Below-the-radar news from Congress, Iowa legislature's opening day
Jan. 12 edition of "KHOI's Capitol Week"
Monday morning, I was excited to be back on the Iowa House press bench for the opening day of the legislative session. I’ll never take it for granted, because I had to fight for years to be seated in the press gallery.
Background for newer subscribers: I first applied for credentials in 2019 and was rejected five times until the Institute for Free Speech filed a federal lawsuit on my behalf in 2024. Within days, I was offered a place with the other journalists.
It’s not all unicorns and rainbows, though. The governor’s office provides an off-the-record briefing every year a few hours before the Condition of the State address to a joint session of the Iowa House and Senate. While many statehouse reporters are routinely invited, I have always been excluded. This year, I got it on video, so you can watch the governor’s press secretary close the door in my face.
I spent much of Tuesday morning listening to oral arguments on Iowa’s school book ban in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. I spent the latter part of the afternoon covering the first Iowa House subcommittee of the year, on an eminent domain bill (we’ll talk more about that next week). Then I headed to the House chamber for governor’s speech to state lawmakers. So this recap is reaching you later than usual.
Speaking of covering the legislature, last week I joined Julie Gammack’s Iowa Potluck Podcast to preview this year’s session. You can watch here and subscribe to Julie’s column if you want to join her for future Monday lunchtime Zoom calls. She always leaves some time for participants to ask questions.
Last Wednesday I moderated a virtual conversation organized by the Heart of Iowa Democrats, featuring Iowa Senate Minority Leader Janice Weiner and Iowa House Minority Whip Sean Bagniewski. You can watch the conversation here.
If you missed the Iowa Down Ballot podcast over the weekend, Dave Price, Kathie Obradovich, and discussed our expectations and what stories we’re most looking forward to covering.
On to the news: the sound file from Monday night’s edition of “KHOI’s Capitol Week” is at the top of this message. You can also find the show through any podcast platform or smart speaker. Here’s a recap of the stories Spencer Dirks and I covered. If your email provider truncates this message, you can read it without interruption here.
Nunn votes to extend health insurance subsidies
When I started planning the show, I didn’t expect to lead with news from Congress, but a lot of big votes happened last week.
You don’t often see the Republican-controlled House of Representatives vote on a Democratic bill, so I explained how this came about. U.S. Representative Zach Nunn (IA-03) wasn’t one of the Republicans who forced a vote on extending Affordable Care Act tax credits, but he did vote for the bill on final passage. That may anger conservatives; Representatives Ashley Hinson (IA-02) and Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-01) are certainly not going to give Nunn cover for his vote.
My post from Sunday morning walked through this story and Nunn’s political predicament in more detail:
Nunn, Miller-Meeks both crossed the aisle—but one kept it quiet
This original reporting and analysis first appeared at Bleeding Heartland and is shared here as part of the Iowa Writers Coll…
The Republican-controlled Senate already rejected a Democratic proposal to extend the ACA tax credits, so this House bill is dead on arrival. But senators are working on a bipartisan deal. We’ll see how it plays out.
Almost every Democratic candidate for U.S. House or Senate in Iowa blasted Republicans last week, saying they voted to make health care more expensive for Iowans. You can expect to hear much more about this issue throughout the campaign.
Miller-Meeks votes to override two Trump vetoes
In late December, President Donald Trump vetoed two bills, related to a water infrastructure project in Colorado and a bill transferring some land in the Florida Everglades to a Native American tribe. These were not controversial; both had cleared the House and Senate unanimously. Trump’s veto message didn’t express any problem with the substance of either bill.
Last week, Miller-Meeks was among just 20 House Republicans who voted to override both vetoes, Jamie Dupree noted in his Regular Order newsletter. Both motions fell well short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass the bill over the president’s objection.
As I wrote in my weekend post (embedded above), I don’t know why Miller-Meeks took this stand, or why she kept quiet about it. The votes are public record. The White House can see what she did. To my mind, a bipartisan vote is more helpful if people know you stood up to the president.
On the other hand, I get why Miller-Meeks doesn’t want to publicly criticize Trump, who endorsed her re-election campaign in November. She wasn’t the only House Republican who didn’t advertise their votes on these motions.
To my knowledge, I was the only Iowa reporter to cover this story. A long-running pet peeve for me is that most mainstream media coverage of Congress is rooted in the messages officials want to push out (through press releases, social media posts, or conference calls with hand-picked reporters).
I am committed to seeking out news that matters, and not only what the Iowans in Congress want people to know about their work.
Pesticide immunity language dropped from government funding bill
Speaking of Congressional happenings that didn’t get much attention, we mentioned on last week’s show that former State Senator Jim Carlin (the MAGA Republican running against Hinson in the U.S. Senate primary) had spoken out against efforts to sneak pesticide immunity language into a federal government funding bill.
Chris Clayton, an excellent reporter on the agriculture beat, reported last Tuesday for the Progressive Farmer/DTN website, “The pesticide industry saw a lobbying setback on Monday when the U.S. House Appropriations Committee stripped out a provision in the bill that would have shielded pesticide manufacturers from lawsuits.”
The House and Senate are still finalizing language in a “minibus” package of several spending bills, but it seems unlikely they will complete work on the federal budget for fiscal year 2026 before the January 30 deadline. I expect Congress to approve another continuing spending resolution later this month to avoid a shutdown.
Hinson defends ICE killing in Minneapolis
Most of Iowa’s elected officials haven’t publicly commented on the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by a trigger-happy ICE agent in Minneapolis last week. But someone asked Hinson about it during her conference call with reporters last Friday. I always have to rely on other journalists for this kind of story, because Hinson and her staff have never allowed me to participate in any of her calls.
Stephen Gruber-Miller reported for the Des Moines Register,
"This woman interfered with an ICE agent who was doing his job," Hinson said. "She was accelerating toward him and that’s clear."
That’s not consistent with what I saw on any of the videos. More from the Register:
"So we’ve seen this unhinged rhetoric against our law enforcement, much of it fueled by the media, and it has encouraged Americans to ignore the laws that we have on the books," Hinson said. "If you don’t get in the way of ICE agents, it won’t be a problem for you. And I always stand with and support our law enforcement."
KHOI wants hosts to avoid editorializing on the air, but in this space I can say that is a disgusting take on a tragedy. Hinson should watch this retired ICE agent break down everything the shooter did wrong, and how he escalated the situation immediately.
Grassley, Ernst stick with Trump on Venezuela
It’s still not clear how long the military operation in Venezuela will last or what the Trump administration’s endgame is. But the Senate will debate a war powers resolution on Venezuela, after five Republicans voted with Democats to get the ball rolling. Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst voted against starting debate on the “joint resolution to direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against Venezuela that have not been authorized by Congress.”
Iowa’s senators are apparently content to write Trump a blank check on this misadventure. One of my helpful readers emailed Grassley’s office about the issue and forwarded a lengthy reply. In that message, Grassley praised the action to arrest former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and defended the administration not informing Congress ahead of time. He echoed Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s comments: “this operation was not an invasion or act of war,” but rather “a law enforcement function to capture a U.S indicted fugitive.”
What are the next steps for the Senate debate? Jamie Dupree explained on Friday, “Under the rules, a war powers resolution cannot be stopped by a filibuster. 10 hours of debate would be allowed, with unlimited amendments - which could bring a Vote-a-Rama as soon as next week.”
Grassley annoyed by exclusion from Venezuela briefing
While Iowa’s senators haven’t criticized the strikes in Venezuela, Grassley was upset that members of the Judiciary Committee were excluded from a January 5 briefing about the Maduro arrest. I was surprised to see a joint statement from him and Senator Dick Durbin, the ranking Democrat on the pane. Excerpt:
“President Trump and Secretary Rubio have stated that this was a law enforcement operation that was made at the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) request, with assistance from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The Senate Judiciary Committee has jurisdiction over DOJ, FBI and DEA, and all three agencies are led by individuals who our Committee vetted and processed. The Attorney General herself will be present at today’s briefing.
“There is no legitimate basis for excluding the Senate Judiciary Committee from this briefing. The administration’s refusal to acknowledge our Committee’s indisputable jurisdiction in this matter is unacceptable and we are following up to ensure the Committee receives warranted information regarding Maduro’s arrest.”
It’s clear that arresting Maduro was never Trump’s primary objective. The president wants the U.S. to run the country in some capacity, and he wants U.S. oil companies to get some of Venezuela’s oil.
Grassley asks colleagues to remember “proper decorum”
As the most senior senator from the majority party, Grassley presided over the opening day of the second year of this Congress. He used the opportunity to “remind all Senators and staff of the rules and precedents regarding proper decorum in debate.” Linking again to Jamie Dupree’s Regular Order newsletter, which quoted from Grassley’s remarks:
“In my capacity as President pro tempore of the Senate, I wish to remind all Senators and staff of the rules and precedents regarding proper decorum in debate in the Senate chamber. Rule XIX, paragraph two reads quote, ‘No Senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of words, impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator.’ In addition, the precedents of the Senate require Senators when addressing each other, to do so in the third person and through the Chair. Senators shall address and refer to one another using proper titles, such as the Senator from Iowa, the Chairman, or the Majority Leader, and refrain from using first names and other monikers.”
It seems so quaint in Donald Trump’s America to chide people about lack of decorum. We are way past the point of expecting politicians to interact in a civil way with adversaries.
Incidentally, the Iowa House and Senate have similar rules of decorum,: don’t impugn other people’s motives, don’t address other legislators directly unless they agree to yield, and so on. I have often seen legislators call points of order on colleagues who cross the line.
Opening day in the Iowa legislature
We spent about half the show talking about the first day of the 2026 legislative session. At Bleeding Heartland, I published comprehensive guides on both parties’ leadership teams and members of all the committees. You can bookmark those here:
Two new members were sworn in: Republican Wendy Larson in the House and Democrat Renee Hardman in the Senate.
Some basics: The Republican majority is 67-33 in the Iowa House (the same as last year). The Senate majority is now 33-17, smaller than last year.
The Iowa House now has 71 men and 29 women. That’s two more women than last year because of Angel Ramirez winning the special election for Sami Scheetz’ seat in April, and Larson winning the special for Mike Sexton’s seat in December.
The Iowa Senate now has 36 men and 14 women. That’s one more woman than last year, because Caitlin Drey won the special election to succeed the late Rocky De Witt, and Hardman won the race to succeed the late Claire Celsi.
The Iowa Senate now has two Black members for the first time in history. The House has six Black members, the same as last year. With Ramirez, the Iowa House now has three Latino members now, for the first time in history.
I always enjoy tracking first name trends in the Iowa legislature. The 150 lawmakers include six men named Mike or Michael (four in the Senate, two in the House). There are also six men named David (four in the House, two in the Senate). Gen X is well represented with two Jennifers, two Shannons, and two Heathers. Millennials are rising with two Austins and two Megans.
Remarkably, there is only one Mary left in the Iowa legislature. As recently as 2020 there were four.
What to expect for a legislative timeline
The first week there are a lot of formalities: addresses by the governor, the Iowa Supreme Court chief justice, and the leader of the Iowa National Guard. After this week, the focus will be on committee work, with relatively few bills reaching the floor of either chamber.
In theory, lawmakers are supposed to approve a K-12 school funding level within 30 days of the governor presenting her budget on January 13. They haven’t met that deadline for quite a while.
February 20 is the first “funnel” deadline. Most policy bills not approved by at least one House or Senate committee will not advance. March 20 is the second “funnel” deadline: most policy bills will need to have gone through one chamber and at least one committee in the other chamber. Tax and spending bills are not subject to funnel deadlines, and plenty of “dead” bills come back to life as amendments later in the session.
The scheduled end date for the legislature is April 21, the 100th day. Usually they go into overtime. However, lawmakers like to adjourn a bit earlier in the even-numbered years so incumbents have time to campaign.
Even though property taxes and the budget could be hangups, I am going out on a limb to say I think they will adjourn by the end of April. A bunch of the Republicans will have primary challengers, and I don’t think they can afford to let the session drag into May.
Senate Republicans roll out property tax bill
The Senate Republicans released a 100-page property tax bill on Monday. Majority Leader Mike Klimesh said it would “strip the old, broken system down to its chassis and rebuild it.” He promised the proposal would “bring relief to Iowans facing rising costs,” help restore aging roads and bridges, and help people stay in their family homes.
Full disclosure: I have not read the whole text of Senate Study Bill 3001. It’s complicated, and I am eager to see what subject matter experts think. At first glance I think this approach would be hard for a lot of school districts to withstand. One part of the bill says that Iowans at least 60 years old would pay no property tax on “unencumbered homesteads” (a primary residence that is fully paid for, with no outstanding mortgage). That would be burdensome for cities with a high proportion of older residence.
I recorded the media briefing where Klimesh and Senate Ways and Means Committee chair Dan Dawson discussed the bill. But reporters were limited in our ability to ask detailed questions, because none of us had had time to absorb all the moving parts.
House Republicans plan “tough on crime” package
House Speaker Pat Grassley and new Majority Leader Bobby Kaufmann both promised to work on property tax reform this year as well. A House bill is expected soon. In his opening day remarks, though, Grassley spent more time talking about legislation to address crime. You can read the prepared remarks here.
After referencing some horrific attacks and murders that repeat offenders committed in other states, Grassley called for “three strikes and you’re out” legislation: “Dangerous criminals that insist on repeatedly breaking our laws will not be allowed back onto the streets.”
Iowa’s violent crime rate is not rising, and our prisons are already overcrowded. I do think “tough on crime” is a perennial campaign issue for Republicans, though.
Democratic lawmakers will likely argue that Iowa prisons are not sufficiently staffed now–how will they cope with more incarcerated people? Where will the money come from?
Grassley also promised to work on eminent domain (we’ll discuss that more next week), and was a bit defensive in talking about the state budget. You can watch a clip of those remarks here. Final line: “So Iowans – ignore the fear mongering and enjoy the extra cash in your wallet.”
Senate president calls on colleagues to “tone down our rhetoric”
Senate President Amy Sinclair used part of her opening remarks to call for more civility. She said, “Today, people of all political flavors have taken name calling to new extremes. When people disagree, it has become disagreeable. The debate no longer stops with policy descriptions; it has spiraled into slurs aimed at dehumanizing the opposition.”
She acknowledged the Democratic leaders assassinated in Minnesota last June as well as conservative influencer Charlie Kirk:
Melissa Hortman and her husband did not deserve to die, and John Hoffman and his wife did not deserve to be critically injured for serving the citizens of Minnesota. My heart grieved when a young man was callously murdered for speaking truth; Charlie Kirk’s life was more valuable and his call to civil discourse more powerful than the bullet that took him from us. In a time where our nation and our state, even our neighborhoods, have become divided along party lines – left and right, right and wrong, good and evil – I encourage each of us to tone down our rhetoric and get to work on what Iowans are telling us they really want […]
You can read the full text of Sinclair’s prepared remarks here.
Iowa Senate leader uses committee assignments to discipline rebels
Among other things, the Senate Majority leader makes committee assignments. And Klimesh has already used that power to discipline a few members of his own caucus.
Doug Campbell, a first-term Republican senator from the Mason City area, lost all of his committee assignments. That is rare. Ihe only other time in recent memory I can think of was when State Senator David Johnson left the GOP in 2017 over opposition to Trump. The majority leader at the time took all of his committee assignments away. That’s not quite the same, though, since Johnson was an independent. Campbell is still a Republican.
Klimesh was asked last month why some members of his caucus, and emphasized the importance of “loyalty.” The conservative Iowa Standard website has said it’s because Campbell endorsed a primary challenger running against his colleague Dave Rowley. (I wasn’t able to get any comment for the record from Campbell or from Senate Republican staff.)
Several other Republican senators who were at the center of last year’s rebellion over eminent domain (Mark Lofgren, Kevin Alons, Dave Sires, and Sandy Salmon) lost one or more influential committee assignments.
Why does it matter if someone loses committee assignments? It limits the work they can do on issues that are important to them and/or their constituents. The vast majority of legislative work happens in subcommittees or committees.
It’s less likely any of their bills will advance. Campbell was the leading advocate for one of the big anti-vaccine bills last year (the one that would have banned mRNA vaccines in Iowa).
A motion is circulating among Iowa GOP county central committees, to censure Klimesh for punishing members of his caucus who support policies that are part of the Republican platform. I’m working on a Bleeding Heartland post that will discuss this drama in more detail.
Rowley isn’t the only Senate Republican facing a primary challenger. Annette Sweeney (a pro-CO2 pipeline senator) has an opponent emphasizing property rights. Klimesh may have been sending a warning shot to protect some of his other members.
What Democrats said to start the session
Democrats don’t have the numbers to control the legislative agenda. But the new House Minority Leader Brian Meyer said his caucus would focus on three things: public education, affordability, and quality of life.
“Iowa House Democrats will be committed to one clear goal this session: Fighting for every Iowan who’s been left behind after nearly a decade of one-party control,” he said.
Grassley had defended the Republican record on the state budget and tax cuts. But Meyer said, “our state budget is in a fiscal death spiral.” We’re going to hear a lot more about this as lawmakers debate spending bills in April.
Senate Minority Leader Janice Weiner said senators have “been through the wringer” after two members died since last session (Rocky De Witt and Claire Celsi).
She welcomed Klimesh as new leader and said she hoped for a “renewed commitment to the bipartisan cooperation that Iowans expect.” There will have to be at least a little cooperation on confirmations, with no GOP supermajority.
You can read the prepared remarks from Meyer here and Weiner here.
Kari Lake laying groundwork for Iowa campaign?
MS NOW was first to report last week that a family trust connected to Kari Lake, who is best known as an unsuccessful Republican candidate for governor and Senate in Arizona, bought a condo in Davenport.
I was a bit disappointed an Iowa journalist didn’t break this story. Maybe we all need more hustle! I’m always open to confidencial tips about politically salient property purchases in Iowa.
Lake grew up in rural Scott County. It’s not clear how much time she’ll spend in Davenport, but the move has increased speculation she plans run for Senate here in 2028. Here’s what she told the Des Moines Register:
“I love Iowa. It’s where I was raised, where I went to college, and where so much of my story began,” Lake said in a Jan. 7 statement provided to the Des Moines Register. “Expanding our roots there means being closer to family and closer to the values that shaped me. Right now, I am focused on my mission to help President Trump Make America Great Again and on the work ahead, because what’s good for America is good for both Arizona and Iowa.”
A lot of Republicans have been waiting a long time for Grassley to retire. I don’t see Lake clearing the field, and I think she may struggle to convince primary voters she’s the best option for a statewide race.
For what it’s worth, I do expect Grassley to retire in 2028, when he will be 95 years old. But as I reported in August, he hasn’t ruled out running for a ninth term.
Ernst endorses Hinson for Senate
Finally, we noted that on Saturday, Ernst gave her formal endorsement to Hinson for Senate at a campaign event in Adel. We spent just a few seconds discussing this “news,” because it’s been obvious for a long time that Ernst and Hinson closely coordinated their plans. Hours after Ernst made her plan to retire official in early September, Hinson launched her campaign with more than half a dozen high-profile endorsers.
That’s all for now! Thank you for reading or listening.
I always appreciate the line you take in reporting facts in this age where those who scream the loudest (Joe Rogan?) garner the most ears.
To my mind, you’re a modern day Joe Friday - “Just the facts, ma’am.”
Thank you for your broadcast. Especially now, while the whole country is turning upside down. Subscribe to Iowa politics with Laura Belin.