders might not have the votes to send this to the governor’s desk.

Given the size of the GOP majority, I always felt it was unlikely that more than sixteen of the 66 House Republicans would break ranks on this bill. The right-wing noise machine has been all in on the trans panic for years. The Republican Party of Iowa has spent millions of dollars in battleground legislative races on direct mail and TV or radio advertising that centered anti-trans talking points (see here and here).

One potential turning point arrived on February 26, when ten House Republicans introduced an amendment that would have kept gender identity in the Iowa Civil Rights Act as a protected class against discrimination in employment, housing, and credit. The co-sponsors were Lohse, Sieck, Shannon Lundgren, Megan Jones, Brett Barker, Jane Bloomingdale, Hans Wilz, Jennifer Smith, Mike Vondran, and Shannon Latham.

Some of these were “likely suspects.” Jones, Wilz, and Latham voted against the gender-affirming care ban in 2023. Jones and Wilz voted against that year’s school bathroom bill. In the past, Jones has broadly criticized the large number of anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in the Iowa legislature, which, she argued, contribute to a culture of hate against an already marginalized group.

The amendment made sense, because allowing Iowans to discriminate against trans people in housing, employment, or credit would do nothing to advance the stated goals of the legislation: keeping state laws on the books and ensuring that trans people could be excluded from facilities that aligned with their gender identity.

These ten co-sponsors weren’t the only House Republicans rumored to be wavering. If their amendment came up for a floor vote, perhaps others would join them, scaling back the rewrite of Iowa’s civil rights code.

Social conservative activist Chuck Hurley later said on The FAMiLY Leader’s podcast that on the night before the scheduled floor vote, they were worried about whether the bill could pass. They swung into action, generating phone calls and emails to Republicans who might be on the fence.

The following morning, scared lawmakers began sending comments to Hall of The Iowa Standard. From Vondran:

After rereading the proposed amendment several times, I believe I was mislead in its presentation in terms of its fundamental change to the proposed legislation, which I had already pledged my vote.

I reaffirm my position as a proponent of the legislation, I will speak against the amendment and vote Aye on the bill as pledged.

From Smith:

The amendment came up quickly, and I was under the impression it was a clarification [amendment]. However, after being able to fully read the impact of the amendment, I do not support it. I have been, and remain, a solid supporter of removing gender identity from the Iowa Civil Rights Code.

From Lundgren:

For clarification. I was not a “No” on this bill as already amended by the committee chair. The intent of the current amendment was only to clarify the existing federal protections. As written we see it would jeopardizes the laws we have already passed to protect girls and women’s rights in Iowa, which was nobody’s intent. We are respectfully withdrawing the amendment.

From Latham:

The amendment I signed was written with the intent to clarify what we thought was already a federal protection. We are respectfully withdrawing the amendment, and I will vote yes on HF 583.

During the floor debate, Lundgren asked for unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment. Eight of the ten co-sponsors went on to vote for the bill on final passage. (Following the debate, I heard the floor manager, State Representative Steven Holt, refer to the amendment as an “epic backfire.”)

It is not plausible that these legislators were tricked into signing on. The amendment obviously was not “clarifying” anything about federal law. It was striking sections of the bill in order to preserve some protections in state law.

In any event, there are no federal statutes prohibiting discrimination against transgender people in employment, housing, or credit. The Trump administration will likely rescind any federal regulations that protect trans people in housing and credit, and conservative judges could overturn precedents from federal court rulings on employment discrimination.

I can’t understand why anyone would co-sponsor an amendment, then drop it a day later. It’s not as if MAGA or Christian conservative activists will trust these legislators going forward. They will support 2026 primary challengers, if any materialize—just like they backed Bloomingdale’s GOP rival last year.

While Hurley suggested to podcast listeners that The FAMiLY Leader’s grassroots army carried the day, those who buckled may have been more influenced by messages coming from within the capitol building.

“I’VE WATCHED THE ARM-TWISTING”

Near the end of her remarks during the floor debate, House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst addressed her Republican colleagues:

I’m too angry to talk much more. I’ve watched it happen in this room. I’ve seen this for a few years now. I’ve watched the arm-twisting. I’ve watched the bold declarations that will be no longer. I’ve watched you fight and cower.

You know this is wrong. You know it’s wrong to take away rights, and I want to congratulate you on your legacy of being the first ever to take away rights from our fellow constituents.

During a brief Q&A with reporters on March 3, I asked House Speaker Pat Grassley about this alleged “arm-twisting.” Had he warned members of his caucus that they might lose committee chairmanships or see their priority bills fail to advance if they didn’t vote for the gender identity bill? He told me “that’s not the case by any means.”

Grassley said that as a former committee chair, he never appreciated behavior like threatening to remove someone’s chairmanship, “so I’ve tried not to ever have to implement those kinds of things when it comes to any sort of consequence or repercussions.”

I don’t know what happened behind the scenes. Among those who work in and around the legislature, it is widely believed that the Republican holdouts faced immense pressure—if not directly from Grassley, then from committee leaders (such as Judiciary chair Holt or Education chair Skyler Wheeler), who had the power to keep members’ bills from advancing by the March 7 “funnel” deadline.

It’s striking that Harris was the only Republican from the millennial or Gen Z cohorts to oppose Senate File 418. Whatever the future brings, I believe some of these younger lawmakers will be embarrassed to explain this vote to their children or grandchildren.

By the same token, I believe no one who stood up against this bill will ever regret the decision—even if they end up losing a Republican primary.

Democratic State Senator Matt Blake warned colleagues during the Senate floor debate, “history remembers these moments. So when you go vote later today on this bill, this will be the legacy of this body. Many of you will not be remembered for a single other thing, other than this vote.”

That is the cold, hard truth.

P.S.—Here’s a shout out to the thirteen Republican lawmakers who joined Democrats to add sexual orientation and gender identity to Iowa’s civil rights code in 2007: State Senators Jeff Angelo, Thurman Gaskill, Mary Lundby, and Pat Ward, and State Representatives Dan Clute, Greg Forristall, Clarence Hoffman, Libby Jacobs, Linda Miller, Scott Raecker, Bill Schickel, Doug Struyk, and Tami Wiencek.

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Top photo by Michael F. Hiatt was taken during a March 5, 2023 rally outside the Iowa state capitol to protest bills targeting LGBTQ people. Available via Shutterstock.