Iowa House Speaker Linda Upmeyer is the latest high-profile Republican to back seven-term Representative Steve King in the GOP primary to represent fourth Congressional district. In a statement King’s campaign released today, Upmeyer said, “I’m proud to have Steve King as my Representative in the U.S. House because he is a principled conservative who stands firm in his commitment to Iowa values.” I enclose the full press release below.

Upmeyer represents Iowa House district 54, covering Franklin County and parts of Butler and Cerro Gordo counties. (Republican Tom Latham represented that area before Iowa adopted the current map of political boundaries following the 2010 census.) The first woman to serve as Iowa House speaker, Upmeyer has been rumored as a possible Congressional candidate if King’s seat becomes vacant.

King was already favored to win the primary before being endorsed by Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey, U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, and Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds.

To my knowledge, no Republican elected officials have publicly backed King’s GOP primary challenger, State Senator Rick Bertrand. His best-known supporters are Iowa Board of Regents President and major Republican donor Bruce Rastetter and Nick Ryan, a top fundraiser for conservative PACs and 501(c)4 groups.

The Iowa House and Senate adjourned for the year this evening. As usual, the health and human services budget was one of the last deals Senate Democrats and House Republicans agreed on. Both sides gave significant ground on oversight of Iowa’s recently-privatized Medicaid program; a future post will look more closely at the terms of that agreement. In another example of history repeating itself, key negotiators had trouble finding common ground on what to do about Planned Parenthood funding through the Iowa Family Planning Network.

The outcome of last year’s budget talks left little doubt that Republicans wouldn’t achieve their goal of creating a new state family planning program, excluding abortion providers. Yet House Speaker Linda Upmeyer had promised a “deliberate and unwavering battle” on “pro-life issues,” and specifically to make defunding Planned Parenthood a “priority” for her caucus.

I’ve been wondering what Democrats might offer Republicans in exchange for preserving status quo language on state funding for Planned Parenthood’s non-abortion services.

As it turned out, they didn’t have to make any real concession.

What do state lawmakers do when they don’t want to pass something the overwhelming majority of their constituents support?

A time-honored legislative strategy involves 1) keeping the popular proposal from coming up for a vote, and 2) giving your members a chance to go on record supporting a phony alternative.

Iowa House Republicans executed that statehouse two-step this week in order to block efforts to make medical cannabis more widely available to Iowans suffering from serious health problems.

Only days ago, some Iowa legislative sources indicated lawmakers were on track to adjourn by the end of this week. That never seemed likely, with the health and human services budget not yet approved by either chamber. Disagreements over abortion-related language in that bill have been one of the last sticking points between Iowa House Republicans and Senate Democrats in recent legislative sessions. The pattern is set to continue this year.

Two bills to address the impending privatization of Medicaid died in the Iowa House this week. Effective April 1, some 560,000 Iowans on Medicaid will have their health care services managed by one of three private insurance companies. Last month, three Republicans joined Iowa Senate Democrats to pass approved Senate File 2125, which would terminate the state’s contracts with the managed care companies. Last week, six GOP senators voted with their Democratic colleagues for Senate File 2213, which would strengthen oversight of Medicaid by the Iowa Department of Human Services and the state legislature.

To stay alive after the Iowa legislature’s second “funnel” deadline today, non-appropriations bills must have been passed by one chamber and by a committee in the other chamber. However, the bill to end privatization and the oversight bill both died in House Human Resources subcommittees. To my knowledge, the only bill related to Medicaid privatization that remains alive is Senate File 2260, which would prohibit the Iowa DHS from releasing to managed care organizations certain information about board members of non-profits that provide Medicaid services in Iowa.

Speaking to journalists yesterday, Iowa Senate President Pam Jochum described the House failure to act on the oversight and termination bills as a “disappointment” but added, “I can assure you the fight over Medicaid is not done. You will see the human services budget bill contain many of the measures that we believe are needed to protect Iowa’s most vulnerable citizens.” Click here for a detailed summary of the oversight bill’s provisions. Maridith Morris described here how privatization will affect services available for her nephew on Medicaid.

House Speaker Linda Upmeyer told statehouse reporter Erin Murphy that Senate Democrats spent too long “working on killing the Medicaid modernization plan,” while passing the oversight bill too close to the funnel deadline: “That’s an 80-page bill that arrived very late last week. So we will look at oversight. We will work on oversight. But that bill just could not be managed in the time frame we were given. So we’ll look at opportunities.”

For the last five years of divided control at the statehouse, the human services budget has been one of the last bills to be resolved before lawmakers adjourn. Count on history to repeat itself this spring, because negotiations could drag on for months over Medicaid oversight and the near-certain Republican effort to eliminate Planned Parenthood funding for contraception services. A Bleeding Heartland post in progress will cover the family planning funding debate, as well as the fate of abortion-related legislation in the Iowa House and Senate this year.

Iowa’s Medicaid program will shift to managed care for some 560,000 recipients on April 1, in accordance with waivers granted by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. CMS had previously denied the request from Governor Terry Branstad’s administration to privatize Medicaid by January 1, citing numerous signs that the state was not ready. In a letter the Branstad administration released today, Vikki Wachino of CMS noted “significant improvement” in several areas: the provider networks of three insurance companies picked to manage care for Medicaid recipients; plans for reimbursing out-of-network providers for services; better communication between state officials and Medicaid providers and recipients; and training of case managers to assist Medicaid beneficiaries during the transition.

I enclose below reaction to today’s news from the governor, key state lawmakers, and other stakeholders, as well as the full five-page letter from CMS to Mikki Stier, director for Medicaid in the Iowa Department of Human Services. Federal officials set several conditions on their approval of Iowa’s plans, such as monitoring the actions of the three managed-care organizations, making sure call centers are running their helplines competently, and preserving some “continuity of care” for Medicaid recipients.

Although the delay until April 1 will allow more time to prepare for the transition, the policy’s likely impact remains the same: more money for insurance company overhead and profit and less for health care services; a deterioration in care for disabled people, as seen in Kansas and other states; and less access to health care providers (a key issue for the three Iowa Senate Republicans who recently voted with Democrats to terminate Medicaid privatization).

Senate Democrats continue to push for “tough, bipartisan oversight and accountability protections.” Chelsea Keenan reported for the Cedar Rapids Gazette that the Senate Human Resources Committee will consider that bill (Senate File 2213) on February 24. I don’t expect that legislation to go anywhere. All I’ve heard from Iowa House Republicans is happy talk, backed up by no evidence, that privatizing Medicaid will save the state money and improve patient care.

Iowa House Republicans have substantially altered a bill that would expand the legal uses of cannabis derivatives to treat certain illnesses. State Representative Peter Cownie introduced the bill last week, but an amended version was presented at a subcommittee hearing today without explanation. Follow me after the jump for background and details.

This morning the Iowa Senate passed Senate File 2125, which would terminate contracts the state has signed with insurance companies picked to manage care for Iowans on Medicaid. Governor Terry Branstad announced his administration’s “modernization” plans early last year and selected four managed care providers in August, with a view to fully privatizing Medicaid by January 1, 2016. The state later terminated a contract with one of those four companies, and the federal government refused to grant the necessary waivers, saying Iowa would not be ready to shift to managed care until March 1 at the earliest.

Iowa Senate leaders made clear on day one of this year’s legislative session that Medicaid privatization would be a pressing concern. Senate President Pam Jochum has been sounding the alarm since last year, worried about how privatization would affect her developmentally disabled adult daughter and other Iowans with special needs. Jochum gave the opening and closing remarks in support of Senate File 2125 today. She repeatedly warned that the Branstad administration has tried to do too much, too fast, without input from state lawmakers or other stakeholders with expertise in the area. Fellow Democrats Chris Brase, Liz Mathis, Mary Jo Wilhelm, Rich Taylor, and Amanda Ragan echoed many of those concerns in their speeches.

During the floor debate, Republican State Senator David Johnson explained why he would vote for the bill. He read e-mails from numerous constituents expressing concern about access to health services for their loved ones on Medicaid. He pointed out that Minnesota took 20 years to transition to managed care, while Iowa is trying to implement the same changes over just one year. “It’s moving too fast. That’s the issue here. We need to put a dagger in this.”

Last week Johnson became the first GOP lawmaker to come out in favor of terminating the privatization program; I enclose below excerpts from Jason Clayworth’s report for the Des Moines Register. Johnson’s fears about “children at risk of losing services” stem from the failure of the managed care companies to sign contracts with thousands of providers who have been treating Iowans on Medicaid, including children on HAWK-I (Iowa’s version of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program). Scroll to the end of this post for more details on that access problem, based on data from the Iowa Department of Human Services.

Republicans who spoke against the bill today included Senators Jason Schultz and Mark Chelgren. Schultz claimed Democrats took “ownership” of managed care by putting assumptions about Medicaid savings into the health and human services budget for the current fiscal year. During her concluding remarks, Jochum pushed back hard against the idea that a vote for last year’s health and human services budget was a vote for managed care. Rarely do I ever agree with Schultz, but I think Senate Democrats walked into a trap there. The Branstad administration’s estimates on reduced Medicaid costs after privatization were never grounded in reality, but Democrats accepted those assumptions in the budget they passed–not because they supported the Branstad effort, but likely because doing so gave them an extra $51 million to spend on other health-related priorities.

Chelgren argued that lawmakers should keep their word after voting for a budget that assumed Medicaid would shift to managed care. He likened the situation to Congressional Republicans voting to repeal the 2010 Affordable Care Act without having a plan ready to replace “Obamacare.” The analogy fails because terminating Medicaid privatization that hasn’t been fully implemented would not be like repealing Obamacare after several years of operation. The status quo is an available and less disruptive alternative to serving the 560,000 Iowans on Medicaid. Chelgren claimed that halting Medicaid privatization and starting the process over would “betray” those who signed up as providers under the new system. That argument made no sense; public comments from Iowans on Medicaid and health care stakeholders have overwhelmingly opposed the Branstad policy.

During her concluding remarks, Jochum refuted claims that 39 other states have put Medicaid in managed care. In reality, only four states have fully privatized the system, as the governor is doing.

Shortly after the floor debate, senators voted 29 to 19 to approve SF 2125. Republicans Jake Chapman and Tom Shipley joined Johnson and all 26 Senate Democrats. Notably, those three Republicans all represent strongly GOP districts, not marginal seats.

The bill now goes to the Iowa House, where Speaker Linda Upmeyer has indicated she does not plan to bring the measure up for debate. For a nurse practitioner by training, Upmeyer is remarkably insensitive to ordinary people’s health care needs–not only those on Medicaid, but also chronically ill Iowans who could benefit from medical cannabis. A post in progress will catch up on the state of play for medical marijuana in the Iowa legislature.

UPDATE: Added more links and comments on the Medicaid debate below. According to Erin Murphy, Upmeyer confirmed today that the House will not take up SF 2125, because the governor would certainly veto it. Given how unpopular Medicaid privatization is, the public would likely support a legislative override of that veto. But at least five more Republican senators would have to change their stands to override a veto in the upper chamber. In the House, at least 24 GOP state representatives would need to support an override, assuming all 43 House Democrats voted in favor.

Governor Terry Branstad wore a pink tie and many colleagues remarked on history made yesterday at the Capitol, as Linda Upmeyer became the first woman to preside over the Iowa House as speaker, as well as the first child of an Iowa legislative leader to rise to the same position. Erin Murphy’s take on the milestone is worth a read.

As in recent years, social issues were almost entirely absent from the leaders’ opening remarks to their Iowa House and Senate colleagues. State budget priorities dominated the comments relating to public policy, with Republicans emphasizing the importance of not spending too much and Democrats emphasizing the need to spend enough on education and other vital services. No one mentioned Branstad’s call to extend the penny sales tax for school infrastructure and divert part of the revenue stream to water programs.

The Iowa House opened its 2016 session today with 57 Republicans and 43 Democrats. The 100 state representatives include 27 women (21 Democrats and six Republicans) and 73 men. Five African-Americans (all Democrats) serve in the legislature’s lower chamber; the other 95 state representatives are white. No Latino has ever been elected to the Iowa House, and there has not been an Asian member since Swati Dandekar moved up to the Iowa Senate following the 2008 election.

After the jump I’ve posted details on the Iowa House majority and minority leadership teams, along with all chairs, vice chairs, and members of standing House committees. Where relevant, I’ve noted changes since last year. All are on the Republican side, mostly following from Kraig Paulsen’s decision to step down as speaker, Chuck Soderberg’s retirement, and the passing of Jack Drake.

Some non-political trivia: the Iowa House includes two Millers (one from each party), two Taylors (one from each party), and two Moores (both Republicans). As for first names, there are six Davids (four go by Dave), four Roberts (two Robs, one Bob, and a Bobby), four Marys (one goes by Mary Ann), four Johns, and three Brians. There are two Lindas, two Elizabeths (a Beth and a Liz), and two men each named Dan, Mark, Greg, Tom, Bruce, Todd, Chris, and Charles (one goes by Chuck).

graph of nitrates in the Des Moines River exceeding safe levels, taken by Steven Witmer using data from the U.S. Geological Survey

The Des Moines Water Works announced yesterday that it spent some $1.5 million during 2015 to operate its nitrate removal system “for a record 177 days, eclipsing the previous record of 106 days set in 1999.” The utility provides drinking water to about 500,000 residents of central Iowa, roughly one-sixth of the state’s population. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers 10 mg/l the maximum safe level for nitrates in drinking water. The Des Moines Water Works switches the nitrate removal system on when nitrates exceed 9 mg/l in both of its sources, the Raccoon River and the Des Moines River. I enclose below the full press release from the Water Works, as well as charts from the U.S. Geological Survey’s website showing recent nitrate levels in the Raccoon and Des Moines rivers.

Runoff from agricultural land is the primary source of nitrates in Iowa waterways. As David Osterberg wrote yesterday, “so little land in Iowa is devoted to urban uses (lawns or golf courses) that even if urban application rates of Nitrogen and Phosphorous fertilizer were much higher than that on farms, only 2 percent of the pollution from land application of fertilizer comes from lawns and golf courses.” This “nutrient pollution” not only incurs extra costs for providing safe drinking water but also creates toxic algae blooms, which caused a record number of beach advisory warnings during the summer of 2015.

Last January, the Des Moines Water Works filed a lawsuit against drainage districts in northwest Iowa’s Sac, Calhoun and Buena Vista Counties. Drake University Law Professor Neil Hamilton wrote an excellent backgrounder on this unprecedented litigation: Sixteen Things to Know About the Des Moines Water Works Proposed Lawsuit. In a guest column for the Des Moines Register last May, Hamilton debunked the “strenuous effort” to convince Iowans that “the lawsuit is unfair and unhelpful.”

Governor Terry Branstad has depicted the lawsuit as a sign that “Des Moines has declared war on rural Iowa” and repeatedly criticized the Water Works last year. Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey claims the water utility “has attempted to stand in the way of these collaborative efforts” to reduce nutrient pollution. A front group funded by the Iowa Farm Bureau and other agribusiness interests and led by Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett, among others, has also tried to turn public opinion against the lawsuit. In recent weeks, that group with the Orwellian name of Iowa Partnership for Clean Water has been running television commercials seeking to demonize Water Works CEO Bill Stowe.

Northey, Corbett, and Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds may soon become bitter rivals for the 2018 GOP nomination for governor. But those three will stand together opposing any mandatory regulations to reduce agricultural runoff. All support Iowa’s voluntary nutrient reduction strategy, shaped substantially by Big Ag and lacking numeric criteria strongly recommended by the U.S. EPA.

William Petroski and Brianne Pfannenstiel report in today’s Des Moines Register that Branstad “is exploring a legislative proposal that would provide money for water quality projects by using projected revenue growth from an existing statewide sales tax for schools.” Apparently “superintendents have been getting called to the state Capitol to discuss the proposal” with Branstad and Reynolds. Fortunately, that cynical attempt to pit clean water against school funding appears to have zero chance of becoming law. Of the ten state lawmakers or representatives of education or environmental advocacy groups quoted by Petroski and Pfannenstiel, none endorsed the half-baked idea. Their reactions ranged from noncommittal to negative. Speaking to Rod Boshart of the Cedar Rapids Gazette, Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal said of a possible Branstad proposal on water quality funding, “We certainly would be willing to look at that but we’re not going to cannibalize education or the basic social safety net so that he can put a fig leaf on his record on the environment.”

UPDATE: Erin Murphy reported more details about Branstad’s proposal: extend the 1 percent sales tax for school infrastructure, dedicate the first $10 million in annual growth to schools and allocate the rest to water programs.

SECOND UPDATE: Added below excerpts from Murphy’s report for the Cedar Rapids Gazette on Branstad’s plan. I’m disappointed to see U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack endorse this ill-conceived proposal. Of course we “need to work on [water quality] now,” but why does the money have to come out of school funds? Remember, the Branstad administration is already pushing a corporate tax break that will cost public school districts millions of dollars a year for infrastructure on top of tens of millions of dollars in lost state revenue.

THIRD UPDATE: Branstad told reporters today he does not believe there is support in the legislature to raise the sales tax. Under a constitutional amendment adopted in 2010, 3/8 of a cent of the next Iowa sales tax increase would flow into the natural resources trust fund. He also indicated that he would not support extending the penny sales tax for school infrastructure beyond 2029, when it is scheduled to expire, without lawmakers agreeing to divert some of the funding to water programs. According to incoming Iowa House Speaker Linda Upmeyer, “House Republicans have been divided on whether to extend the school infrastructure sales tax beyond 2029.”

The Iowa legislature’s 2016 session opens two weeks from today. Last year’s session extended more than a month past the scheduled date for adjournment, largely because House Republican leaders refused to compromise on education spending. Lawmakers finally approved a budget deal in early June, only to watch Governor Terry Branstad strike out the key concessions to Democrats on funding for K-12 schools, state universities, and community colleges.

Legislators from both parties sound determined not to let history repeat itself.

Republican State Representative Quentin Stanerson will not seek a third term in Iowa House district 95, he announced on Facebook today (hat tip to Iowa Public Radio’s Clay Masters). Rumors of Stanerson’s plans to retire have circulated for some time. The high school teacher was reportedly unhappy with Iowa House leaders’ hard line on education spending and was one of only two House Republicans to support Democratic efforts to override Governor Terry Branstad’s education funding vetoes this summer.

House district 95 covers a large area in Linn County outside the Cedar Rapids metro, as well as some rural precincts in Buchanan County. I enclose below a district map and the press release announcing Stanerson’s decision.

This seat should be a top target for Democrats, who currently hold only 43 of the 100 Iowa House seats. As of December 2015, House district 95 contained 5,906 active registered Democrats, 6,082 Republicans, and 8,300 no-party voters according to the Iowa Secretary of State’s office. The last time this district was open, Stanerson defeated Kristin Keast by just 200 votes in the sixth-closest result of the 2012 Iowa House races. Stanerson won a second term by a more comfortable margin in his rematch with Keast, thanks to the smaller midterm electorate and the Republican wave year. I am not aware of any declared Democratic candidate here for next year’s election.

Voters in House district 95 favored Barack Obama over Mitt Romney by 52.01 percent to 46.69 percent in 2012, very close to Obama’s statewide margin of victory. Joni Ernst outpolled Bruce Braley in last year’s U.S. Senate election by 52.47 percent to 43.73 percent in the House district 95 precincts.

Incoming Iowa House Speaker Linda Upmeyer says the majority House Republican caucus will handle education spending early during the 2016 legislative session, and will likely not approve funding for Planned Parenthood clinics in Iowa. I recommend reading Erin Murphy’s whole interview with Upmeyer, which appeared in the Quad-City Times on Sunday. Follow me after the jump for more thoughts on Upmeyer’s comments and how state support for public school districts and Planned Parenthood’s family planning programs may play out next year.

Iowa’s social conservatives have suffered several setbacks lately in their crusade against Planned Parenthood. The Iowa Supreme Court unanimously struck down an administrative rule that would have banned the use of telemedicine for medical abortions in several Planned Parenthood clinics. Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller informed a large group of Republican lawmakers that his office has neither “jurisdiction over transfers of fetal tissue” nor the “authority to investigate or demand information about the transfer of fetal tissue.” (Not that it mattered, since Planned Parenthood clinics in Iowa have never participated in fetal tissue donation programs.)

Governor Terry Branstad, who has always opposed abortion rights, acknowledged two weeks ago that “we cannot defund Planned Parenthood,” because a review of Planned Parenthood’s contracts with the state revealed that the health care provider has not “violated their responsibilities under the grants that they have received” for family planning services. An official review also confirmed no taxpayer money goes toward abortion services at Planned Parenthood clinics in Iowa.

During this year’s legislative session, Republicans successfully pushed for ultrasound requirements for women seeking abortions, but the final adopted language on ultrasounds did not add any new roadblocks or delays to the process of getting an abortion in Iowa.

Advocacy groups like Bob Vander Plaats’ FAMiLY Leader organization continue to pressure Branstad to keep his 2010 campaign promise to end Planned Parenthood’s state funding. Last week, Iowa House Republicans indicated that they plan to continue their “deliberate and unwavering battle” for the “pro-life” agenda.

Here’s how efforts to defund Planned Parenthood are likely to play out during next year’s Iowa legislative session. What happens after that depends mostly on whether the 2016 general election changes the balance of power at the statehouse.

State Representative Jack Drake passed away this weekend at the age of 81. He had been the longest-serving Iowa House Republican, representing parts of southwest Iowa since his first election in 1992. His current district (House district 21) covers all of Union and Adams Counties and parts of Cass and Pottawattamie Counties. Since the Republicans regained the Iowa House majority in the 2010 elections, Drake had chaired the Agriculture and Natural Resources Appropriations Subcommittee. Iowa House Speaker-Select Linda Upmeyer said in a statement today, “Iowa lost a dedicated public servant with the passing of Rep. Jack Drake. […] During his time in the Iowa House, Jack was a leader and trusted resource on agricultural issues which are so important to the State of Iowa. As the most senior member of the House Republican Caucus, his expertise and guidance will be sorely missed.”

I have never met Drake, but by all accounts he was a wonderful person to work with. The word “kind” came up again and again today in my conversations with people who interacted with him, either as fellow lawmakers or as advocates.

Former State Representative Frank Wood, who was the ranking Democrat on Drake’s appropriations subcommittee in 2013 and 2014, told me he was “shocked” by the news and said Drake would be “sorely missed.” Wood “thought very highly of him when I worked with him. He always kept me in the know of what was going on and what his limitations were” in terms of the budget targets. Democrats often requested additional funding for various programs, and according to Wood, Drake “understood and flat-out told me, if I had more money, I would definitely put it in those areas.” During the 2014 legislative session, when environmental advocates and a bipartisan group of lawmakers fought for extra funds for the Resource Enhancement and Protection (REAP) program, Drake was generally supportive. (The legislature approved record funding for REAP that year, but Governor Terry Branstad vetoed part of the money.) Wood also described Drake as “a gentle giant” and “a very non-partisan individual.” He toted the Republican line, but was “very pleasant to work with. I don’t think he had a mean bone in his body.”

State Representative Scott Ourth, the ranking Democrat on the Agriculture and Natural Resources Appropriations Subcommittee during this year’s legislative session, told me, “What a sad day it is. Jack and I struck up a fast friendship right from the get go. He was very fair, an honest guy to work with, willing to compromise where his leadership would allow him to.” He “never stood in the way” of Ourth advocating for REAP funding or other Democratic priorities. Echoing Wood’s sentiments, Ourth described Drake as “a loving, kind, and generous man” and an elected official out of “the old school” with “no partisan divisiveness.” He was willing to work “with anyone and everyone” at the statehouse. Ourth summed up that he had “nothing but good things to say about that man” and would “miss him terribly.”  

Ourth also mentioned that since June, he has been working long hours in Drake’s district for a subcontractor on a large MidAmerican Energy wind farm project. (64 wind turbines are going up between Corning and Lennox in Adams County.) During these months, Ourth has talked with many of Drake’s constituents, who invariably said “what a great guy they thought he was” and how well he represented their district.

State Representative Chuck Isenhart, who also served on Drake’s subcommittee and is the ranking Democrat on the House Environmental Protection Committee, told me today, “Jack Drake was a kind and soft-spoken man.” He added that Drake “offered crucial, public bipartisan leadership to the establishment of Iowa’s local farms and food initiative in 2010, and has been a reliable supporter of the program ever since.”

With Drake’s passing, the most senior members of the Iowa House Republican caucus are Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee Chair Dave Heaton and Transportation, Infrastructure and Capitals Appropriations Subcommittee Chair Dan Huseman, both of whom were first elected in 1994.

During this year’s legislative session, Iowa House Republicans refused for months to budge from their initial position on education funding, forcing public school districts to approve budgets for the coming year without knowing how much state aid to expect. Then House Speaker Kraig Paulsen and Democratic Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal finally rolled out a deal on education spending and other state budget issues more than a month past the Iowa legislature’s scheduled adjournment date.

Incoming House Speaker Linda Upmeyer plans to handle things differently, Cristinia Crippes reported for the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, after hearing Upmeyer’s remarks to a group of Republican women in Cedar Falls.  

Five-term State Representative Pat Grassley announced on Twitter this morning that he will chair the Iowa House Appropriations Committee. The previous chair, Chuck Soderberg, retired from the legislature last month. I don’t know who else lobbied Speaker-Select Linda Upmeyer for this prize committee assignment, but I will update this post if I learn more.

The grandson of U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley, Pat Grassley was first elected to the Iowa House in 2006. He chaired the House Economic Growth and Rebuild Iowa committee in 2011 and 2012 and has chaired the House Agriculture Committee since the 2013 legislative session. He represents a safe Republican district covering Grundy County and parts of Hardin and Butler counties. Grassley’s most competitive re-election bid was the 2012 Republican primary in House district 50, after redistricting pitted him against then-colleague, State Representative Annette Sweeney.

Many Iowa politics watchers expect Grassley to run for secretary of agriculture in 2018, assuming the current incumbent Bill Northey seeks the Republican nomination for governor.

OCTOBER UPDATE: Upmeyer selected three-term State Representative Lee Hein to chair the House Agriculture Committee for the 2016 legislative session. Hein had previously been one of four assistant majority leaders.  

Governor Terry Branstad has set the special election to replace Chuck Soderberg in Iowa House district 5 for November 3, Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate told KTIV news today. Last month, Soderberg announced plans to resign in order to become general manager for the Iowa Association of Electric Cooperatives in Des Moines.

A map of House district 5 is after the jump. Even in a low-turnout special election, Democrats don’t have a realistic chance of winning this seat, where Mitt Romney carried 65.9 percent of the vote in 2012 and Joni Ernst won 71.2 percent of vote in last year’s U.S. Senate race. The latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office show that House district 5 contains 3,819 active registered Democrats, 9,015 Republicans, and 6,697 no-party voters.

The special election in House district 5 will still be important, though. Whoever wins the Republican district nominating convention could be set up for a long legislative career. UPDATE: The GOP special nominating convention will take place on the evening of September 28 at the Farm Bureau Building in Le Mars.

Soderberg’s retirement will allow newly-selected Iowa House Speaker Linda Upmeyer to choose someone new to chair the House Appropriations Committee. I expect the 2016 Iowa legislative session to be largely unproductive, not only because it’s an election year but also because Branstad’s funding vetoes this summer destroyed any incentive toward bipartisan cooperation. That said, lawmakers cannot adjourn without passing a budget for the next fiscal year, so the Appropriations Committee chair will be an important player at the Capitol next year.

Notably, four key Republicans who were involved in this year’s budget negotiations (including Soderberg) have quit their jobs since Branstad exercised his veto power. The governor’s communications director Jimmy Centers announced last week that he too will soon leave the administration for an unspecified private-sector job.

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller has informed 56 Republican state legislators that his office has neither “jurisdiction over transfers of fetal tissue” nor the “authority to investigate or demand information about the transfer of fetal tissue.” In a letter dated today, Miller noted that “Iowa does not have any state laws governing the transfer of fetal tissue,” which means that only offices of U.S. Attorneys are able to enforce federal laws in this area.

Last month, the GOP lawmakers asked Miller’s office “to investigate current and planned abortion operations within Iowa to ensure compliance with the law.” Their letter set out ten detailed questions regarding the disposal, donation, or possible sale of body parts following abortions. Miller directed the legislators to contact U.S. attorneys’ offices in Iowa if they “have reliable information that federal laws relating to fetal tissue are being violated.”

I enclose below the August 24 letter from Iowa House and Senate Republicans, today’s written response from Miller, and a two-page letter Planned Parenthood of the Heartland provided to the Attorney General’s Office regarding the lawmakers’ query. Planned Parenthood’s response noted that the organization “does not now, and has not in the past, participated in” any fetal tissue donation programs but adheres to “rigorous standards of care” and “compliance with all applicable laws and regulations” in every area of its work, including abortion services.

Many Iowa Republicans will be furious, not only because Miller will not act on their unfounded suspicions, but also because the Attorney General’s Office responded to their query in what appears to be a textbook late-afternoon, pre-holiday-weekend news dump.

Also worth noting: Iowa House Speaker-select Linda Upmeyer and incoming House Majority Leader Chris Hagenow did not sign the August 24 letter to Miller, but House Speaker Pro-Tem Matt Windschitl, incoming Majority Whip Joel Fry, and Assistant Majority Leaders Zach Nunn, Jarad Klein, and Walt Rogers did. Iowa Senate Minority Leader Bill Dix did not sign the letter, but Minority Whip Jack Whitver and Assistant Minority Leaders Rick Bertrand, Randy Fenestra, Charles Schneider, and David Johnson did.

In the span of a few weeks, four Republicans who were heavily involved in shaping this year’s state budget have made sure they won’t be at the negotiating table during the Iowa legislature’s 2016 session. First, Matt Hinch quit as Governor Terry Branstad’s chief of staff. The weekly Business Record reported yesterday that Hinch “joined the Des Moines office of government affairs and lobbying group Cornerstone Government Affairs as a vice president.”

Days after the Branstad administration announced Hinch’s departure, Kraig Paulsen resigned as Iowa House speaker. He plans to be a back-bencher next year and will not seek re-election to the Iowa House in 2016. It’s not yet clear whether he will remain an attorney for the Cedar Rapids-based trucking firm CRST International, or whether he will seek a different private-sector job.

Last Friday, Branstad’s office announced that Jake Ketzner was leaving as the governor’s legislative liaison. I’ve enclosed the full statement on the staff changes after the jump. Yesterday, the marketing and lobbying firm LS2group revealed that Ketzner will be their newest vice president, specializing in “campaign management, government affairs, and public affairs.”

Finally, House Appropriations Committee Chair Chuck Soderberg told journalists yesterday that he will resign to take a leadership role in the Iowa Association of Electric Cooperatives, a powerful interest group.

I can’t blame these Republicans for not wanting to spin their wheels at the Capitol during next year’s legislative session. Election years are not conducive to bipartisan deal-making in the best of times. Last month, possibly influenced by Hinch and Ketzner, Branstad poisoned the well with vetoes that erased most of the House GOP’s budget concessions to Senate Democrats. Although Paulsen insisted he had negotiated in good faith, he and his top lieutenant Linda Upmeyer (the incoming House speaker) didn’t lift a finger to override the governor’s vetoes.

Newly-elected House Majority Leader Chris Hagenow told a conservative audience in Urbandale today, “I’m not as skeptical about next year as maybe some are. I think there’s a lot of good things that we can get done [in the legislature],” Rod Boshart reported.

That makes one of us. Seeing Hinch, Paulsen, Ketzner, and Soderberg vote with their feet reinforces my belief that next year’s legislative session will mostly be a waste of many people’s time and energy.

P.S.- Some grade A political framing was on display in the governor’s press release enclosed below: “During the 2015 session, Ketzner worked across party lines to secure bipartisan support for historic infrastructure investment that an economic development study called a prerequisite for economic development in Iowa.” In other words, he helped persuade lawmakers to increase the gasoline tax. Ketzner’s official bio at LS2goup likewise speaks of his work “across party lines to secure bipartisan support for significant transportation and broadband infrastructure investments.”

Iowa House Republicans chose Linda Upmeyer to replace Kraig Paulsen as House speaker today. First elected to the legislature in 2002, Upmeyer has served as majority leader since 2011. House leaders did not release details on today’s vote. State Representative Josh Byrnes was the only other candidate to seek the speaker’s post, despite rumors that one or more other Republicans were sounding out colleagues about the race. All credit to Byrnes for putting himself out there against the party establishment favorite. That takes guts.

O.Kay Henderson posted highlights from Upmeyer’s remarks to reporters today, as well as the audio clip. Not known for showing a lot of emotions in public, Upmeyer’s voice broke as she talked about her late father, Del Stromer, who served as House speaker during the 1980s. She doesn’t sound inclined to change much about how Paulsen was running the lower chamber, but joked, “I use more words than Speaker Paulsen, and I will try to curb that temptation going forward.”

Chris Hagenow will move up from majority whip to replace Upmeyer as majority leader, and Joel Fry will move from an assistant majority leader position to majority whip. Matt Windschitl will continue to serve as House speaker pro-tem. Hagenow told reporters that no one else sought the majority leader post. Bobby Kaufmann ran for majority whip.

Henderson quoted Byrnes as saying,

“I feel like I’m in that movie, Groundhog Day….It’s the same leadership in the House, the same leadership in the Senate. It’s the same governor and the parameters just feel like they’re just set and we can’t move from them. We need new ideas. We need new energy, we need to be able to accept other people’s concepts and infuse those in and I hope that, you know, she can do that.”

According to Byrnes, rank-and-file legislators are upset with missed deadlines, as the legislature has failed to set state school aid levels on time and met for weeks past its scheduled adjournment date. Byrnes also said Iowans are soured by the hyper-partisanship they see from statehouse politicians. […]

Upmeyer told reporters she’ll address the concerns Brynes raised.

“We never should be comfortable with where we’re at,” Upmeyer said. “We always should be striving for innovation and to do things smarter and better and so I absolutely applaud that.”

No need for a lot of innovation here, Madam Speaker: just accept reasonable compromises instead of refusing to budge from your initial negotiating position, and approve school funding bills on time, as happened for a decade and a half before Iowa House Republicans decided to stop following state law a few years back.

After the jump I’ve enclosed official comments on the House leadership election from the Republican Party of Iowa and House Minority Leader Mark Smith, as well as a Facebook status update Byrnes posted after today’s vote.

Iowa House Republicans will meet in Des Moines on August 20 to choose a new speaker, Erin Murphy reported earlier this week. Outgoing Speaker Kraig Paulsen surprised mtost Iowa politics watchers when he announced last week that he will step down from leadership before next year’s legislative session and will not seek re-election to the Iowa House in 2016.

House Majority Leader Linda Upmeyer and State Representative Josh Byrnes quickly let it be known that they will run for speaker. The rumor mill expects another House Republican to seek the position, but to my knowledge, no one has gone public with that ambition. Several House members have not responded to my request for comment, including Representative Peter Cownie, who was rumored to be interested in the speaker’s post two years ago. I’ve heard rumblings about Representative Guy Vander Linden, but speaking by phone on August 10, he told me, “I don’t intend to run for speaker. I don’t feel prepared to run for speaker.” He said he undecided on whom he will support to replace Paulsen but inclined to back Upmeyer, because “continuity is important.”

House Majority Whip Chris Hagenow is supporting Upmeyer for speaker and formally announced on Monday that he will seek the post of majority leader. Current House Speaker Pro-Tem Matt Windschitl is also backing Upmeyer and does not appear interested in moving up to majority leader.

According to the Des Moines Register’s Kathie Obradovich, over the weekend WHO talk radio host Simon Conway referred to State Representative Walt Rogers (currently one of four assistant majority leaders) as “quite probably the next majority leader” of the Iowa House. However, Rogers told me he will not run for majority leader, because he’s “having fun and working hard” with Rick Santorum’s presidential campaign. Rogers was an early Santorum endorser during the last election cycle, and Santorum in turn supported Rogers’ short-lived Congressional campaign.

Rogers declined to comment when I asked whether he will support Upmeyer for speaker.

As for whether Vander Linden might run for majority leader, he told me, “I haven’t given it any serious consideration,” adding, “I would give a politician’s ‘Never say never.’”

Governor Terry Branstad is wisely staying out of the speaker’s race.

Spin your own scenarios in this thread, and please contact me if you know of another House Republican actively seeking the post of speaker or majority leader.  

Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen announced yesterday that he will not seek re-election in 2016 and will step down from leadership before next year’s legislative session. His surprise move kicks off what will be the most competitive leadership election within the House Republican caucus since colleagues elected Paulsen minority leader shortly after the 2008 general election.

Linda Upmeyer, a seven-term incumbent who has served as majority leader since 2011, immediately confirmed that she will run for speaker. She would be the first woman to lead the Iowa House, and to my knowledge, the first child of an Iowa legislative leader to follow a parent in that role. Upmeyer’s father Del Stromer was House speaker for part of the 1980s.

She won’t get Paulsen’s job without a fight, though.  

Anti-abortion activists suffered a setback last month when the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously ruled unconstitutional the state ban on using telemedicine for medical abortions. But the health and human services budget for the fiscal year that began on July 1 contained two provisions sought by those who want to reduce the number of abortions performed in Iowa.

The first part of this post examines new language in the Iowa Code related to ultrasounds for women seeking abortions. Who was closer to the mark: Iowa Right to Life, which hailed the “HUGE life-saving victory” as the anti-choice movement’s biggest legislative success in two decades? Or Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, which countered that the ultrasound language would neither change the standard of care at their clinics nor “directly impact a woman’s access to abortion”?

Next, the post addresses language lawmakers first adopted in 2013 and renewed in the just-passed human services budget, which allows the Iowa governor to determine whether Medicaid should reimburse for abortion services. No other state has a similar provision.

Finally, I offer some thoughts on an odd feature of anti-abortion activism in the Iowa legislature. State Senate Republicans advocate more for restrictions on abortion rights and access than do GOP representatives in the House, even though “pro-choice” Democrats control the upper chamber, while all 57 members of the House majority caucus are nominally “pro-life.” Iowa House leaders have not been eager to put abortion bills on the agenda. This year, rank-and-file House Republicans didn’t even introduce, let alone make a serious attempt to pass, companion bills to most of the abortion-related legislation their counterparts filed in the state Senate.

The Iowa legislature is wrapping up its work for this year with the usual frenzy of appropriations bills. Months of stalemate over K-12 education funding and social safety net programs ended late last week with a deal that gave Iowa House Republican leaders what they wanted on overall state spending ($7.168 billion) and “allowable growth” for local school district budgets (up by only 1.25 percent). A $125 million supplemental spending bill will allocate one-time money for K-12 schools and some other Democratic priorities.

It will take a while to sort through the wreckage and identify the good, bad, and ugly line items hiding in the appropriations bills for fiscal year 2016. Democrats can only pray that Governor Terry Branstad won’t veto the supplemental spending bill like he did last year.

What’s already clear: Republicans have many more reasons to celebrate. House Speaker Kraig Paulsen was all smiles about the budget deal, while Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal admitted candidly, “I think there’s plenty of disappointment to go around, but we fought long and hard for what we thought was important and I think we, in the end, had some success.” Speaking to reporters earlier this week, Gronstal noted, “If left to our own devices, we would pass a very different budget. But it is our duty to work together to come to common ground between the two sides.”

Why did this “common ground between the two sides” end up so much closer to the Republican negotiating position? Because months ago, Gronstal gave House leaders what they wanted on tax bills, without securing any concessions on spending. Even a brilliant politician can make a mistake.

When I was a child, I hated getting my picture taken. An infamous family photo taken at an older sister’s wedding is of the entire family grouped together, grinning for the professional photographer – except 10-yr-old me. I have a scowl on my face big enough to scare away the Dalai Lama. Not sure how old I was before I quit hiding when mom or dad yelled, “Family picture time!”, but eventually I overcame the low self-esteem and painful shyness that dominated adolescence.

40 years later, it’s more than a little ironic that one of my duties as Art’s clerk is to photograph his legislative day. After winning re-election, Art decided to document the process involved in how our laws are made. This means a gazillion pictures of meetings with constituents one-on-one, pictures of group meetings, pics of sub-committees, full committees, and ultimately pictures of House debate.

Last week, after taking pictures of various representatives during floor debate on education, I returned to my seat next to Art’s. The Chief Clerk came out of the Well (rather unusual during floor action, but House Leadership told her not to wait), up to my desk and told me not to take pictures of individual reps unless I had their permission – per House Rules.

Iowa legislative leaders like to boast about how well they work together, in contrast to the “gridlock” seen in Washington when different parties controlled the upper and lower chambers of Congress.

Yet Iowa lawmakers can be remarkably slow to move toward obvious solutions to some disagreements. Less than two weeks before school districts need to adopt budgets covering the 2015/2016 academic year, Iowa House Republicans and Senate Democrats are nowhere close to a deal on K-12 school funding. What is their problem?  

While the gasoline tax increase grabbed most of the attention, the Iowa Senate approved two other significant bills on Tuesday. Senate File 270 would combat Iowa’s wage theft problem, estimated to cost workers about $600 million annually. After the jump I’ve enclosed State Senator Bill Dotzler’s opening remarks on the bill, which cover its key provisions. Victims of wage theft testified at an Iowa Senate hearing in late January, and when you hear their stories, it’s hard to understand why this remains a partisan issue.

It makes sense when you read the lobbyist declarations on the bill, showing various labor groups in favor and business groups opposed (including the Iowa Association of Business and Industry, the National Federation of Independent Business, the Iowa Retail Federation, the Iowa Grocery Association, and the Iowa Propane Gas Association). During the Senate Labor and Business Committee’s hearing on wage theft, GOP Senator Rick Bertrand had criticized the idea of forcing more “paperwork” on all Iowa businesses because a minority are stealing wages from workers. Democrats later incorporated some amendments suggested by Bertrand. Nevertheless, the final vote on Senate File 270 was strictly partisan, with 26 Democrats in favor and 23 Republicans against. Senators approved a similar bill last year, also along party lines. It died in the Iowa House.

Senate File 269, which would raise Iowa’s minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.00 this year and to $8.75 next year, cleared the Iowa Senate on February 24 as well. This time Bertrand joined the 26 Democrats in voting for the bill; the other 22 Republicans who were present opposed it. For the last couple of years, many Democrats nationally and in Iowa have endorsed a minimum wage of $10.10.  I assume Senate File 269 set a lower goal in the hope of attracting bipartisan support, but I would have stuck with $10.10. Not only is that closer to a living wage, it’s closer to the purchasing power of Iowa’s minimum wage the last time it was raised in early 2007.

Incidentally, only three of the current Iowa Senate Republicans were in the legislature when Iowa last raised the minimum wage in 2007. Of those, David Johnson voted for raising the minimum wage to $7.25, while Brad Zaun and Jerry Behn voted against it.

Republican statehouse leaders have no interest in raising the minimum wage now, but when a minimum wage increase came to a vote in 2007, it passed with huge bipartisan majorities in both chambers. At that time, supporters included nine current Iowa House Republicans: Kraig Paulsen (now Iowa House Speaker), Linda Upmeyer (now Iowa House Majority Leader), Clel Baudler, Dave Deyoe, Cecil Dolecheck, Jack Drake, Dan Huseman, Linda Miller and Dawn Pettengill (she was a House Democrat at that time but switched to the Republican Party later in 2007). Seven of the current Iowa House Republicans voted against raising the minimum wage to $7.25 in 2007: Greg Forristall, Pat Grassley, Tom Sands, Chuck Soderberg, Ralph Watts, Matt Windschitl, and Gary Worthan.  

Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread.

A bill that would raise Iowa’s gasoline tax by 10 cents a gallon is on its way to Governor Terry Branstad’s desk after approval today by both chambers in the Iowa legislature. The Iowa Senate passed Senate File 257 this morning by 28 votes to 21. Sixteen Democrats and twelve Republicans voted for the bill, while ten Democrats and eleven Republicans opposed it. Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal had reportedly insisted on at least half the GOP caucus supporting a gas tax increase as a condition for bringing the bill to the floor.

A few hours later, the Iowa House took up the Senate bill (rather than the bill that cleared two House committees last week). Thirty Republicans and 23 Democrats voted yes, while 26 Republicans and 20 Democrats voted no.

Only two state legislators missed today’s votes: Republican State Senator Mark Chelgren and Republican State Representative Chip Baltimore. Baltimore voted against the House version of this bill in committee last week, while Chelgren doesn’t serve on the committees that approved the bill in the Senate. Chelgren appears to have been absent for all of today’s votes, while Baltimore was at the Capitol but left the chamber when the gas tax bill came up. Speaking to reporters later, he tried to make a virtue out of his absence: “I refuse to legitimize either the bill or the process with a vote.” Weak sauce from a guy who is widely expected to seek higher office someday.

Conservative groups are urging Branstad to veto Senate File 257, but that seems unlikely, given the governor’s recent comments on road funding. Branstad’s spokesman said today that the governor will carefully review the final bill before deciding whether to sign it.  

After the jump I’ve enclosed the roll call votes in both chambers, as well as Senate Transportation Committee Chair Tod Bowman’s opening remarks this morning, which summarize key points in Senate File 257.

Final note: several of the “no” votes came from lawmakers who may face competitive re-election campaigns in 2016. Those include Democrats Chris Brase (Senate district 46), Steve Sodders (Senate district 36), and Mary Jo Wilhelm (Senate district 26), and Republicans Dennis Guth (Senate district 4) and Amy Sinclair (Senate district 14).

Four years ago, Republicans rushed to pass a state constitutional amendment restricting marriage to one man and one woman within weeks of regaining control of the Iowa House. Every member of the GOP caucus was on the same page.

Two years ago, the marriage amendment failed to come up for a vote in the Iowa House, but a majority of Republican lawmakers still co-sponsored the legislation.

Now, signs point to Iowa House Judiciary Committee Chair Chip Baltimore letting the marriage amendment die quietly, as he did in 2013. Fewer than a quarter of the 57 House Republicans signed on to the latest effort to turn back the clock on marriage rights. At the same time, only one GOP lawmaker is “loud and proud” about supporting the right of all Iowans to marry the person they love.

Follow me after the jump for a breakdown of where Iowa House Republicans stand on the “traditional marriage” amendment, and speculation on why so many of them aren’t trying to pass it anymore, even though they ostensibly don’t support LGBT marriage rights.  

Exciting times for Iowa politics watchers: the state legislature’s 2015 session began in Des Moines today. A tentative schedule for this year’s work is available here (pdf). The last day lawmakers will receive per diem expenses is on May 1, but for the past four years of divided control between a Republican House and a Democratic Senate, the session has always gone into overtime–sometimes by a little and sometimes by a lot. Bleeding Heartland previously posted details on the each chamber’s majority and minority leadership teams, along with all chairs, vice chairs, and members of standing committees. Click here for who’s who in the Iowa House, and here for who’s who in the Iowa Senate.

Today legislative leaders from both parties pledged to work together. After the jump I’ve enclosed the full texts of opening day remarks. Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal called for making Iowa’s middle class the “focus of the 2015 session” by ensuring adequate education spending, fighting wage theft, and expanding worker training while keeping a balanced budget. He praised Governor Terry Branstad for agreeing to go back to setting K-12 school funding a year in advance, as is required by state law, but warned the governor not to make a partisan statement by proposing too little funding for education when he addresses the legislature tomorrow.

Echoing some of the priorities she named last year, Senate President Pam Jochum said building an economy that “works for everyone” means supporting families and especially children: “For too long, the well-being of children has been considered a woman’s issue.’ It is not just a ‘woman’s issue’. It is an American issue. It is an Iowan issue.” Jochum urged lawmakers to expand access to education from pre-K through college, make “quality, affordable childcare” more available across the state, and boost an initiative to “detect and help prevent mental health and developmental problems among young children.”

Iowa House Minority Leader Mark Smith said the top priorities for House Democrats are strengthening the middle class and re-vitalizing rural Iowa. In addition to expanding early childhood education and providing adequate funds for K-12 schools, Smith called for raising the minimum wage, though GOP leaders have shown no willingness to negotiate on that issue.

As has been true in recent years, top Iowa House and Senate Republicans focused on fiscal issues and mostly avoided social issues. Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen challenged his colleagues “to ensure that government do less and do it better” when “others bring forward their laundry list of funding opportunities, spending priorities, or flashy government programs.” He called for more tax cuts along the lines of a 2006 bipartisan agreement to eliminate the state tax on Social Security benefits. (Mike Owen of the Iowa Policy Project explained in a guest column for the Quad-City Times why that tax cut was passed “under false pretenses” and skewed Iowa’s tax code “further to the benefit of the wealthy.”) House Majority Leader Linda Upmeyer emphasized the need to “craft a responsible budget.” She singled out the Medicaid program for criticism, claiming growth in Medicaid spending is “not sustainable” and will threaten lawmakers’ ability to invest in education, job training, infrastructure, and renewable energy. Iowa Senate Minority Leader Bill Dix called on senators to “work together to rein in spending, make cuts and reduce the size of government and lift up all Iowans in the process by reducing their tax burdens.”

None of the Republicans set a goal of undoing marriage equality, and only House Speaker Pro Tem Matt Windschitl made passing reference to other top priorities for social conservatives when he said, “Let us work together to make Iowa the best place to live, where taxes are low, jobs are abundant, education is top of the line, innocent life is protected and Second Amendment rights are fully embraced.”

Any comments about the legislative session are welcome in this thread. By the way, here’s some trivia you may not know about Speaker Paulsen.  

The Iowa House will begin its 2015 session on January 12 with 57 Republicans and 43 Democrats (assuming a Republican wins the January 6 special election in House district 4). Depending on who wins that special election, the 100 state representatives will include either 27 or 28 women, and either 72 or 73 men.

After the jump I’ve posted details on the Iowa House majority and minority leadership teams, along with all chairs, vice chairs, and members of standing House committees. Where relevant, I’ve noted changes since the previous legislative session.

Some non-political trivia: two of the three state representatives with the surname Olson retired this year, as did one of the two Iowa House members named Smith. There are still two Millers and two Taylors in the legislature’s lower chamber, one from each party. As for first names, the new cohort contains five six Davids (four go by Dave), four Roberts (two Robs, one Bob, and a Bobby), four Marys (one goes by Mary Ann), three four Johns, and three Brians. There are two Lindas, two Elizabeths (a Beth and a Liz), and two men each named Dan, Mark, Greg, Chuck, Bruce, Todd, and Chris.

2015 UPDATE: Added below information for John Kooiker, who won the House district 4 special election, and David Sieck, who won the House district 23 special election.  

State Representative Dwayne Alons passed away last night after a battle with kidney cancer, Iowa House Republicans announced today. First elected to the state legislature in 1998, Alons represented a staunchly Republican northwest Iowa district for eight terms and was unopposed in this year’s election.

A longtime farmer and retired brigadier general with the Iowa Air National Guard, Alons chaired the Iowa House Veterans Affairs Committee during the 2013 and 2014 legislative sessions. This year the state legislature passed and Governor Terry Branstad signed into law several bills designed to benefit veterans and encourage them to settle in Iowa.

Among many conservatives in the Iowa House Republican caucus, Alons stood out for his steadfast belief in prioritizing social issues such as opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion rights. In June 2010, he entered unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats’ name in nomination for lieutenant governor, saying he was “speaking for a grassroots effort that has been going on since the beginning of Bob’s campaign.” Alons was one of five Iowa House Republicans to file articles of impeachment in 2011 against Iowa Supreme Court justices who concurred in the Varnum v Brien ruling on marriage. He repeatedly co-sponsored and tried to pass “personhood” bills that would ban abortion in all circumstances. Earlier this month, Vander Plaats’ organization The FAMiLY Leader gave Alons its first annual “Family Champion Award,” saying in its official statement, “When it comes to championing pro-family values in Iowa, nobody has stood stronger, longer, and with such grace as Dwayne.”

Since Alons was just elected to another term, a special election will be needed to choose a new representative in Iowa House district 4, covering most of Sioux County (a detailed map is at the end of this post). Governor Branstad will likely set a date for that election in the coming week, and the election will probably happen sometime in January. The only real competition will be at the GOP nominating convention, since the area Alons represented is the most heavily Republican of the 100 state House districts, with nearly ten times as many registered Republicans as Democrats.

After the jump I’ve posted a selection of tributes from Alons’ colleagues. I will continue to update as needed.  

For the past two years, ten women have served in the Iowa Senate (20 percent of the chamber’s membership). That number will fall to seven or eight by the time the newly-elected legislature begins its 2015 session.

However, the number of women who will serve in the Iowa House will grow from 25 to 27 for the next two years. Follow me after the jump for details and a full list of Democratic and Republican women who will serve in the newly-elected Iowa legislature.

Following up on prospects for increasing racial and ethnic diversity in the Iowa legislature, all five African-American state representatives were re-elected to the Iowa House this week: Helen Miller (House district 9), Ruth Ann Gaines (House district 32), Ako Abdul-Samad (House district 35), Deborah Berry (House district 62), and Phyllis Thede (House district 93). Neither party nominated any African-American candidates for the Iowa Senate, which remains all-white.  

Iowans have yet to elect a Latino candidate to the state legislature. Democrats nominated Karyn Finn in House district 60 and Maria Bribriesco in Senate district 47, but both lost to Republican incumbents on Tuesday.

As has been the case since Swati Dandekar left the Iowa Senate in 2011, the Iowa legislature includes no Asian-American lawmakers. Neither party nominated any Asian-American candidates in 2014.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread.

Sunday’s Des Moines Register includes a good feature by Lauren Mills of IowaWatch.org and the Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism. She lays out how payday lenders are “burying Iowans” in debt. Iowa Senate Ways and Means Committee Chair Joe Bolkcom pointed out that the payday lending business model depends on “locking people into this cycle of debt.” Previous research has indicated that payday lenders cost Iowa consumers about $36 million per year. Mills reports that this industry spends heavily on campaign contributions and lobbying the Iowa legislature. Lobbyists talk a good game about jobs and helping people who need cash for emergency expenses. But think how many more jobs could be created if Iowans living paycheck to paycheck had $36 million more to spend on goods and services, rather than on outlandish “loan shark rates.”

Mills reports that legislation to regulate interest rates charged by payday lenders has been stalled. Bolkcom said Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal won’t bring up the bill unless it can pass the Republican-controlled Iowa House. House Majority Leader Linda Upmeyer called that a “convenient excuse” for the Senate not to act. I haven’t noticed her or any other House Republicans acknowledging this problem, though.

The best chance for Iowa lawmakers to address payday lending was during the period when Democrats controlled “the trifecta.” In 2007, the Iowa House and Senate approved, and Governor Chet Culver signed, a bill capping interest rates on car title loans. (Such legislation had been stalled for years when Republicans controlled the Iowa House, although it attracted bipartisan support in both chambers in 2007.) Three years later, Bolkcom and then Iowa House Democrat Janet Petersen made a major push to pass a similar interest rate cap on payday lenders. However, industry lobbyists warned that such a law would put payday lenders out of business, as had happened with car title lenders. A wide range of organizations supported the payday lending reform, including the Iowa Attorney General’s office, the Iowa Catholic Conference, the Child and Family Policy Center, and Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement. But ultimately, the House version of that bill died when conservadem State Representative Mike Reasoner sided with two Republicans to kill it in subcommittee.

Some Iowa local governments, most recently in Waterloo, have passed zoning rules to try to prevent payday lenders from targeting low-income neighborhoods. But state regulations are the only realistic way to stop the cycle of debt perpetuated by lenders who keep borrowers coming back for more high-interest loans and cash advances. Iowans on the edge are paying the price for the legislature’s failure to act years ago.

A few months ago, Bleeding Heartland criticized the practice of longtime Iowa legislators announcing their retirements within a day or two of the filing deadline for primary candidates. Too many incumbents in both parties have pulled that stunt over the years. Respect for one’s constituents demands giving people outside a small circle of party activists a few weeks, or ideally a few months, to consider running for the Iowa House or Senate.

Yesterday, State Representative Henry Rayhons demonstrated an even worse way to retire from the Iowa legislature. Just eleven days before the deadline for getting a candidate on the general election ballot, the nine-term Iowa House Republican announced that he would not seek re-election, citing “ongoing family and health matters.” Rae Yost reported for the Mason City Globe-Gazette that the Rayhons family “has been dealing with issues regarding appointment of a guardian and conservator” for the 78-year-old lawmaker’s wife.

Rayhons should have announced his retirement earlier this year, anticipating that he would be unable to serve another two-year term. Then other Republicans could have competed in a primary to represent Iowa House district 8, covering part of Kossuth County and all of Hancock and Wright counties. Now only a handful of GOP activists will have a say in choosing Rayhons’ successor. They need to convene a nominating convention in the middle of vacation season and the Iowa State Fair. The GOP nominee will face Democrat Nancy Huisinga in a district that strongly favors Republicans in voter registrations and presidential voting in 2012.

Arguably, Rayhons should have stepped aside gracefully three years ago, after Iowa’s new map of political boundaries threw him and two House GOP colleagues into House district 8. Instead, House Majority Leader Linda Upmeyer moved to the Clear Lake area to run in House district 52. It made no sense for Upmeyer to defer to an eight-term backbencher like Rayhons when doing so meant bigfooting Gabe Haugland, the ambitious young Republican who was already planning to run in HD-52. Everyone could see that Rayhons didn’t have a long political career ahead of him and wasn’t a key member of the House GOP caucus. We haven’t seen the last of Haugland, who was elected to the Iowa GOP’s State Central Committee earlier this year. But he could be seeking a second term in a safe Iowa House seat by now if Rayhons had allowed Upmeyer to stay in HD-08.

I’m glad there is no mandatory retirement age for Iowa legislators, but sometimes our older incumbents are too reluctant to step aside for a younger generation.

UPDATE: I was sorry to hear that Donna Lou Young Rayhons passed away on August 8.

Forty men and ten women currently serve in the Iowa Senate. No senators are African-American, Latino, or Asian-American.

Seventy-five men and 25 women currently serve in the Iowa House. Five state representatives are African-American and none are Latino or Asian-American.

Time for a look at how those numbers might change after the November election, now that primaries have determined the major-party nominees in all state legislative districts. Click here for the June 3 unofficial election results and here for the full list of candidates who filed to run in the primaries.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

The Iowa legislature got out of town on May 2, 110 calendar days after the 2014 session began. That’s ten days after lawmakers’ per diem payments ran out but earlier than in any year since 2010, when Democrats held majorities in both chambers. After the jump I’ve posted closing remarks delivered by the top Iowa Senate Democrats (Majority Leader Mike Gronstal and President Pam Jochum) and the top Iowa House Republicans (Speaker Kraig Paulsen and Majority Leader Linda Upmeyer). A series of posts next week will focus on some of the more significant legislative results from the session, as well as important bills that never did pass.

I’ve also enclosed Gronstal’s prepared remarks on the final Iowa Senate vote of the session: granting subpeona power to the Government Oversight Committee to continue investigating various scandals in Governor Terry Branstad’s administration. Gronstal emphasized that the resolution is “narrowly drafted” and “not a criminal investigation. The goal is not to convict people. The only goal is to find out what went wrong [in state government] and how to fix it.” The resolution passed by voice vote just before the Senate adjourned on Friday morning. Iowa Senate Minority Leader Bill Dix blasted what he called a “dangerous” and “underhanded partisan move.” He claimed the “disruption of separation of powers” will invite “a state constitutional crisis,” and that the Oversight Committee’s investigation is politically motivated.

Finally, in non-legislative news, Patrick Caldwell reported for Mother Jones this week on a remarkably shady deal involving Danny Carroll in 1996. At the time, Carroll was a real estate agent in the Grinnell area and an Iowa House Republican. He currently chairs the Republican Party of Iowa–though probably not for much longer. After reading Caldwell’s piece, I want to know why anyone supposedly committed to Christian values would participate in a scheme to take advantage of an elderly widow with debts.  

With the 2014 legislative session expected to end any day, Iowa House Republicans voted to elevate two rising stars in their caucus. Four-term State Representative Matt Windschitl moves up from assistant majority leader to Speaker Pro Tem, replacing Representative Steve Olson, who is not seeking re-election. Meanwhile, two-term State Representative Jarad Klein replaces Windschitl as one of four assistant majority leaders. Press releases on the changes are after the jump. All three lawmakers represent districts considered safe for the GOP; Klein and Hein do not have challengers.

So far the best comment on the move came from AFSCME Iowa Council 61 Deputy Political Director Brian Guillaume, who alerted Iowa Senate Minority Leader Bill Dix to the fact that the “House GOP elected a union boss to Speaker Pro Tem.” Windschitl works full-time for the Union Pacific Railroad in addition to working occasionally in his family’s gun store.

The full Iowa House Republican leadership team consists of Speaker Kraig Paulsen, Majority Leader Linda Upmeyer, Majority Whip Chris Hagenow, Speaker Pro Tem Windschitl, and Assistant Majority Leaders Walt Rogers, Joel Fry, Lee Hein, and Jarad Klein. Representative Jeff Smith, who has been an assistant majority leader, is not seeking re-election.