Tony Leys is Rural Editor/Correspondent for Kaiser Health News, where this story was first published. Follow him on Twitter @TonyLeys.

KNOXVILLE, Iowa ― Bette Helm was glad to have someone to talk with about her insomnia.

Helm lives in a nursing home in this central Iowa town of about 7,500 people, where mental health services are sparse. On a recent morning, she had an appointment with a psychiatric nurse practitioner about 800 miles away in Austin, Texas. They spoke via video, with Helm using an iPad she held on her lap while sitting in her bed.

Video visits are an increasingly common way for residents of small-town nursing homes to receive mental health care. Patients don’t have to travel to a clinic. They don’t even have to get cleaned up and leave their bedrooms, which can be daunting for people with depression or anxiety. Online care providers face fewer appointment cancellations, and they often can work from home. While use of some other telehealth services may dwindle as the COVID-19 pandemic winds down, providers predict demand for remote mental health services will continue to increase in rural nursing homes.

UPDATE: The governor signed this bill on March 22. Original post follows.

Republicans took another step last week toward making the Iowa legislature’s 2023 session the worst ever for LGBTQ people. After letting similar bills die without committee approval as recently as 2021, the GOP fast-tracked legislation this year that prohibits transgender people from using the school restroom or locker room that corresponds to their gender identity.

The Iowa Senate passed the latest “bathroom bill,” Senate File 482, on March 7 in a party-line vote. The Iowa House approved the bill on March 16 by 57 votes to 39, with five Republicans (Chad Ingels, Megan Jones, Brian Lohse, Phil Thompson, and Hans Wilz) joining every Democrat present in opposition.

Governor Kim Reynolds is expected to sign the bill, along with legislation banning gender-affirming health care for minors. At this writing, neither bill has been forwarded to her office.

Iowa’s GOP trifecta won’t have the final word on the subject, however. Transgender plaintiffs have challenged restrictive bathroom policies in several states, and I expect one or more Iowa students to file suit soon after Senate File 482 goes into effect.

During the floor debates in the Iowa House and Senate, lawmakers pointed to key issues courts will consider as they weigh the bill’s stated goal (protecting students’ privacy) against its adverse impact on a specific group (students whose sex listed on a birth certificate does not match their gender identity).

U.S. Senator Joni Ernst is the lead sponsor of a bill that would block a new Pentagon policy designed to expand service members’ access to abortion care.

The Defense Department has long covered abortions if the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest, or if continuing the pregnancy would endanger the mother’s life. The policy announced last month affects “non-covered” reproductive care, including abortion and various fertility treatments. Haley Britzky and Oren Liebermann reported for CNN on February 16,

UPDATE: The governor signed this bill on March 22. Original post follows.

Moving with unusual speed last week, Iowa Republican lawmakers approved Senate File 538, which broadly prohibits gender-affirming care, including puberty blockers, hormone treatments, and surgery, for Iowans under age 18.

Governor Kim Reynolds is expected to sign the bill soon, having used several opportunities over the past year to position herself against transgender youth.

The new law would certainly be challenged in court, as similar bans prompted lawsuits in Arkansas and Alabama.

During hours-long debates in the Iowa Senate and House, lawmakers raised points that would be central to litigation over whether banning gender-affirming care violates the constitutional rights of transgender children, their parents, and medical professionals.

For this post, I’ve pulled video clips to illustrate some of the core legal questions surrounding the bill. But there is much more of value in the passionate speeches delivered about Republicans’ latest attempt to target LGTBQ Iowans. You can watch the full Senate debate here (starting around 7:32:30) and the House debate here (starting around 1:40:45).

Although Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has not formally declared his intent to run for president, he is already testing messages with Republican activists in Iowa.

A survey distributed to Iowans via text shows the governor’s team searching for points that could persuade GOP caucus-goers, not only highlighting what DeSantis has done in office—the focus of his remarks in Davenport and Des Moines on March 10— but also his military service and relative youth compared to former President Donald Trump.

UPDATE: On March 30, Iowa Senate leaders placed House File 350 on the “unfinished business” calendar, keeping it alive for the 2023 legislative session. However, House File 333 is dead for this year. Original post follows.

The Iowa House has unanimously approved a bill designed to improve the process for those seeking public records from government bodies.

House File 350 would add new language to the open records law, known as Chapter 22, requiring government bodies to “promptly acknowledge” requests for public records and provide contact information for the person designated to handle the request.

The records custodian would also have to provide an “approximate date” for producing the records and an estimate for the cost involved in compiling and reviewing them. Finally, the custodian would need to inform the person seeking records “of any expected delay” in providing them.

The Iowa Public Information Board, which is charged with enforcing the state’s sunshine laws, proposed the bill using language that closely follows one of the board’s advisory opinions.

The goal is to address a recurring problem: some government bodies ignore records requests for weeks or months, leaving members of the public with no idea when or whether they will receive the material. For instance, Clark Kauffman of Iowa Capital Dispatch and Bleeding Heartland guest author Rachel Bruns both experienced lengthy delays when seeking information from the Iowa Department of Public Health.

LATE UPDATE: Republican lawmakers kept this provision in the final version of Senate File 496, which Governor Reynolds signed in May. Original post follows.

Iowa’s leading cancer researchers released sobering numbers last week. Data from the Iowa Cancer Registry indicates that Iowa has “the second-highest overall cancer incidence of all U.S. states” and is “the only state with a significant increase in cancer incidence from 2015 to 2019.”

In addition, Iowa ranks first for “rates of new cases of oral cavity and pharyngeal cancer,” often known as head and neck or mouth and throat cancers. Iowa also has the country’s second-highest rate for leukemia and ranks fifth and sixth for melanoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, respectively.

Meanwhile, Governor Kim Reynolds is forging ahead with efforts to stop requiring Iowa schools to teach junior high and high school students that a vaccine is available to prevent human papillomavirus (HPV). That virus can cause cancer in several areas of the body, including the mouth and throat.

Proposals that would cause thousands of Iowans to lose Medicaid coverage or federal food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) are eligible for floor debate in both the Iowa House and Senate.

Republicans in each chamber’s Health and Human Services Committee changed some provisions in the bills, now numbered House File 613 and Senate File 494, then approved the legislation before the March 3 “funnel” deadline. However, the amended versions would still threaten health care or food assistance for many Iowans who now qualify.

The major pharmacy chain Walgreens has informed Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird that the company will not dispense a drug commonly used for medication abortions and miscarriage care in the state. Walgreens operates 72 stores in Iowa, according to the company’s website.

Last month, Bird and other Republican attorneys general co-signed a letter warning Walgreens that “federal law expressly prohibits using the mail to send or receive any drug that will ‘be used or applied for producing abortion.’”

Alice Miranda Ollstein reported for Politico on March 2 that Walgreens “has since responded to all the officials, assuring them that they will not dispense abortion pills either by mail or at their brick-and-mortar locations in those states.”

The Iowa Supreme Court will soon decide whether a lawsuit against Governor Kim Reynolds can proceed. The ruling may shed light on broader questions related to Iowa’s open records law (known as Chapter 22), such as what constitutes a refusal to provide a public record, how courts can determine whether a government entity’s delay was reasonable, and whether any legal doctrines shield the governor from that kind of judicial scrutiny.

I am among the plaintiffs who sued the governor, her office, and some of her staff in December 2021, citing failure to produce public records. About eighteen days after the ACLU of Iowa filed the suit on our behalf, the governor’s office provided most, but not all records responsive to requests I had submitted (in some cases more than a year earlier), as well as records responsive to requests submitted by Clark Kauffman of Iowa Capital Dispatch and Randy Evans of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council.

The state’s attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the case. After Polk County District Court Judge Joseph Seidlin rejected the motion last May, the governor’s office appealed. Iowa Supreme Court justices heard oral arguments on February 22. UPDATE: Video of the proceedings is online here.

A ruling in favor of the plaintiffs would send the lawsuit back to a lower court, where a judge would consider the merits of our claims. A ruling in favor of the governor would mean the lower court could consider only whether the governor’s office properly withheld some records and redacted other documents released in January 2022—not whether Reynolds and her staff violated the law by failing to produce records in a timely manner.

Randy Evans can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. 

An interesting study in contrasts is playing out right now in Iowa. 

One example comes from the Davis County Community Schools in Bloomfield. It is the 96th-largest of Iowa’s 328 public districts, with an enrollment of 1,150 students.

The other example comes from the Iowa legislature and Governor Kim Reynolds. 

The Davis County school board is wrestling with an incredibly difficult decision—whether to hold classes four days a week instead of the traditional five-day-a-week schedule. 

“Medical Malpractice Reform gets Iowa back in the game of recruiting and retaining physicians to care for Iowans!” Governor Kim Reynolds tweeted on February 16. She had just signed House File 161, a bill limiting damages in medical malpractice lawsuits.

Reynolds waited a long time for that moment. Two years running, similar proposals failed to reach her desk for lack of support in the GOP-controlled state House.

The bill signing capped one of the most dramatic debates in recent Iowa political memory.

It’s rare for more than a handful of Republican lawmakers to go on record against any bill that’s a priority for leadership. Not only did seventeen GOP lawmakers oppose passage of House File 161, six members of the majority party explained their objections during the hours-long debates in the House and Senate on February 8.

In addition to exposing divisions within Republican ranks, some remarks from the legislative proceedings may become important if the new law is challenged in court.

UPDATE: The Iowa House approved this bill (renumbered House File 348) on March 8 by 62 votes to 35, with Republican Michael Bergan joining all Democrats to vote no. Prior to passage, an amendment slightly altered the wording. The bill now reads, “A school district shall not provide any program, curriculum, test, survey, questionnaire, promotion, or instruction relating to gender identity or sexual orientation to students in kindergarten through grade six.” Original post follows.

Iowa House Speaker Pat Grassley complained this week that a centerpiece of this year’s Republican education agenda has been “misconstrued.”

Grassley and House Education Committee chair Skyler Wheeler claimed Republicans are only trying to “let kids be kids.”

Their spin defies a plain reading of the bill that would remove all teaching about gender identity or sexual orientation from Iowa’s elementary schools.

Second in a series analyzing Governor Kim Reynolds’ plan to restructure state government.

Blind Iowans showed up in large numbers at the state capitol on February 13 to speak out against one part of Governor Kim Reynolds’ plan to reorganize state government.

A common thread running through the bill, numbered House Study Bill 126 and Senate Study Bill 1123, is giving the governor more power to hire and fire the few state government leadership positions that have some independence under existing law.

The relevant section would give Reynolds power to appoint the director of the Iowa Department for the Blind, a position that the Iowa Commission for the Blind has long filled. The director would serve at the pleasure of the governor, so Reynolds could fire the person at any time, for any reason.

The Iowa Attorney General’s office has issued statements touting several legal actions by Attorney General Brenna Bird, seeking to block various federal regulations.

But when Bird joined a multi-state effort on February 10 to cut off access nationwide to mifepristone, a widely used drug for medication abortions and treatment of first-trimester miscarriages, her office did not announce the decision. Nor has it publicized letters Bird and other Republican attorneys general signed this month, warning at least three corporations about policies or practices related to abortion.

Communications staff for Bird and Governor Kim Reynolds did not respond to Bleeding Heartland’s inquiries about the legal moves. Bird has long said she is “pro-life,” and immediately after taking office pledged to “defend Iowa’s statutes, especially those protecting innocent unborn babies.” But Iowa law permits abortions up to 20 weeks and does not restrict the use of mifepristone.

UPDATE: Although an Iowa Senate Judiciary subcommittee recommended passage of this bill, the full Judiciary Committee did not take it up before the legislature’s second “funnel” deadline on March 31. That means the bill won’t advance this year. Original post follows.

Iowa House members voted overwhelmingly on February 9 to make it easier to counter lawsuits filed in order to chill speech.

House File 177 would create a path for expedited dismissal of meritless claims stemming from exercise of the constitutionally-protected “right of freedom of speech or of the press, the right to assemble or petition, or the right of association […] on a matter of public concern.” Such cases are sometimes called “strategic lawsuits against public participation” (SLAPP), because the plaintiffs’ goal may be primarily to discourage speech or media coverage, rather than to prevail in court.

The Republican floor manager, State Representative Steven Holt, said passing an anti-SLAPP law became a priority for him after the Carroll Times Herald was sued over coverage of a local police officer who had relationships with teenage girls. Holt noted that even though the libel lawsuit was not successful, the newspaper “was left with over $100,000 in debt and nearly went out of business.”

Holt said the bill was about “protecting our small-town newspapers and media outlets.” Democratic State Representative Megan Srinivas also spoke in favor of the bill, saying it was critical to protect journalists, especially those working in small communities.

Governor Kim Reynolds is one step closer to controlling a majority of votes on all of Iowa’s judicial nominating commissions, following Iowa Senate passage of Senate File 171 on February 8.

Voting 34 to 15 along party lines, the chamber approved the bill, which would give the governor an extra appointee on commissions that recommend candidates for lower court appointments, and remove district chief judges from those bodies.

Political reactions to a president’s State of the Union address are as ritualized as the speech itself. Elected officials typically have nothing but praise when the president belongs to their own party, while finding much to criticize about a leader from the other party.

If President Joe Biden’s remarks to this year’s joint session of Congress are remembered for anything, it will probably be the segment where he turned Republican heckling to his advantage, promising to defend Medicare and Social Security from cuts.

In their public statements about the speech, Iowa’s all-Republican delegation criticized what Biden didn’t say about some of their priorities. It’s clear those standards apply only to Democratic presidents.

Dan Henderson is a lifelong Iowan, retired educator (taught history for 30 years), writer, author, and community activist, living in Washington. A version of this post first appeared on his Substack newsletter, Things We Don’t Talk About Like Politics & Religion.

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, along with her MAGA Republican colleagues in the statehouse, are rushing to try and outdo Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida in taking a wrecking ball to public education. This goal of Republican extremists stems from the conspiracy theories they see under every bush and in every classroom, as well as their basic mistrust for public school educators.

The GOP trifecta passed a historic private school voucher bill in January. It will siphon hundreds of millions of dollars from public schools, directing them toward private schools with no strings attached. No accountability, no mandates, no assurance that the money will be spent on students and their educational needs. It is a bonanza for private religious schools, and for-profit schools that will now see Iowa as fertile ground for their scam institutions.

But the wrecking ball doesn’t stop there.

First in a series analyzing Governor Kim Reynolds’ plan to restructure state government.

Attorney General Brenna Bird would gain direct control over the office charged with representing Iowa consumers on issues related to utilities, under Governor Kim Reynolds’ proposed restructuring of state government.

House Study Bill 126, which lays out the governor’s plan over more than 1,500 pages, contains several provisions undermining the independence of the Office of Consumer Advocate. Iowa House State Government Committee chair Jane Bloomingdale introduced the legislation on February 1.

The Office of Consumer Advocate’s mission is to represent consumers on issues relating to gas and electric utilities and telecommunications services, “with the goal of maintaining safe, reliable, reasonably-priced, and nondiscriminatory utility services.” Much of the office’s work involves matters before the Iowa Utilities Board, which regulates the state’s investor-owned utilities, Alliant Energy and MidAmerican Energy.

Anne Schechinger is Senior Analyst of Economics for the Environmental Working Group. This report, which she co-authored with the EWG’s Senior Vice President for Government Affairs Scott Faber, first appeared on the EWG’s website. 

The Environmental Working Group’s newly updated Farm Subsidy Database shows that federal farm subsidies between 1995 and 2021 totaled $478 billion. This huge amount of taxpayer money does almost nothing to help farmers reduce their greenhouse gas emissions or adapt to adverse weather conditions caused by the climate crisis.

Our database update also shows that farm subsidy funding still goes to the largest and wealthiest farms, which can weather the climate crisis best, and that payments are getting less transparent, obscuring who has received almost $3.1 billion in payments. 

The Department of Agriculture’s subsidy funding could be used in much more useful ways that would help farmers in mitigating their emissions and becoming more resilient to hazardous weather conditions. Instead, it’s still a handout for rich landowners, city dwellers and family members of farmers. Even the USDA is benefiting, with one of its divisions receiving almost $350 million in payments.

Seventh in a series interpreting the results of Iowa’s 2022 state and federal elections.

The Iowa Democratic Party’s State Central Committee elected Rita Hart as the next party chair on January 28 by 34 votes to fourteen for Brittany Ruland and one for Bob Krause.

Hart promised to focus “squarely on helping our party begin winning elections again,” and had submitted a detailed plan (enclosed in full below) to make that happen. She touted her experience as a former state senator who had won two races in a district Donald Trump carried, raised $5 million as a 2020 Congressional candidate, and outperformed Joe Biden by more than Iowa’s other three Democrats running for U.S. House that year.

When outlining her vision for Iowa Democrats, Hart acknowledged, “We cannot fix everything in one two-year cycle. We need to be realistic about what can be achieved in two-year and four-year time frames.”

She and the rest of the state party’s new leadership team—first vice chair Gregory Christensen, secretary Paula Martinez, and treasurer Samantha Groark—take over as the Iowa Democratic Party is at its lowest ebb in decades. The party has no representation in either chamber of Congress for the first time since 1956, no representation in the U.S. House for the first time since 1996, only one statewide elected official for the first time since 1982, and its smallest contingents in the Iowa House and Senate since the 1960s.

A quick review of the most pressing problems:

Less than two weeks after making her latest pitch for “school choice,” Governor Kim Reynolds got what she wanted. The Republican-controlled legislature approved the governor’s expansive school voucher program, by 55 votes to 45 in the Iowa House and 31 votes to 18 in the Senate.

The state of play in the lower chamber was in doubt as recently as a few days ago. Reynolds had only one public event on her schedule last week, but she held private meetings with more than a few House Republicans who either opposed her plan or were on the fence about approving an unlimited new entitlement for families choosing private schools. According to the fiscal analysis by the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency, which does not include all expenses, the proposal will cost Iowa’s general fund an additional $878.8 million over the next four fiscal years, with costs reaching about $345 million during the fourth year.

House leaders changed the chamber’s rules to keep the voucher bill out of the Appropriations and Ways and Means committees, where there might not have been enough Republican support to send the legislation to the floor. Senate leaders used a procedural trick to prevent any Democratic amendments from being considered.

No GOP lawmakers spoke against the bill during the floor debates in either chamber. Three Republican holdouts (State Representatives Chad Ingels, Brian Lohse, and Tom Moore) indicated during the five-hour House session that they would like to be recognized by the chair. But each turned off their light at some point before being called on to speak.

Fresh off his assignment to the House Agriculture Committee, U.S. Representative Zach Nunn revealed a fundamental misunderstanding of who benefits from federal food assistance programs.

Although the first-term Republican told an interviewer that nutritional assistance goes “largely to blue state communities,” one federal food program alone serves nearly 10 percent of Nunn’s constituents in Iowa’s third Congressional district.

One of Iowa’s largest Republican donors, whose company is seeking to build a carbon dioxide pipeline across Iowa, has urged state lawmakers to pass Governor Kim Reynolds’ “school choice” proposal.

Bruce Rastetter sent identical emails to numerous members of the Iowa House and Senate, from both parties, on January 19. The message (enclosed in full below) called the plan for state-funded accounts to cover private school costs “historic” and “important to families all across Iowa.”

Rastetter is the founder and CEO of Summit Agricultural Group. Its affiliate Summit Carbon Solutions is seeking to build a CO2 pipeline linking 30 ethanol plants in five states, and Rastetter has signed appeals to landowners in the pipeline’s path as Summit seeks voluntary easements. Summit has filed for but not yet received a permit from the Iowa Utilities Board. Its plan (along with other carbon pipeline proposals) has aroused intense opposition in rural Iowa.

Summit’s lobbyists have not registered a position on the school voucher bill, which Iowa House and Senate committees approved this week. Republican leaders are expected to bring it up for floor votes in both chambers next week.

Sixth in a series interpreting the results of Iowa’s 2022 state and federal elections. This post has been updated to include numbers from the Iowa Secretary of State’s revised statewide statistical report, issued on January 27.

The Iowa Secretary of State’s office recently published the statewide statistical report on the 2022 general election. Republicans enacted many new barriers to early voting in 2021, which meant that compared to previous elections, Iowans had fewer days to request absentee ballots, fewer days to vote early by any means, and less time to return absentee ballots to county auditors. It was also much harder for Iowans to deliver another person’s completed absentee ballot, and each county could have only one drop box.

As expected, fewer Iowans voted early. The decline wasn’t spread evenly across the electorate.

Iowa House Republicans are seeking to change a longstanding chamber rule, in order to make it easier to pass Governor Kim Reynolds’ school voucher plan.

Since Republicans gained control of the Iowa House for the 2011 session, every rules package has contained the following language under Rule 32:

All bills to appropriate money shall be referred to the appropriations committee, and all bills pertaining to the levy, assessment, or collection of taxes or fees shall be referred to the committee on ways and means.

House Study Bill 31 would exempt “bills assigned to the Education Reform Committee” during the 2023 session or any special legislative session from moving through the Ways and Means and Appropriations committees.

Speaker Pat Grassley created the Education Reform Committee for the express purpose of considering major legislation, such as the governor’s plan to provide state funds to families choosing to enroll their children in private schools. The panel’s five members include Grassley, Majority Leader Matt Windschitl, and Speaker Pro-tem John Wills, all of whom support “school choice.” So the Education Reform Committee is guaranteed to advance the bill, perhaps with some amendments.

As expected, Governor Kim Reynolds devoted a significant share of her Condition of the State speech on January 10 to her plan to divert more public funds to private K-12 schools across Iowa.

Although the central purpose of the plan remains the same—giving state funds to families who choose to send their children to a private school—the latest version is vastly larger in scope, and will be more costly.

Iowa’s four U.S. House members received good news on January 11, when the House Republican Steering Committee agreed on assignments to the chamber’s most influential committees.

The Iowa House opened its 2023 session on January 9 with 64 Republicans and 36 Democrats, a four-seat gain for the GOP compared to last year.

Thirty-eight representatives (24 Republicans and fourteen Democrats) were just elected to the chamber for the first time in November. Two Republicans previously held other legislative offices: Craig Johnson served one and a half terms in the Iowa Senate, and David Young served two terms in Congress.

The House members include 71 men and 29 women (sixteen Democrats and thirteen Republicans), down from 31 women who served for the last two years. The record for women’s representation in the Iowa House was 34 female lawmakers in 2019.

Six African Americans (Democrats Ako Abdul-Samad, Jerome Amos, Jr., Ruth Ann Gaines, Mary Madison, and Ross Wilburn, and Republican Eddie Andrews) serve in the legislature’s lower chamber. As Abdul-Samad began his seventeenth year at the capitol, he surpassed Helen Miller as Iowa’s longest-serving Black state legislator.

Republican Mark Cisneros was the first Latino elected to the Iowa legislature in 2020, and Democrat Adam Zabner is now the second Latino serving in the chamber. Republican Henry Stone became only the second Asian American to serve in the House after the 2020 election, and Democrat Megan Srinivas was also elected in November. The other 92 state representatives are white.

Democrat Elinor Levin is the only out LGBTQ member of the Iowa House. She and Zabner are also the first Jews to serve in the chamber for more than three decades. Abdul-Samad is the only Muslim member of the House, and Srinivas is Hindu.

I’ve posted details below 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’s session. The biggest change is that House Speaker Pat Grassley created an Education Reform Committee to consider the governor’s school voucher plan and other controversial education bills. The House also eliminated the Information Technology Committee.

Some non-political trivia: the 100 Iowa House members include two with the surname Meyer (a Democrat and a Republican) and two Thompsons and a Thomson (all Republicans). As for popular first names, there are four men named David or Dave, four named Thomas or Tom, three Roberts (a Robert, a Bob, and a Bobby), three Brians, three men named Michael (two go by Mike), a Jon and two Johns, two named Charles (a Chuck and a Charley), and two men each named Jeff, Ken, Steve, Matt, Austin, and Josh or Joshua. There are also two Elizabeths (one goes by Beth), an Ann and an Anne, and two women each named Heather, Megan, and Shannon. As recently as 2020, four women named Mary served in the Iowa House, but just one was sworn in this week.

The Iowa Senate began its 2023 session on January 9 with 34 Republicans and sixteen Democrats, the largest majority seen in the chamber for about five decades. Five of the last seven Iowa general elections have been Republican waves.

Fourteen senators (nine Republicans, five Democrats) were just elected to the chamber for the first time in November. Seven of them (four Republicans and three Democrats) previously served in the Iowa House.

Fifteen senators are women (eight Democrats and seven Republicans), up from twelve women in the chamber prior to the 2022 election and more than double the six women senators who served prior to the 2018 election.

Democrat Izaah Knox is the second Black state senator in Iowa history. The first was Tom Mann, a Democrat elected to two terms during the 1980s. The other 49 senators are white. No Latino has ever served in the chamber, and Iowa’s only Asian-American senator was Swati Dandekar, who resigned in 2011.

Democrat Janice Weiner became the first Jewish person to serve in the Iowa Senate since Ralph Rosenberg left the legislature after 1994. Democrat Liz Bennett became the first out LGBTQ state senator since Matt McCoy retired in 2018.

I enclose below details on the majority and minority leadership teams, along with all chairs, vice chairs, and members of standing Iowa Senate committees. Where relevant, I’ve mentioned changes since last year’s legislative session. The Senate has added a new Technology Committee and renamed what used to be “Labor and Business Relations” as the Workforce Committee.

Some non-political trivia: the 50 Iowa senators include two Taylors, a Democrat and a Republican. As for first names, there are three Jeffs and two men each named Mark, Mike, and Dan.

Brenna Bird wasted no time putting her mark on the Iowa Attorney General’s office. Big changes commenced before the Republican’s formal swearing in on January 5.

UPDATE: All four Iowans received coveted committee assignments on January 11, which are discussed here. Original post follows.

The U.S. House spent most of last week mired in the longest-running attempt to elect a speaker since before the Civil War. Iowa’s four Republicans stood behind their caucus leader Kevin McCarthy from the first ballot on January 3 to the fifteenth ballot after midnight on January 7.

Iowa’s House delegation lacks any long-serving members; three are beginning their second terms, and Representative Zach Nunn was elected for the first time in 2022.

As House members receive committee assignments later this month, where the Iowans land could signal how much influence they have with GOP leadership.

Traditionally, members of Congress who publicly oppose their party’s leader are punished. But McCarthy’s team made so many concessions in search of votes for speaker that several Republican holdouts could be rewarded with prime committee assignments—arguably at the expense of those who were loyal to McCarthy throughout.

The Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board has asked state lawmakers to approve a bill requiring donors to opt in to recurring contributions to Iowa candidates or political committees.

The agency charged with enforcing Iowa’s campaign regulations pre-filed the bill last month, after the six-member board unanimously voted to recommend the policy at its November meeting.

As the new Congress began its work on January 3, U.S. Senator Joni Ernst moved up a notch on the Senate Republican leadership team.

Ernst had held the fifth-ranking leadership position, Senate Republican Conference vice chair, for the last four years. She now serves as chair of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, the fourth-ranking position for the minority caucus. Her predecessor, Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, opted not to seek re-election in 2022.

Randy Evans can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. 

In politics, having a “trifecta” in government is a good thing for a political party—until the trifecta’s inaction on some popular issue starts to haunt those in power.

Iowa Republicans served up an example of the consequences of such inaction in the days leading up to Christmas. This story involves military veterans, a highly sought-after constituency that is part of any solid political movement.

As the new year begins, I want to highlight some of the investigative reporting, in-depth analysis, and accountability journalism published first or exclusively here.

Some newspapers and websites put their best original reporting behind a paywall for subscribers, or limit access to a few free articles a month. I’m committed to keeping all Bleeding Heartland content—which includes some 570 articles and commentaries from 2022 alone—available to all, regardless of ability to pay.

As always, I’m grateful for readers who value this kind of work on Iowa politics. Tips on stories that may be worth pursuing are always welcome.

To receive links to Bleeding Heartland articles and commentaries directly via email, subscribe to the free Evening Heartland newsletter. Subscribers to my Substack (which is also free) receive audio files and recaps for every episode of KHOI Radio’s “Capitol Week,” a 30-minute program on which Dennis Hart and I discuss recent Iowa political news.

“I did not see this coming,” tweeted Carolyn Raffensperger, an environmental lawyer and the executive director of the Science & Environmental Health Network. She was referring to the Hancock County Republican Central Committee asking the Iowa Utilities Board to reject proposed carbon dioxide pipelines.

Republican-controlled boards of supervisors in dozens of Iowa counties (including Hancock) have formally objected to CO2 pipeline plans in their jurisdictions. But the December 19 letter, which the utilities board published on December 29, appears to be the first time a county GOP organization has weighed in.

Republican candidates routinely receive more than 70 percent of the vote in this part of north central Iowa, and Democrats have not fielded candidates lately for most Hancock County offices.

The Hancock GOP committee argued against the pipelines on four grounds. Although only one company (Summit Carbon Solutions) has proposed a route crossing Hancock County, the signers asked the board to file their objections to all CO2 pipelines.

“[I]t is time for the House to end the mask mandate for fully vaccinated members and bring an end [to] proxy voting,” U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks tweeted in May 2021.

“Now that we are lifting the requirement for fully vaccinated individuals to wear masks, we should bring an end to proxy voting and return in-person work!” the Republican representing Iowa’s second district tweeted in June 2021.

“It’s time for the House to follow the science, lift the mask mandate in chamber, end proxy voting, and return to normal,” Miller-Meeks tweeted in February 2022.

Yet over the past two years Miller-Meeks signed five letters designating Republican colleagues to cast votes on her behalf. Most recently, she used a proxy for the final House floor votes of the year, recorded late last week.

The omnibus budget bill Congress just approved will fund dozens of infrastructure projects or services in Iowa during the current fiscal year, which ends on September 30, 2023.

But none of those earmarks (totaling tens of millions of dollars) will benefit communities or facilities in the fourth Congressional district. That’s because for the second year in a row, U.S. Representative Randy Feenstra declined to ask for specific projects to be included in the federal budget.