Bousselot exploring governor's race, new U.S. Senate and House candidates, and more

April 21 edition of "KHOI's Capitol Week"

Mike Bousselot posed with U.S. Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina at the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition’s spring kickoff in Clive on April 12.

I took a short break from writing this weekend to attend an Iowa Writers’ Collaborative retreat at the historic Hotel Manning in Keosauqua. I’d never been to Van Buren County, and it was a treat to walk in the woods on Friday with Lora Conrad, one of the outstanding guest authors for Bleeding Heartland’s Iowa wildflower Wednesday series.

For Saturday, Julie Gammack and Rachelle Chase organized a full day of small group discussions and presentations on best Substack practices (Jason Walsmith took some photos).

We were guests that evening for a delicious dinner in a renovated 1868 schoolhouse, and some of us enjoyed an impromptu folk music concert in the hotel lobby featuring Jason, Chip Albright, and David Wolf (who is married to IWC columnist Wini Moranville).

The relaxing weekend put me a bit behind schedule on preparing for Monday night’s radio show. Spencer Dirks commented afterwards that my “eyes were bigger than my stomach” in terms of what I thought we could cover in 30 minutes. So a few topics got pushed to next week.

The sound file from our April 21 show is embedded at the top of this message. If you mainly want to listen, can also subscribe to “KHOI’s Capitol Week” on any podcast platform, or find it through smart speakers. The full archive (going back to February 2021) is available on KHOI’s website.

For those who (like me) would rather read than listen, here’s your detailed written recap. If your email provider truncates this message, you can read it without interruption at this link.

We began with a few thoughts about the passing of Pope Francis. Like many Jews I appreciated his commitment to interfaith understanding and building relationships, which went back to his days as Bishop of the Buenos Aires diocese in Argentina. This article from the Jewish Telegraph Agency explains in more detail how Pope Francis “significantly advanced the Catholic Church’s relationship with Jews by actively promoting dialogue, reconciliation and a strong stance against antisemitism.”

On to our review of the week in Iowa politics:

Mike Bousselot exploring campaign for governor

I had to revise the format on Monday after State Senator Mike Bousselot announced that he is exploring a campaign for governor in 2026. Bousselot represented part of Ankeny for a year in the Iowa House and was elected to the Iowa Senate in 2022. Before that, he was a senior staffer to Governor Terry Branstad, who said in a news release that he was “pleased” to see Bousselot consider running for governor.

I was intrigued that Bousselot wanted to be first out of the gate. Quite a few Republicans have said they are not ruling out this race, but he’s the first to take the next step. That generated more media coverage than if he had waited for better-known politicians like Attorney General Brenna Bird to make the first move.

The press release repeatedly characterized Bousselot as a supporter of Donald Trump: “He has long supported President Trump and the Make America Great Again, America First agenda, and served as attorney for the President on Caucus Night to protect election integrity.” That sent me down a rabbit hole on Monday afternoon. I couldn’t find any news reports or Trump campaign press releases that listed Bousselot among the president’s endorsers before the 2024 caucuses. I also couldn’t immediately find any campaign finance filing to indicate the campaign paid him for legal services (that doesn’t mean he didn’t do the work—I’m seeking further information about it). I don’t recall Bousselot attending any Trump rallies, where state legislators often got a shout out from the stage.

The statement also used Branstad as a validator, not only for Bousselot’s talent, but for his affinity to Trump. Branstad asserted, “Mike worked hand-in-hand with President Trump’s team during the President’s first term, and he will be a fighter for President Trump again.” I don’t recall Bousselot publicly associating himself with Trump, and he comes across as more of a “country club Republican” than a MAGA warrior.

It’s no secret that to win a GOP primary, any Republican candidate would need Trump’s blessing or at minimum the president’s neutrality. I am skeptical Trump would get behind Bousselot. I think he will be looking to back a staunch public ally like Bird or former acting U.S. Attorney General Matt Whitaker, who is now the ambassador to NATO.

While some observers are predicting a “wide-open” GOP primary for governor, I don’t see that happening unless both Bird and Whitaker pass on the race.

I would guess it’s more likely that Bousselot will run for a different statewide office (such as state auditor), rather than governor. I also question whether Pat Grassley, Mike Naig, Bobby Kaufmann, are realistic candidates for governor.

If Bousselot does run for governor, he will need to overcome some serious baggage, including floor managing the pesticide immunity bill in the Iowa Senate this year and helping to bury legislative efforts to restrict eminent domain and CO2 pipelines. He worked for one of Bruce Rastetter’s companies after leaving the governor’s office, and Rastetter is a key figure behind the Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline. I think that would be a huge problem in a GOP primary.

I didn’t mention this during the show, because we were pressed for time. But I want to flag here that Iowa Senate district 21, covering most of Ankeny, will be a top Democratic target in the 2026 legislative races, whether Bousselot seeks re-election to the Senate or a statewide office.

Nathan Sage kicks off U.S. Senate campaign

Last Wednesday, Nathan Sage became the first Democrat to throw in his hat against Senator Joni Ernst. He’s a friend and former colleague of Spencer’s from the Knoxville radio station. Iowa Writers Collaborative author Robert Leonard wrote on his Deep Midwest newsletter that he suggested Nathan as a possible candidate when meeting with consultants who had worked for Dan Osborn’s independent campaign for Senate in Nebraska last year.

We discussed Sage’s background and the digital ad that kicked off his campaign. You can watch that ad and my interview with Sage in the post I published a few days ago. He was on MSNBC with Jonathan Capehart over the weekend; watch that clip here.

Dave Price, Kathie Obradovich and I also talked about the campaign on the “Iowa Down Ballot” podcast.

Democrats will almost certainly have a competitive primary for the chance to take on Senator Joni Ernst. Speculation has centered around State Senator Zach Wahls and State Representatives J.D. Scholten and Josh Turek. I don’t expect all three of them to run; others may join the field.

Sage has a campaign operation already—raising money, organizing media hits, out with a well-produced digital ad. I think his biggest challenge will be persuading Democratic primary voters—who tend to be committed activists—to take a chance on someone who hasn’t run for office before and hasn’t been involved with the local party. He doesn’t have the same record as the legislators in terms of public positions on issues Democrats care about.

Kevin Techau running against Ashley Hinson in IA-02

On Thursday Kevin Techau announced he’s running for Congress in Iowa’s second district, covering the northeast part of the state. Techau is best known as a former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Iowa, which includes most of the counties that are part of the second Congressional district, during President Barack Obama’s second term. Governor Tom Vilsack appointed him to be Iowa Commissioner of Public Safety during the 1990s. He also served seven years on active duty in the Air Force and then nearly 20 years as an officer in the Iowa Air National Guard. You can read more about Techau’s background on his campaign website.

I interviewed the candidate last Thursday and shared a few of his comments about why he decided to run and what his main message will be. (A forthcoming post will include the full video from that interview.)

When he left as U.S. attorney in 2017, some encouraged him to run for Congress (that would have been against Rod Blum). But it wasn’t the right time for him. After the 2024 election, he’s talked with family and others.

From his perspective, “Ashley Hinson has turned her back” on the district, not following through on issues she campaigned on, like lowering prices for people. He said Hinson has aligned herself with Elon Musk, who has had a “reckless” and “ruthless” approach that hurts the middle class.

Earlier this month, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced that it will target IA-02 as well as the first and third districts. Techau told me he was “well down the road” of planning his campaign before he got that news.

Hinson will clearly be favored to win a fourth term. But Techau should be able to mount a strong campaign. His background in law enforcement will make it difficult for Hinson to rely on tired Republican talking points about Democrats being soft on crime or for open borders. Techau’s website notes, “As U.S. Attorney, Techau led an office that successfully prosecuted high-profile business crime, drug trafficking, environmental crime, gun violence, immigration crimes and health care fraud. Cedar Rapids Chief of Police Wayne Jerman praised Techau as ‘instrumental in stepping up the fight against the opioid crisis,’ highlighting Techau’s service in tackling gun violence and drug trafficking.”

If the economy melts down and 2026 turns out to be a really bad year for Republicans, keep an eye on this race. On paper it is only slightly more GOP-leaning than the first district covering southeast Iowa. The main difference is that Hinson has outperformed the top of the ticket while Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks has underperformed.

Hinson’s campaign released statement last Wednesday accusing Techau of “running because of his vendetta against Donald Trump.” I asked him to comment, and he said he stands on his record, having taken an oath four times to protect the constitution.

One more point: northeast Iowa includes some counties that had very large swings from Obama to Trump. This race could indicate whether that realignment will continue to hold for down-ballot GOP candidates when Trump is not on the ballot. Hinson carried Dubuque County in the last two elections and Techau (who lived in Dubuque as a child) would need to do well there to have a chance of beating the incumbent.

Travis Terrell first Democrat to declare in IA-01

I learned last week that Travis Terrell, who grew up in Ottumwa in a working-class family and now lives in Johnson County, is running for Congress in the first district. He wrote on his website, “I’m running for Congress because people like us — people from towns like Ottumwa — deserve better. We deserve leaders who don’t just show up for photo ops, but who live the struggle and carry it with them into every vote they cast.” And he wrote on his Facebook page, “This campaign is about telling the truth, standing up to the powerful, and making damn sure regular people get a seat at the table—because we’re the ones who built this country, and we’re done getting ignored.”

Terrell actually announced his candidacy in early April with this digital ad, but I didn’t see it until last week, which is why we hadn’t covered his campaign on previous shows.

Although Terrell doesn’t mention Bernie Sanders directly, he’s running on what you might call a Bernie platform: it’s a “people-powered campaign,” standing for principles such as “health care is a human right,” equality for all, raising wages, and getting corporate money out of politics.

I do expect Christina Bohannan, the Democratic candidate in this district from 2022 and 2024, to run for Congress again. The last two cycles she announced in the summer. With higher name ID and strong fundraising, she will be heavily favored against Terrell in the primary. But sometimes a competitive primary election helps a candidate hone their message and forces them to do more campaigning early on.

How we decide which candidates to cover

Since we’re going to see more candidate announcements in the coming weeks and months, I wanted to explain our approach to covering next year’s competitive Democratic or Republican primaries. Readers may wonder how we decide which candidates to mention on the show. I wrote more about my editorial policy at Bleeding Heartland.

A lot of people may announce they are running for office, but it’s a huge undertaking to qualify for the ballot for a federal or statewide race. Even for experienced candidates, it can be challenging. (Ron Corbett and Theresa Greenfield learned the hard way in 2018, and Abby Finkenauer and Tom Miller had close calls in 2022.)

So if you wonder why we’re not talking about, say, Paul Dahl, who announced a few months ago that he’s running for governor as a Democrat, it’s because he declared he was running for governor in 2014, and also said he was running for Congress in 2018. Dahl never filed nominating papers or built any kind of campaign apparatus. So until I see some indication that he will appear on the 2026 primary ballot, I’m not spending time talking about his candidacy.

To be clear: this doesn’t mean Spencer and I are only going to focus on front-runners or won’t be talking about long-shot candidates. At this time in 2017, hardly anyone had heard of Cindy Axne. But she put in the work and was able to win a competitive three-way primary for Congress in the third district. She went on to beat David Young in November 2018.

Factors I am looking for when deciding which candidates have the capacity to compete for the nomination:

• filing paperwork with the campaign regulator (first legal step to having an actual campaign)

• some kind of campaign activity (website, Facebook page, public events)

• hiring staff or working with consultants (you can’t do it alone for a federal or statewide race)

• fundraising–not because the best-funded candidate always wins, but because you need to raise some significant amount of money to get your message to primary voters across the state or a Congressional district spanning 20+ counties.

First quarter Congressional candidate fundraising

I didn’t want to hit people with a lot of numbers, but since April 15 was a reporting deadline for Congressional candidates, we mentioned a few highlights from the Iowa delegation’s filings, which you can find on the Federal Election Commission’s website.

Miller-Meeks rasied about $984,000, much lot more than usual for her. She brought in far more money from PACs (more than $720,000) than from individual donors ($206,00). She has more than $1 million cash on hand. Her campaign benefited from funds transferred from her own “victory” fund and a fundraising committee affiliated with House Majority Whip Tom Emmer.

I forgot to mention during the show that Miller-Meeks’ GOP primary challenger, David Pautsch, raised only about $8,000 during the first quarter. He’ll need to do better than that.

Iowa’s other highly vulnerable Republican, Zach Nunn in the third district, raised about $755,000, which seemed much higher than usual for him. And it didn’t take me long to see why: only about $155K came from individuals donating to his campaign. He got more than $321K from PACs and nearly $270K in transfers from other committees, mostly those controlled by House Speaker Mike Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, and Majority Whip Tom Emmer. This shows that House leaders understand Nunn is going to need a lot of help.

Hinson raised more than $515,009, about two-thirds from individuals and the rest from PACs. She has more than $2.2 million cash on hand.

Randy Feenstra brought in about $800,000 during the first quarter and has more than $1.6 million cash on hand. Although IA-04 is a solidly Republican district, Feenstra is likely to face a GOP challenger again next year, so may need to spend heavily before the June primary.

Field set for Iowa House district 78 special election

Residents of southeast Cedar Rapids will elect a new state lawmaker on Tuesday, April 29. Last week we talked about the Democratic nominee Angel Ramirez, a co-founder and executive director of the nonprofit Our Future. Republicans nominated Bernie Hayes, a retired systems engineer who worked for Rockwell Collins for many years. He is also the chair of the Linn County GOP and has run for the Iowa Senate twice.

I wrote more about the candidates and the district at Bleeding Heartland.

This is a heavily Democratic area, so Ramirez will be favored to succeed Sami Scheetz, who stepped down earlier this month to become a Linn County supervisor.

Another tense town hall for Chuck Grassley

U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley made national news last week after constituents confronted him in Fort Madison for failing to stand up against the Trump administration. You can watch the full video on C-SPAN. The Des Moines Register covered the town hall here.

Grassley spoke to reporters after the town hall, and I was stunned by his comments on Trump’s failure to help bring back Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was wrongly sent to a mega-prison in El Salvador.

“If there's a constitutional crisis, it's not being caused by President Trump,” Grassley said. “It's being caused by the president of El Salvador. I would expect our president to act in good faith, and I think our president will do that of making those requests of the president of El Salvador. But whether or not — how the president of El Salvador responds would be up to that president of El Salvador."

There are so many legal problems with these deportations that Grassley isn’t acknowledging.

Grassley said his office received more emails during the first three months of this year than in all of 2024.

The Pen City Current reported on Grassley’s Fort Madison event and his remarks later the same day to business and industry leaders in Burlington. Specifically, he said the work of the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant is important. The facility (a major employer in the Burlington area) has had $400 million in federal funding frozen.

Tough votes ahead for Iowans in Congress

Congress is still on Easter recess, not scheduled to return until April 28. But the Iowa delegation has difficult work ahead. In May they will vote on a package of “rescissions” to already approved funding. Most of that will come out of foreign aid programs. But tougher votes are looming.

The federal government is funded through the end of September. But this summer they are going to need to raise the debt ceiling, which will probably be folded into a large budget reconciliation bill that also includes extending some of the tax cuts from Trump’s first term.

The House and Senate both passed versions of a budget blueprint, but committees are going to do the hard work of finding the savings.

There are a lot of cross-cutting pressures, with some Republicans wanting big cuts to government spending on infrastructure and Medicaid, while others want to preserve those programs.

Miller-Meeks serves on Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over Medicaid. The committee is supposed to cut spending by $880 billion and most people expect that to come out of Medicaid.

Nunn and Feenstra on Agriculture Committee, which is supposed to find at least $230 billion in savings. Most expect that would come out of nutrition programs like SNAP.

Democrats are highlighting these issues. As I recently reported, Bernie Sanders’ campaign has an organizer in Iowa working to highlight the pain these cuts would bring to ordinary Iowans.

The timeline for this work is unclear. I believe the debt ceiling will need to be raised this summer. In September, Congress will need to approve another government funding bill. My impression is that House and Senate leaders want to finish work on the reconciliation bill over the summer. But in 2017 the reconciliation bill that included Trump’s tax cuts wasn’t finalized until December. Most people think that as you get to an election year it will be harder to convince Republicans to vote for painful cuts to Medicaid or other programs.

Reynolds submits waiver request for Medicaid work requirements

We were already starting to run short on time, so we only had about a minute to talk about Governor Reynolds directing the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services “to submit a waiver to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to establish work requirements for able-bodied Medicaid recipients.” The waiver reflects pending Iowa House and Senate legislation; you can read more about the issue in the Des Moines Register.

When these bills were in subcommittee, advocates for many populations, especially disabled Iowans, warned that the exceptions were too narrow. Full-time students or caregivers for seniors, disabled adults, or older children with special needs would not be exempt from the work requirements. When Arkansas implemented a similar policy, a lot of people who lost Medicaid coverage were working enough hours but couldn’t meet the reporting requirements.

Notable bills signed into law

The governor signed a dozen bills on Friday. I wanted to mention a few we had discussed on the show earlier in the year:

• House File 924 lowers the minimum age for possessing or carrying a handgun from 21 to 18. Most Democrats voted against that bill.

• Senate File 266 clarifies that theft, forgery, or fraud involving gift cards are crimes.

• Senate File 397 increased penalties for assaults against people in certain professions, like law enforcement and first responders, corrections workers. It also added inspectors and juvenile detention staff to the list of occupations where assault leads to higher penalties.

• House File 363 clarifies that a person charged in connection with someone else’s death could never be able to determine what happens with that person’s remains. We briefly mentioned that bill on last week’s show because I was fascinated by the Senate debate, which turned into a bigger argument about Republicans’ refusal to accept any Democratic amendments.

House Republicans pass “Baby Olivia” bill

One of the anti-abortion movement’s top legislative priorities cleared the Iowa House on Thursday. Senate File 175 requires schools to show students a video (incorporating computer-generated animation or ultrasound) “that depicts the humanity of the unborn child by showing prenatal human development, starting at fertilization, noting significant markers in cell growth and organ development throughout every stage of pregnancy.” The bill no longer mentions the “Meet Baby Olivia” video produced by the anti-abortion group Live Action, but that video would meet the criteria.

A House amendment made two important changes to the Senate bill. First, the requirements would apply to students in grades 5-12. An earlier version of the bill only covered grades 7-12.

Second, and even more significant: the revised bill would prohibit schools from using videos and other educational materials provided by groups that perform abortions, promote abortion, or refer patients for abortions.

The House floor manager, Republican State Representative Helena Hayes, asserted during floor debate that this “isn’t an abortion bill.” But the idea is that if kids watch these videos repeatedly in school, they will change their views on abortion and not support reproductive rights.

Critics have pointed out that the Baby Olivia video is medically inaccurate. It’s pushing a political agenda rather than unbiased information on human development. There will be no way for parents to exempt their kids from watching such a video. And most troubling: Democratic State Representative Austin Baeth, who is a doctor, warned that the amendment would prevent schools from using materials from major medical centers like the Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, or Johns Hopkins, because all of those facilities perform abortions.

Hayes disputed that point, saying the Iowa Department of Education would adopt rules to implement the bill. She indicated it wasn’t her intent to ban material from major medical centers, because those organizations don’t promote abortion.

The amended bill goes back to the Senate. Hayes told me after the House debate that senators had already agreed to the amendment language. She was very confident it will pass the chamber and go on to the governor.

Legislature mandates “intellectual freedom” center at University of Iowa

The Senate gave final approval last week to House File 437, which would create a Center For Intellectual Freedom at the University of Iowa. It was a party-line vote in the Senate; when House members passed the same bill in March, four Republicans joined Democrats to vote against it.

As Iowa Capital Dispatch reported, the new center “would open with one offered course on American history and civil government and develop campus programming about free speech and civil discourse.” Democrats said the school isn’t needed, since the university already offers courses on those topics. They characterized the bill as an unfunded mandate, since it is expected to cost the university about $1.5 million to run every year.

State Senator Zach Wahls questioned the floor manager, State Senator Kerry Gruenhagen, on whether this school of intellectual freedom would defend foreign students at the University of Iowa who have had their visas revoked, possibly because of their speech or viewpoints. (We know of at least five so far.) He didn’t get a straight answer.

High school students will have to pass citizenship test

Also last week, both chambers approved Senate File 369, which would require high school students to pass the U.S. citizenship exam in order to graduate. That’s a multiple choice test with 100 questions; students would need to answer at least 60 correctly. They could retake the test as many times as needed.

Governor Reynolds included a version of this policy as part of her big education bill in 2023, but House Republicans removed that provision from the bill that later became Senate File 496 (best known for school book bans and don’t say gay/trans)

This bill proved more controversial in the House than the Senate. About half the Senate Democrats joined the majority party to approve the bill.

In the House, only two Democrats supported it and five Republicans joined the rest of the Democrats to vote no. (During the House debate, Republicans voted down a Democratic amendment that would have required all legislators to take the exam as well.) Democratic State Representative Elinor Levin criticized the measure for its emphasis on testing, which she said is not an effective way to make students more civically engaged.

Republicans teeing up constitutional amendment vote on taxes

In 2026, Iowans may vote on a state constitutional amendment making it harder to raise taxes. The Senate approved Senate Joint Resolution 11 along party lines last Tuesday.

The amendment would require a two-thirds vote in the legislature to pass any increase to individual income taxes or corporate taxes.

However, sales and use taxes could be raised with a simple majority vote. Democrats pointed out that Republicans are locking in regressive tax hikes as the only way to get out of a budget crisis that may be coming later this decade.

House approves constitutional amendment on child testimony

On Thursday, House members approved Senate Joint Resolution 9, a state constitutional amendment related to child testimony in criminal cases. This was a priority for Attorney General Brenna Bird in response to an Iowa Supreme Court ruling from last summer. Four justices held that the state constitution does not allow children to testify by remote video in criminal proceedings.

The Senate approved this proposal unanimously in March. The House wanted to take a different approach to solving this problem, but that bill didn’t get through the second funnel in the Senate. So House members passed the constitutional amendment by 87 votes to 6. (Three Republicans and three Democrats opposed the amendment because of concerns about the constitutional rights of defendants.)

Iowa’s lengthy process for amending the state constitution requires this amendment to get through both chambers of the legislature again sometime after the 2026 elections. The earliest it would be on the ballot for voter approval is probably November 2028.

Senate amends open records bill.

We had less than a minute to talk about some last-minute drama in the Iowa Senate last Thursday over what had been an uncontroversial bill related to open records and open meetings.

House File 706 was inspired by transparency problems in Davenport after the May 2023 apartment building collapse. The idea is to increase penalties for open records and open meetings violations, and to require more training for local government officials on those topics. A Senate amendment messed things up last year and Reynolds ended up vetoing the bill.

House members passed the bill unanimously in March and expected the Senate would do the same, but there was another late Senate amendment, creating two new big exemptions from the open records law. Iowans would no longer be able to obtain video footage from security cameras in the state capitol or keycard data for state employees.

I believe this change was inspired by my reporting from last year on State Treasurer Roby Smith. I had requested keycard data to find out the dates that Smith entered the capitol building.

We’re going to talk more about this bill on next week’s show, because it is on the House debate calendar for Wednesday.

Thank you for reading or listening!