Fourth in a series interpreting the results of Iowa’s 2018 state and federal elections.

The largest group of women ever to run for the Iowa legislature has produced the largest contingent of women lawmakers in state history.

For the first time, women will make up more than a third of Iowa House members and a majority of the lower chamber’s Democratic caucus.

The number of women serving in the Iowa Senate will exceed the previous record set in 2013 and 2014. In a major shift from the recent past, the women senators will include almost as many Republicans as Democrats.

Republicans have controlled the Iowa House since 2011 and will continue to set the agenda in the lower chamber for the next two years. However, the GOP majority will shrink from 59-41 to either 54-46 or 53-47, depending on whether one lawmaker’s eight-vote lead holds up.

Few Iowa politics watchers doubt that Democrats will gain ground in the state House today–the only question is how much will the Republican majority shrink.

In contrast, the Iowa Senate landscape could shift in either direction. Republicans now hold 29 seats and are unopposed in Senate district 1, where independent Senator David Johnson is retiring. They are also outspending several Democratic incumbents in districts Donald Trump carried in the last presidential election. Democrats currently hold 20 Senate seats, but they could add to their ranks today, despite a difficult map and a couple of bad breaks over the summer.

Here’s how the key races look going into election day, based on voter registration totals, recent voting history, absentee ballot numbers, and where Democratic or Republican leaders have made large expenditures.

In some states, gerrymandering predetermines the outcome of most legislative races. But many Iowa House and Senate districts are in play every election year, thanks to our non-partisan redistricting system.

Drawing on voter registration totals, recent voting history, absentee ballot numbers, and where Democratic or Republican leaders have made large expenditures, I’ve identified the state House seats most likely to indicate whether Democrats can win control of the lower chamber, where Republicans now enjoy a 59-41 majority.

The districts are grouped in four categories: Democratic-held open seat, Republican-held open seats, Democratic incumbents facing strong challengers, and GOP incumbents facing strong challengers.

Kyla Paterson is a community activist from Johnson County.

I met Jodi Clemens when I was door knocking in the primaries. From the first time of meeting her, I knew she was a special candidate. Since then, we’ve become very close through local organizing and this is why I’m writing this.

Jodi is amazing and I believe she will serve your district well! Jodi is someone who sticks to her values, someone who shows kindness to every constituent no matter their party affiliation and someone who has a deep interest in listening. We need folks to take notice, because she runs a positive campaign about the issues that affect everyday people’s lives.

She will work towards restoring collective bargaining rights, to create an affordable health care option, and will support making sure our public education is funded properly. She believes we need to get money out of politics and that we should make sure people’s lives are respected and every person is treated with dignity. She also speaks to those in her district the way a true representative should speak to constituents.

I support Jodi Clemens because she will keep her progressive message and doesn’t let anyone scare her away from being strong on issues. She inspires me, as a young woman who wants to eventually run for office herself, and I think she is exactly the kind of candidate we need to be a role model to future elected officials who will run in the future.

Another reason I support Jodi is because she sincerely cares for her friends and community. She stands up for the most vulnerable and lifts their voices up. That is why I encourage everyone in Iowa House district 73 to go vote for Jodi Clemens, because she is a voice for real progress and is a person who you can count on!

Top image: Jodi Clemens (left) with Kyla Paterson.

Editor’s note: Jodi Clemens is running against three-term Republican State Representative Bobby Kaufmann in a district covering Cedar County and parts of Johnson County.

Here’s Jodi Clemens canvassing with Johnson County Supervisor Kurt Friese just a few days before Friese passed away last month.

A commentary by correctional officer Mark Masterson. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Can I introduce you to my friend and co-worker? His name is Jason Moats. Jason is running for Iowa House district 84, left open by retiring Republican State Representative Dave Heaton. This district includes Mount Pleasant, where I live and work.

As was the case two years ago, Democratic candidates are at a financial disadvantage in almost all of the Iowa Senate districts both parties are targeting.

The disparity adds another challenge to a party already facing a difficult path to gaining ground in the upper chamber. Republicans currently hold 29 of the 50 Senate seats and are guaranteed to pick up the district independent Senator David Johnson is vacating.

Five weeks before the general election, the Republican Party of Iowa has begun airing television commercials to promote Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver and State Senator Julian Garrett.

The advertising suggests that Republican internal polling shows Democrats Amber Gustafson and Vicky Brenner within striking distance in Senate districts 19 and 13, respectively. Democratic internal polling presumably shows competitive races too, since former President Barack Obama included Gustafson and Brenner on his list of Iowa endorsements this week. Only five state legislative candidates made the cut.

Third in a series by Tyler Higgs, an activist from Clive, Iowa. He previously explored how to corrupt a school district and how to corrupt the Iowa House. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Let’s say you are a state senator with strong political aspirations and no moral compass. You can rise to power quickly, if you play your cards correctly. State Senator Charles Schneider (Senate District 22) demonstrated how it pays to sell out your constituents:

Carl Olsen is a longtime advocate for expanding access to medical cannabis in Iowa and maintains the Iowans for Medical Marijuana website. -promoted by desmoinesdem

On Thursday, September 20, the Iowa Board of Pharmacy moved to dismiss my petition for the religious use of medical cannabidiol, in Olsen v. Board of Pharmacy, No. CVCV056841 (Iowa District Court, Polk County).  The Board says the petition should have been filed with the Iowa legislature instead of the board.

The problem with the board’s position is that the legislature has given the board the duty of recommending changes in the schedules of controlled substances and medical cannabidiol is a controlled substance in Iowa.  There is also an existing exemption for the religious use of peyote, a Schedule 1 controlled substance.  Iowa Code § 124.204(8) (2018).

A New York Times poll of Iowa’s first Congressional district this week found Democratic challenger Abby Finkenauer leading two-term Representative Rod Blum by 51.5 percent to 37 percent. Finkenauer led by double digits in every turnout model the pollsters applied to the raw data. Blum’s favorability of 35 percent was even lower than President Donald Trump’s 39 percent approval rating among respondents.

As national Republican strategists and GOP-aligned advocacy groups write off Blum and election forecasters increasingly view IA-01 as a probable Democratic pickup, I’ve been thinking about how a Blum implosion could affect down-ballot Republicans. With no straight-ticket option for Iowa voters this year, coat-tails may be less important than they were in the past. Nevertheless, it can’t be good for GOP legislative candidates that Finkenauer’s campaign has had field organizers working across the district for at least six months to identify and turn out supporters.

Democrats need a net gain of ten Iowa House seats to win a majority in the lower chamber (currently split 59 R/41 D). At least eight potentially competitive GOP-held state House districts are located within the first Congressional district.

For the first time in living memory, Iowans will not have the option of filling in one oval to vote a straight ticket for a political party in this year’s general election. Republicans eliminated straight-ticket voting here in 2017, as GOP legislators have done in several other states in recent years. The more publicized provisions of Iowa’s new law, on voter ID and signature verification, will benefit Republicans by creating obstacles for eligible voters in groups that tend to favor Democrats (people with lower incomes, college students, racial minorities, and senior citizens).

By contrast, the impact of eliminating straight-ticket voting is less clear. More Iowans filled in the Republican oval than the Democratic one in the 2014 election, the only midterm for which such statistics are available.

One thing is for sure:

Republicans are all but guaranteed to maintain control of the Iowa Senate after November and could expand their majority, now at 29 out of 50 seats. However, Democrats have a chance to pick up a few districts as they work toward winning back the chamber in 2020.

The Republican Party is not fielding a candidate in more than two dozen Democratic-controlled Iowa House or Senate districts, while Democrats have left only seven GOP-held legislative seats uncontested. The disparity in party strategies is a departure from the last midterm election, when each party failed to nominate a candidate in more than two dozen state House districts alone.

Prospects for Democrats to gain ground in the Iowa Senate took a sharp turn for the worse over the past week. The party’s best pickup opportunity became a more difficult race when GOP incumbent Rick Bertrand unexpectedly decided to seek a third term after all. Meanwhile, Republicans landed their strongest possible candidate for a Democratic-held seat now open because of Senator Chaz Allen’s unexpected retirement.

UPDATE: Tyler Higgs updated this article on October 21. Click here to skip to the updates below.

Second in a series by Tyler Higgs, an activist and former candidate for Waukee school board. He previously explored how to corrupt a school district. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Let’s say that you are a shady politician, and you want to take a whole lot of money from one source. Normally, campaign laws would require you to disclose your donor’s name, which could be problematic or politically damaging. Here’s how you can get around the laws:

1. Have your shady donor(s) hire an attorney to create a Limited Liability Company (LLC). That way, the business isn’t in the donor’s name and can’t be traced back to them.

2. Have your shady donor(s) put their money into the the LLC.

3. Accept all the money you want from the LLC. It doesn’t have to disclose who donated!

4. Hope your donor doesn’t send threats to people, exposing who they are.

A similar process seems to have occurred in Waukee.

Pictures of Governor Kim Reynolds and acting Lieutenant Governor Adam Gregg are plastered all over the governor’s Iowa State Fair booth, contrary to the intent of a law Reynolds signed in June.

Josh Hughes analyzes sixteen Iowa House races likely to be competitive and points to other districts that could also be in play. Hughes is a Drake University undergraduate and vice president of the I-35 school board. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Iowa Democrats have had a pretty good summer. In recent weeks, election forecasters have moved the races for governor and third Congressional district to “toss-up” status, Fred Hubbell and other Iowa Democrats have blown past Republicans in fundraising, and Iowa Republicans have begun to hit the panic button on an election many believed would not be competitive just one year ago. Democrats appear to have the wind at their back for the first time in several election cycles here, after blowout losses in 2016 and 2014.

Winning back Terrace Hill and Congressional seats is at the forefront of many activists’ minds. Doing so would be hugely impressive and important to stopping reactionary right-wing legislation at the state and federal levels. However, in order to not just stop the bad stuff but also advance good legislation, Democrats will need to do more than just defeat Governor Kim Reynolds. The race for the Iowa legislature, where 25 of 50 Senate seats and all 100 Iowa House seats are up for election this year, will determine what kind of policy will be possible over the next two years in our state.

As always, a few surprises lurked in the campaign finance reports Iowa statewide and legislative candidates were required to file by July 19.

Some Iowa office-holders who are facing tough campaigns made little apparent effort to raise money, even though fundraising capacity is one of the biggest perks of incumbency in American politics.

The hill for Democrats to climb in the Iowa Senate just got steeper. State Senator Chaz Allen announced today that he will not seek a second term because of an unspecified “new business opportunity.”

Randy Richardson, retired associate executive director of the Iowa State Education Association, connects some dots. -promoted by desmoinesdem

The very first sentence on the “About” page of the Iowa Association of School Boards (IASB) website reads, “Since 1946, the Iowa Association of School Boards has been committed to serving Iowa school boards and public schools.” However, public school employees may begin to wonder given some of the organization’s recent actions.

Republicans spent more than $420,000 defending Iowa House Majority Leader Chris Hagenow’s seat during the last election cycle. But after Hagenow moved further west to a safer seat, his chosen successor Michael Boal raised under $12,000 during his first four and a half months as a candidate in House district 43.

The latest campaign financial disclosures show Boal has just $3,697.26 cash on hand for a race Democrats have pegged as one of their top state legislative pickup opportunities nationally. Jennifer Konfrst, making her second bid to represent this suburban district, has raised more than $30,000 since the beginning of this year and has $51,257.85 cash on hand.

State Senator Nate Boulton made clear this afternoon he will not resign from the legislature over the sexual misconduct allegations that ended his Democratic campaign for governor in May.

In a written statement posted in full below, he attributed some of his past actions to “binge drinking,” which “has no doubt led me to misread appropriate social boundaries and make choices that I would never tolerate while sober.” Boulton said he began working on his alcohol consumption last November and has not had a drink in months despite the “humiliating public debate” over his behavior. He further resolved to “make my example one of hope for anyone struggling through a personal crisis” and continue serving out his Iowa Senate term, which runs through 2020.

When Fred Hubbell selected State Senator Rita Hart as his running mate, Democrats had to scramble to find a new candidate in Iowa Senate district 49. Patti Robinson announced her candidacy on July 3. She will face Republican Chris Cournoyer, who has been campaigning here since last November.

Hart was favored for re-election, having won by nearly 900 votes in 2014 despite the statewide GOP landslide. However, an open seat should be highly competitive. Both parties may devote hundreds of thousands of dollars to this race, based on spending totals from the battleground Iowa Senate districts during the 2016 cycle.

Democrats are looking at a difficult state Senate map this year and can’t afford to lose any ground to maintain a realistic chance of regaining the majority in 2020. Republicans currently hold 29 of the 50 Senate seats and will pick up Senate district 1, where Iowa’s only independent lawmaker David Johnson is retiring.

Five Iowa Supreme Court justices ruled today that a mandatory 72-hour waiting period for all women seeking abortion violates due process rights and equal protection guaranteed under the state constitution. Planned Parenthood of the Heartland and the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa had challenged that provision, part of a law Republican legislators and Governor Terry Branstad enacted in 2017.

Today’s decision guarantees that the 2018 law banning almost all abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected will be struck down. A lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood, the ACLU of Iowa, and the Emma Goldman Clinic is pending in Polk County District Court.

In addition, the ruling indicates that even if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision in the coming years, Republicans will be unable to ban or severely restrict abortion rights in our state.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Mark Cady rejected the “undue burden” standard for evaluating abortion restrictions, set out by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 1992 Casey decision. I enclose below the full text of the majority opinion and the dissent by Justice Edward Mansfield, whom President Donald Trump has named as a possible U.S. Supreme Court pick. I’ve excerpted some of the most important passages.

A separate section of the 2017 law, banning almost all abortions after 20 weeks gestation, was not challenged in this case and remains in effect.

Some Iowa judicial trivia: today marks the second time the Iowa Supreme Court has overturned an abortion-related ruling by Polk County District Court Judge Jeffrey Farrell. He had also upheld the administrative rule banning the use of telemedicine for abortion. The Supreme Court unanimously struck down that rule in 2015.

“Iowa is on the front lines of this fight for voting rights in America,” Former Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander told state Democratic convention delegates on June 16. “And I’m here because a threat to democracy anywhere in America is a threat to democracy everywhere in America.”

The founder of Let America Vote was the only non-Iowan on the convention speaker’s list. His remarks were a highlight of the morning proceedings, so I’ve enclosed below the audio clip and full transcript. Among the memorable lines: “let’s send a message to every vote-suppressing politician in Iowa and across America that if you want to attack democracy, you’ve got to go through us. And if you want to come for our right to vote, we’re coming for your job.”

Kander has visited our state more than a dozen times in the last year and a half, raising awareness about voter suppression and headlining events for Democratic candidates or progressive organizations. Let America Vote’s executive director Abe Rakov has been based in Des Moines since last fall.

The group will particularly target the Iowa secretary of state race; Kander told reporters yesterday that Democratic nominee Deidre DeJear is “totally awesome.” (Fact check: true.) Let America Vote will also support some state legislative candidates. Last weekend they had interns out canvassing for four Democratic challengers in the suburbs of Des Moines: Heather Matson (House district 38), Karin Derry (House district 39), Kristin Sunde (House district 42), and Jennifer Konfrst (House district 43). Kander said on June 16 that Let America Vote has more than 40 interns on the ground in Iowa and knocked more than 7,000 doors here in the last five days.

A record number of women running for office in Iowa this year has translated into a record number of women who will appear on our state’s general election ballot. Iowa State University’s Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics noted that 85 women (86 percent of female candidates on Iowa’s primary ballot) won their party’s nominations yesterday.

More women than ever will likely win Iowa House seats this November (current number: 28 out of 100). Female representation will almost certainly increase in the state Senate too and could exceed the previous record (ten out of 50 senators in 2013-2014). Follow me after the jump for details.

Governor Kim Reynolds used her item veto power today to preserve a pilot program designed to facilitate fair, cost-effective decisions on pretrial release for criminal defendants.

State Senator David Johnson, the only independent to serve in the Iowa legislature in recent decades, announced today he will not seek re-election in November. He had won four previous state Senate races as a Republican and indicated last year that he planned to run for another term. However, Johnson had neither raised nor spent any money from his campaign account since January 1.

The retirement gives the GOP, which already holds 29 of the 50 seats in the upper chamber, a clear shot at picking up Senate district 1 in the state’s northwest corner. According to the latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office, this district contains 7,304 active registered Democrats, 20,589 Republicans, and 13,333 no-party voters. Only one seat (nearby Senate district 2) is more heavily skewed toward the GOP. Brad Price, Zach Whiting, and Jesse Wolfe are competing for the GOP nomination in Johnson’s district. Democrats did not field a candidate here.

Continuing a series on news from the Iowa legislature’s 2018 session that attracted little attention before lawmakers adjourned for the year.

The Iowa Senate confirmed almost everyone Governor Kim Reynolds nominated for a state board or commission this year with unanimous or near-unanimous support. However, opposition from Democratic senators blocked three of the governor’s more than 200 appointees (full list here).

Catching up on news overshadowed by the biggest Iowa politics story of the week: on May 23 a group of Iowa House Democrats dropped their legal challenge to Governor Kim Reynolds’ use of emergency funds without legislative approval last September. Reynolds transferred $13 million from the Iowa Economic Emergency Fund to cover a shortfall in the fiscal 2017 budget, despite a warning from State Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald that Iowa law did not permit that action.

State Representative Chris Hall, the ranking Democrat on the Iowa House Appropriations Committee, filed suit in January, charging that Reynolds and Department of Management Director David Roederer “conspired together to unlawfully appropriate and misuse state funds.” The lawsuit alleged that the governor acted unilaterally in order to avoid the political fallout from calling the legislature back for a special session. House Democrats Marti Anderson, Liz Bennett, Bruce Hunter, Jerry Kearns, Monica Kurth, and Amy Nielsen joined the legal action a few weeks later.

Republican legislators tacitly acknowledged that Reynolds broke the law. They added language to a bill cutting current-year spending that retroactively legalized the governor’s action and appropriated $13 million from the emergency fund to the general fund for fiscal year 2017. (See page 8 of Senate File 2117, which both chambers passed along party lines in March.)

“Our legal challenge held Governor Reynolds and Republicans accountable, and it did so without costing taxpayers a single dime,” Hall said in a news release enclosed in full below. “We have seen too many cover ups and not enough leadership from the Reynolds administration. This is a victory for taxpayers and ensures that our tax dollars will be spent according to the law.”

UPDATE: I should have mentioned that there would be little to gain by following through with this lawsuit. Once the legislature passed and Reynolds signed Senate File 2117, a court would almost certainly have dismissed the case as moot.

Continuing a series on Iowa legislative happenings that attracted little notice while the House and Senate were in session.

State officials will be barred from “any outside employment or activity that requires the person to register under the federal Foreign Agents Registration Act,” under a new law that takes effect on July 1. In addition, applicants for state jobs or nominees for any position that requires Iowa Senate confirmation will have to disclose whether they have ever registered as foreign agents.

Randy Richardson has the rundown on how the Iowa legislature’s final actions of 2018 will affect public school districts and higher education. -promoted by desmoinesdem

While controversial issues like abortion and tax reform grabbed the headlines last week, a number of bills impacting education saw last-minute approval before the Iowa House and Senate adjourned for the year on May 5.

A personal reflection by Jon Muller. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Those who read my posts have come to expect conclusions based on data, some level of quantification of a process, phenomenon, or proposal. There are plenty of data with respect to abortion that might inform our views, but this is simply my spiritual and moral view with respect to two claims.

1) Choosing to terminate a pregnancy is not a moral question.

2) The right of a woman to have an abortion should not be infringed.

Alexandra Rucinski is a patient advocate for Planned Parenthood and an activist for sex education and reproductive rights. Iowa’s near-total abortion ban inspired her to write this commentary. -promoted by desmoinesdem

I vividly remember the only sex-ed class I ever took in high school. A woman who worked for Planned Parenthood came to teach our class. I remember eyeing her with distrust as she talked about things absolutely forbidden to me. I didn’t listen because I felt like I wasn’t supposed to listen.

The top Republican appropriator for the justice system wanted to get some things off his chest last night. So State Representative Gary Worthan turned a speech about a budget bill into an extended rant about Democratic Attorney General Tom Miller.

A coalition of true believers, cowards, and cynical manipulators worked together in the Iowa House and Senate last night to pass what will be the country’s most extreme anti-abortion law as soon as Governor Kim Reynolds signs the legislation.

Last night’s highly irregular Iowa House proceedings inspired Matt Chapman’s latest commentary. The chamber’s rules do not normally permit debate past midnight, but Republicans approved an amended version of a terrible energy bill a little past 5 am. A forthcoming Bleeding Heartland post will discuss the substantive changes to the legislation, which goes back to the Iowa Senate. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Senate File 2311, the Aliant Energy/Mid-American omnibus energy bill, was trotted out in the Iowa House after a more than eight-hour caucus after 10:00 pm last night. Much like last year’s bill that busted the unions for 180,000 public employees, this cowardly approach of sneaking legislation through while working Iowans are sleeping seems to be on par with the GOP’s values.

Marty Ryan is a nearly retired lobbyist after 27 Iowa legislative sessions. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Lawmakers have introduced a glut of proposed amendments to Iowa’s Constitution in the legislature this year. So far, only two have survived. House Joint Resolution 2009 would guarantee the right to bear arms. Both chambers would have to pass identical language during the Eighty-Eighth General Assembly (2019-2020) in order to put that amendment on the November 2020 ballot for Iowans to approve or disapprove.

The other proposal is Senate Joint Resolution 2006, which would change the procedure for who succeeds the governor in case of death, resignation, impeachment, or inability to carry out the duties of governor. It also redefines the procedure for accomplishing that transition.

Reading the legalese of the legislative document will have you bored to death, confused, or excited to solve it like a New York Times Sunday Crossword Puzzle.

State Representative Marti Anderson is a Democrat serving her third term in the Iowa House. Before that, she was founding director of the Iowa Attorney General’s Crime Victim Assistance Division for 22 years. -promoted by desmoinesdem

It is time for an Iowa Crime Victim Rights Constitutional Amendment that will give constitutional standing to basic crime victim rights in the Iowa Code. Basic crime victim rights in the justice system include: the right to timely notification on the case and on the status of the offender; the right to be present at criminal proceedings; the right to be heard at sentencing and parole; the right to request restitution for financial loss; and the right to court consideration of their safety in all phases of the case.

Some Iowa victim advocates have worked for a crime victim rights amendment for several decades. I’ve filed an amendment each of my three sessions in the House. There are two major differences this year.