Conflicting polls, Iowa angles on SCOTUS rulings, new state laws
July 6 edition of "KHOI's Capitol Week"
I started Tuesday morning at a court hearing in a Libertarian ballot access case, went to see a Democratic Congressional candidate at midday, and attended a meet and greet with my Iowa Down Ballot colleagues in the late afternoon.
After the noontime round table organized by the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, State Senator Sarah Trone Garriott took questions from reporters about health care and cancer in Iowa. I posted the full "gaggle” video to my YouTube channel, along with a shorter clip about the trade-off between Medicaid cuts in the “big, beautiful bill” and the rural health care transformation fund.
Since more and more campaigns are paying for flattering social media content, I want to repeat for the benefit of newer subscribers: I never have and never will pay for access to a politician, nor will I ever accept payment from any politician, campaign, or interest group in exchange for posting about them. I share videos that I consider newsworthy—period.
With that, let’s get to the main order of business. The audio from the July 6 edition of “KHOI’s Capitol Week” is at the top of this post. Here’s the written version, for those who would rather read than listen. If your email provider truncates this message, you can read it without interruption here. What Spencer Dirks and I covered this week:
Choose your own adventure, Iowa poll edition
For the first time in a while, everyone acknowledges Iowa is in play. So we are going to see a lot more public polling of key races than we did in 2022 or 2024. Two polls released last week painted different pictures of how things look in Iowa’s races for governor and Senate.
The New York Times/Siena poll showed a very competitive landscape, with Democrat Rob Sand and Republican Zach Lahn virtually tied in the governor’s race, a 48 percent to 47 percent lead for Sand. Republican Ashley Hinson had a small lead over Democrat Josh Turek in the Senate race, 48 percent to 46 percent. I’m still waiting for some pollster to list the Libertarian Thomas Laehn as an option in the Senate race!
You can find all of the NYT/Siena toplines here, and the cross-tabs here.
President Donald Trump was well underwater: 44 percent of respondents said they approve of his job performance (31 percent strongly), which 54 percent disapprove (46 percent strongly). On every issue mentioned in the survey, the president’s approval was upside down:
cost of living: 37/60
immigration: 47/50 (those were his best approval numbers)
the war in Iran: 42/56
tariffs: 43/54
gas prices: 35/62
Both Senate candidates were in positive territory, but Turek had better numbers: 46 percent had a favorable view of him, 19 percent unfavorable, compared to 41 percent favorable/35 percent unfavorable for Hinson.
Asked whether they would like Republicans or Democrats to be in control of the U.S. Senate, respondents preferred GOP control by 50 percent to 45 percent. Also, 57 percent said the Democratic Party is too far to the left, while only 50 percent said the GOP is too far right. That suggests to me that Democratic messaging will focus on negatives about Hinson specifically, while Republican messaging will try to convince voters that Turek is just like the far-left wing of the Democratic Party.
Fox News poll shows Sand and Turek leading
The latest Fox News poll showed better results for the Democrats, with Sand leading the governor’s race by 53 percent to 44 percent and Turek ahead of Hinson by 50 percent to 46 percent. You can find the toplines here and the cross-tabs here.
Fox News polls are a collaboration between Republican and Democratic pollsters, so whatever you think of the Fox News reporting side, their polling operation has political balance.
Why did Fox News find such different numbers from NYT/Siena, even though both polls were in the field around the same time? It could be random chance, but more likely it’s connected to how they sampled and weighted their results. Also, Fox News surveyed registered voters, while NYT/Siena screened for “likely voters.” (Many pollsters don’t deploy their likely voter screens until after Labor Day, because this early, it’s hard to discern who is and isn’t likely to participate in an election.)
I reached out to the Fox News pollsters, but they declined to give me an aggregate number for how their poll sample voted in the 2024 presidential election. Among participants in the NYT/Siena survey, 47 percent said they voted for Donald Trump and 39 percent for Kamala Harris.
Here is the statement I received from Fox News, which highlighted that they had more Republicans than Democrats in their sample:
“The FOX News poll publicly shares the breakdown of respondents by party identification, capturing what people consider themselves instead of official party registration. We believe this provides an accurate depiction of the current Iowa electorate, and in this month’s survey, the Iowa sample breakdown is 48% Republican, 41% Democrats, and 12% independent/other.”
Zach Lahn and his supporters discounted the result because it appears (based on margin of error for the cross-tabs) that more Harris voters than Trump voters were interviewed. They say this doesn’t represent a state Trump won by 13 points. (The pollster presumably adjusted the results, but we don’t know how.)
What to make of inconsistent poll findings
It’s important to understand that matching a poll sample to the last presidential election won’t necessarily produce an accurate result. Barack Obama carried Iowa in 2012, but Democratic turnout dropped sharply in the 2014 midterm. If a pollster had tried to adjust findings during the 2014 campaign to match the 2012 turnout, they would have been way off the mark.
Many people believe in polling averages, and I understand why. But averaging polls that use different sampling and weighting methods doesn’t necessarily produce the most accurate result.
My main takeaway: don’t put too much stock in any one poll.
We haven’t seen any Republican internals lately. If they had a poll showing Lahn ahead, or Hinson at 50 percent, they would probably release those numbers.
We mentioned a couple of weeks ago that Americans for Prosperity Action was paying for some positive mailings about Hinson. They just sent another one within the past week, saying Hinson puts “people over politics” and helped bring “lower costs for families.” That suggests to me that they are worried about the Senate race.
Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark conducted focus groups in Iowa before the primary and sees Iowa as ripe for a backlash to GOP policies. Trump’s unpopular, Governor Kim Reynolds is unpopular, and the state’s abortion ban came up in all of her focus groups. School vouchers also came up a lot.
Zach Lahn holds first public event post-primary
Last Friday, Lahn spoke to voters in Tama at his first public event since primary election. I didn’t get any advance notice, so I am relying on reporting by others. According to the Cedar Rapids Gazette, Lahn highlighted the same set of issues he focused on during the primary: breaking up big ag monopolies, addressing Iowa’s water quality problems and high cancer rates, and improving public education.
Lahn said some GOP consultants warned him he wouldn’t be able to win a Republican primary talking about those topics. “And I said, ‘I disagree.’ And June 2 showed that we can talk about the issues, about putting Iowa first.”
It’s worth noting that Lahn took no questions from the audience or the journalists who were on hand. So I’m not calling this a “town hall.” The candidate did speak with individuals afterwards, but that’s very different because you have no idea whether he’s giving the same answer to everyone.
Lahn tries to put residency questions to rest
One of Lahn’s emerging themes is that he wants to talk about the issues, while Sand’s campaign focuses on “personal attacks.”
During the event in Tama, he addressed criticism about his residence, saying, “I have a blended family. Some of the kids spend time in Kansas, I go back and forth, and my opponent has chosen this as the personal round of attacks to level against me even though he knows the truth and he’s not telling it.”
Lahn went on to echo what we heard from Randy Feenstra before the primary: Sand pretends to be a moderate, but is actually an “extreme liberal,” supposedly because of a comment he made to a college newspaper more than 20 years ago. (Raise your hand if your politics hasn’t changed at all since college!) Anyway, Democrats on the left wing of the party do not consider Sand one of them.
Lahn is clearly annoyed that people keep asking how much time he spends in Kansas. Simon Conway, the conservative WHO Radio host, is sympathetic to Lahn and has criticized Sand for focusing on Lahn’s frequent flights to Kansas. But during Lahn’s June 30 appearance on the show, Conway said, “You’ve got a problem.” And he read a text he had received, asking why Conway hadn’t pressed Lahn on where he lives with his family. “They don’t believe you. It’s a problem for you. You’re going to have to deal with it, man.”
Sand still pushing Kansas talking point
Sand is not letting up. His campaign’s latest TV ad begins with the narrator saying, “Maybe Zach Lahn doesn’t understand, because he lives in Kansas, where cancer rates are much lower. But here in Iowa, number one in cancer growth, Lahn’s plans would have a devastating impact.”
And that ad ends with, “Zach Lahn can just fly home to Kansas. Iowans will pay the price.”
This is likely to be a recurring motif in Sand’s ads, weaving Kansas references into scripts about other issues.
Fact-checking the latest Sand ad
We spent a minute unpack some of the points Sand’s campaign is making here. The ad accuses Lahn of supporting cuts to cancer research funding. That refers to some of the Trump administration’s DOGE cuts from 2025, when they canceled certain research grants.
The ad says Lahn supported a plan that would “bankrupt rural hospitals.” That’s a reference to the budget reconciliation bill enacted in July 2025, which had huge Medicaid cuts. Although many of the cuts haven’t been phased in yet, the planned reductions are already affecting rural hospitals. That bill didn’t directly cut cancer funds, but when a hospital closes it hurts access to everyone. So I think it’s defensible for the ad to say Medicaid cuts are “making it harder to get treatment” in Iowa.
The ad claims, “Lahn’s beliefs would even mean a ban on some lifesaving cancer treatments.” This stems from comments during the Moms for Liberty debate in late January. The commercial shows a phrase (“committed to banning them in the state”) from the Iowa Capital Dispatch write-up. The full sentence reads, “When asked about mRNA vaccines, Lahn, Sherman and Andrews all committed to banning them in the state, pointing back to issues during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
I went back and watched that part of the debate to see exactly what was said. Here’s the video, cued up to the relevant Q&A. Asked whether he would consider banning “the mRNA vaccine in Iowa, any mRNA vaccine in Iowa,” Lahn said, “Absolutely I would” and went on to talk about banning COVID-19 vaccines.
I reached out to Lahn’s campaign a couple of times seeking clarification: is he for banning only COVID vaccines, all mRNA vaccines, or something in the middle? I still have not heard back.
Earlier this year, we noted the downsides of Randy Feenstra skipping several debates. No doubt the GOP front-runner paid a price for not showing up. This ad illustrates that there are also downsides to showing up. While trying to appeal to conservatives, candidates may say things that are damaging during the general election campaign. The Moms for Liberty audience loved Lahn’s answer to the mRNA vaccine question.
Sand’s latest positive ad
In another ad now running on TV and digital platforms, Sand speaks about the Farm Crisis of the 1980s and says “we’re in an economic crisis again. Fueled by corruption and greed. Hedge funds buy up homes and land, pricing out Iowa families and farmers. Chemical companies get immunity for polluting our water. Data centers get tax breaks while our taxes go up.”
Sand closes by saying, “The system is broken. I’m Rob Sand. I’ll take on the insiders that rigged it. Bring back accountability. And I’ll work only for you.”
The governor’s race will be a competition to show who is the political insider and who wants to break up the system. If there’s one thing both sides agrees on, it’s that Iowa voters want change.
This commercial reminded me of how Sand answers a question he often gets in interviews: how can you win in a state that voted for Trump three times? He says something along these lines: in different ways, Obama and Trump promised to change a broken system, and Iowans supported them. So he thinks his message will resonate.
Daily Mail highlights Hinson’s housing costs, overseas trips
We covered a few stories about the Republican nominee for Senate. The Daily Mail reported on Sunday that Hinson has claimed more than $50,000 of her office’s funds as reimbursements for housing expenses. When she’s in Washington, D.C. she rents a one-bedroom apartment in a luxury building near Capitol Hill.
The story highlighted that she has been portraying herself as a working mom with two teenage boys, so she understands that prices are too high. “All the while, Hinson has a net worth between $1million and $8 million, she reported on her 2024 financial disclosure form, which was filed in August 2025, and viewed by the Daily Mail.”
We don’t have access to Hinson’s lease, so we don’t know how much she is paying per month for rent. The reimbursements for D.C. housing are allowed under House rules.
The Daily Mail also reported that Hinson has taken “at least five international trips” paid for by interest groups. Her husband Matthew Arenholz accompanied her on four of the trips (to Israel, eastern Europe, Austria, and Switzerland), with those groups footing the bill. “The five trips, which took place between 2022 and 2025, cost in total $110,622, according to House Disclosure records.”
Report: Hinson benefits from a tax break she championed
Iowa Starting Line recently reported that Hinson “spent years championing a tax provision that directly benefits her family’s multimillion-dollar private business holdings.”
This story by Zachary Oren Smith came out in late June, but we didn’t have time for it on our June 29 show.
Hinson, now the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, has repeatedly claimed that she “proactively” sold her individual stocks to show Iowans that serving in office wasn’t an “investment opportunity.” But federal financial disclosures first reported by Heartland Signal show her family’s net worth climbed from a maximum of $1.6 million before she took office to as much as $8 million by 2024.
The growth was fueled in part by a private insurance portfolio she never divested from. She disclosed up to $5 million in privately held stock in High Street Insurance Partners. Because Hinson only divested from publicly traded stocks, she can accurately say that she does not trade public stocks while leaving the portfolio untouched.
LLCs are what’s known as pass-through entities — businesses where profits flow directly to the owners and are taxed at the individual rate. And there is a provision in the federal tax code, Section 199A, that lets pass-through business owners shield 20 percent of their business income from federal taxes.
Before and after she was first elected to Congress, Hinson has fought to make that tax break permanent. She voted for it as part of that “big, beautiful bill” in 2025. Oren Smith noted, “The nonpartisan Tax Law Center found that the vast majority of the provision’s benefits flow to the top one percent of income earners, saying it creates opportunities for tax gaming.”
For the past year Democrats have said Hinson and other Republicans voted for cuts to social programs and tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. Now this plays into that theme: that Hinson’s family has personally profited from policies she advocated for and voted for in Congress.
Take this to the bank: Iowans will be seeing a version of this story in TV ads.
Ad targets Hinson over “Save Our Bacon Act”
And speaking of TV ads, our listeners may have seen some recent ads on TV or online, saying that while Iowa farmers are struggling with rising costs, Hinson supports what the ad calls “the corrupt Save Our Bacon scam in the Farm Bill.”
The ad says this policy is “a giveaway to Chinese corporations overriding our laws,” and Hinson “is making Iowa families pay the price, all to help the Chinese corporations that cut her a campaign check.” Viewers see a picture of a campaign contribution from Smithfield Foods Inc.
The American Meat Producers Association and American Meat Producers PAC are spending around $30 million on similar ads in various states. At least one Republican senator (Roger Marshall of Kansas) has said he no longer supports keeping the Save Our Bacon Act language in the Senate version of the Farm Bill.
Speaking to reporters last week, Senator Chuck Grassley called this spot an “intellectually dishonest advertisement on television.” He speculated it was paid for by animal rights groups that are defending California’s Prop 12. I asked the American Meat Producers Association about this, and they replied by email on July 7, “AMPA is supported by farmers, meat companies, and organizations committed to a thriving family farm economy. Like other 501(c)(4) organizations, we do not disclose our donor list.”
Hinson stands by work on Save Our Bacon Act
Hinson has touted her efforts to include the Save Our Bacon Act as part of the Farm Bill. In a recent interview with Des Moines-based WHO-TV, she said the legislation would “help support the small pork producers” in Iowa, because it would cost them thousands of dollars to comply with California’s Prop 12.
She said only big corporations can afford to comply with the California standards on space for sows. From Hinson’s perspective, the Save Our Bacon Act would respect state’s rights: California could regulate its own producers but can’t tell Iowans how to raise pork.
The American Meat Producers Association maintains that many small producers have already made investments to comply with Prop 12’s rules on the size of sow crates. If the Save Our Bacon Act passes, those investments would become worthless overnight.
Primary produces more voter registrations for Iowa Dems
Last week the Iowa Secretary of State’s office updated voter registration numbers to include people who changed their party affiliation to vote in the June primary. And Democrats gained some ground.
Because voters have to affiliate with a party to vote in the primary, we saw around 35,000 no-party voters switch to one of the parties. There were also some people who registered for the first time in order to cast a ballot in the primary. Democrats gained about 25,000 new registrants in Iowa, while Republicans gained a little less than 15,000.
In early May, the GOP voter registration advantage in Iowa was approaching 200,000: Republicans had 692,089 active registered voters and 776,515 total registered voters, while Democrats had 496,219 active voters and 590,588 total.
As of July 2, Republicans had 711,587 active voters and 792,470 total registered voters, while Democrats had 527,675 active voters and 619,044 total registered voters.
Make no mistake: the current GOP voter registration advantage is still very large, around 173,000. But as we’ve discussed before, Democrats have a larger ground game in Iowa than we’ve seen at any point since 2012. Dozens of field organizers are already working their territory, trying to recruit volunteers and ID supporters.
Libertarian trying to get back on the IA-03 ballot
Marco Battaglia, the Libertarian running in Iowa’s third Congressional district, appealed in district court last week, seeking to overturn the state panel’s decision to remove him from the ballot. It took me a while to find this in Iowa Courts Online because he filed suit under his legal name, Mark Andersen.
This case boils down to a simple legal question. Libertarians say he’s been on the ballot before as Marco Battaglia and Iowa law doesn’t say you have to use your legal name. This is why State Auditor Rob Sand dissented from the State Objection Panel’s ruling. Libertarians and Sand also argued that since the Marco Battaglia has appeared on the ballot at least three times under that name, the state should be required to accept that name now.
The state will argue that under Iowa case law and common understandings of language, candidates can’t run under a fictitious name or stage name. That’s what Secretary of State Paul Pate and Attorney General Brenna Bird wrote in their ruling upholding the objection to Battaglia’s candidacy.
Courts are expediting consideration of this case and the appeal filed earlier by Nicholas Gluba and Jules Cutler, the Libertarian candidates for governor and lieutenant governor. The first hearing in that case was on July 7, and the first hearing in the Battaglia/Andersen case is on July 10.
Everything has to happen quickly so the Iowa Supreme Court can hear any appeal in time for ballots to be printed in September.
Libertarian Thomas Laehn’s message to voters
Since Thomas Laehn is guaranteed to be on the November ballot as the Libertarian candidate for Senate, we took a minute to outline his central messages to voters. I interviewed Laehn on June 2, the day he submitted his nominating paperwork, and Douglas Burns of The Iowa Mercury sat down with him more recently.
You can watch my interview here and read Doug’s write-up here:
Eminent domain is Laehn’s top issue. He calls the proposed Summit Carbon Solutions CO2 pipeline “the biggest boondoggle in the history of our state.”
He is critical of Congress (both parties), for ceding the legislature’s authority to the president for decades. That practice has allowed presidents of both parties to take “emergency” actions on war, tariffs, and so on.
Laehn told me that the choice facing Iowans in November will not just be between a Democrat, a Republican, and a Libertarian. Voters will decide whether they want the U.S. to be a republic, with checks and balances, or “continue on the path toward monarchy.” He said, “There is no doubt in my mind that the president today, Republican or Democrat alike, has more power than King George had when we declared our independence 250 years ago.”
Speaking to Doug, Laehn said “Congress has zero authority to regulate abortion, zero.” He described himself as “pretty radically pro-life,” but he would not propose any federal legislation on the issue. At the state level, Laehn said, “I would ban all abortion.”
Tom Harkin endorses Chris Jones for ag secretary
Last Tuesday, former Senator Tom Harkin endorsed Chris Jones, saying he’s “never seen anything like” the Democrat’s campaign. “Chris has captured the imagination of a lot of people in Iowa, especially young people who have never thought about voting for a Secretary of Agriculture.”
Harkin gave credit to Jones, who “stuck his neck out” and talked about water quality, and found a lot of people supporting him. You can watch the former senator’s remarks here. Jones said in a statement, “I will proudly carry the endorsement of Iowa’s greatest U.S. senator and my generation’s leading prairie populist, Tom Harkin, throughout the remainder of my life.”
I have to agree with Harkin: I’ve never seen a candidate for secretary of agriculture generate that kind of enthusiasm, even when Democrats Dale Cochran and Patty Judge were winning elections for this office decades ago.
It’s always an uphill battle running against an incumbent, but I think Jones could be important for the Democratic ticket as a whole. Lots of activists on the left are not fans of Rob Sand or Josh Turek, but could be highly motivated volunteers for Jones.
Brenna Bird touts “work” in all 99 counties
Last Wednesday, Attorney General Brenna Bird announced that since January, she has met with Iowans in all 99 counties. The meetings included roundtable discussions, business tours, and conversations with community members.
This isn’t a campaign story, but Bird does mention in her campaign messaging that she visits all 99 counties every year. She has done few (if any) public events as attorney general, though. I’ve never heard of Bird announcing any public town hall in advance, the way Rob Sand did in every county every year as state auditor.
SCOTUS campaign finance ruling could help Hinson
We spent a few minutes on fallout from some of the big U.S. Supreme Court rulings announced last week. In a campaign finance case, the conservative justices struck down limits on how much political parties can coordinate with candidates. The upshot is that whereas an individual can give only $7,000 to a campaign for U.S. House or Senate ($3,500 before and after the primary), now people can give a half a million dollars to parties that can coordinate with candidates.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee was a party to this case, and will be able to help Hinson more effectively this fall. In a donor memo, the NRSC claimed to be “the most important investment vehicle in the 2026 cycle.”
This decision could diminish the importance of super PACs. The ultra-wealthy people who have been donating six-figure or seven-figure amounts to super PACs can now give directly to parties. Political party committees can buy television and digital ads at lower rates than PACs.
Most analysts believe this ruling will be a net benefit for Republicans. But there are liberal millionaires and billionaires, so the new legal landscape allowing more coordination with political parties could help some Democrats too.
Iowa reaction to birthright citizenship ruling
In the most closely watched case decided last week, the Supreme Court majority said the U.S. Constitution protects birthright citizenship, including for babies born to undocumented immigrants and many people living in the U.S. temporarily.
It’s alarming that this was only a 5-4 decision! Many court-watchers expected a 7-2 ruling after the oral arguments.
Several prominent Republicans criticized the decision. Hinson said the court’s majority “got it wrong” and alleged that immigrants are exploiting the process. Hinson’s staff don’t allow me to participate in her conference calls with reporters, so these quotes come from the Des Moines Register:
“I don’t agree with the Supreme Court here,” Hinson said on a July 1 call with reporters. “I think they got it wrong. I think the ruling means it’s even more important in my mind that we don’t go back to open borders and drugs pouring across into our communities. And then of course the other challenge that I keep hearing about here is the illegals free-riding on taxpayer benefits, all while making hard-working Iowans foot the bill for that.”
Bird signed onto briefs supporting President Trump’s position, and her solicitor general, Eric Wessan, has been vocal on social media in his opposition to birthright citizenship. The Attorney General’s office sent me this written statement on the court ruling:
“Our Constitution was not written to reward people for breaking the law. I disagree with the Supreme Court’s ruling and am disappointed that they did not restore the Constitution’s original intent on birthright citizenship. This loophole will continue to be exploited by China and other countries. Today’s ruling makes it even more imperative that the federal government and states are allowed to protect their borders against illegal immigration.”
SCOTUS allows states to use late-arriving absentee ballots
The Supreme Court’s majority also upheld state laws that allow some absentee ballots to be counted after election day, if they were postmarked and mailed in time.
This ruling doesn’t directly affect Iowa, because Republicans changed state law a few years ago, so we no longer allow late-arriving absentee ballots to be counted. Ballots must arrive at the county elections office by 8 pm on election day.
However, it is good news for early voting, which hundreds of thousands of Iowans do every two years. If this case had gone the other way, ruling that “election day” only means the date of the election, it would have opened the door to other challenges to people casting their ballots before election day.
Trump has called for banning most absentee voting. Most recently, in his late-night speech on July 4, Trump called for passing the SAVE America Act, saying, “All voters must show voter ID. All voters must provide a little thing called proof of citizenship. And there will be no mail in ballots except for illness, disability, military deployment, or travel.”
Many new laws took effect on July 1
July 1 marked the beginning of a new fiscal year, and that means dozens of laws enacted this year are officially in effect. We had only a couple of minutes to cover the new laws, so we focused on a few significant ones that we didn’t have time to cover on any of our shows during the legislative session.
The speed limit on most of Iowa’s two-lane state highways just went up from 55 miles per hour to 60, under Senate File 378. The Iowa Senate approved this bill in 2025 but House Republicans only took it up this year.
Iowa also approved new age verification requirements for websites and social media platforms that host a lot of pornographic or obscene content. House File 864 was a priority for the social conservative group The Family Leader, but it passed with overwhelming bipartisan support: unanimously in the Senate and with just two dissenting votes (from Democrats Elinor Levin and Adam Zabner) in the House. The U.S. Supreme Court has already upheld a similar age-verification law in Texas.
Iowa’s child care assistance program is now available to all people who work at least 32 hours per week in child care, thanks to House File 2514. Child care providers have had trouble retaining staff, due in part to low wages. This law makes a pilot program permanent. The Senate approved the bill unanimously, and only three House Republicans (Mark Ciseneros, Charley Thomson, and Judd Lawler) voted no.
As of July 1, law enforcement agencies will not be required to conduct bias prevention training, and the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy will not require racial or cultural awareness training. House File 2711 also removed all code references to affirmative action, meaning state and local governments, school districts, and higher education institutions will not be required to have affirmative action plans.
According to the Des Moines Register, some local police departments have said they plan to continue to do bias and cultural sensitivity training. The new law doesn’t ban those practices, it just removes the state mandate approved in 2020, after George Floyd’s murder.
We did mention one new law we’d covered before on the show: under House File 2563, Iowa now requires in-person appointments for patients seeking abortion medications.
It’s not clear how much this will change on the ground. In-state abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood stopped mailing abortion bills to patients after Iowa’s abortion ban took effect in 2024. Maya Marchel Hoff reported for the Des Moines Register, “While Republicans are confident the law will be effective, health care providers and legal experts are skeptical it will prevent abortion pills from being sent into Iowa, given the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mail-order pills and other states’ shield laws protecting prescribers.”
That’s all for now. Thank you for reading and subscribing!
Again, thanks for the best coverage of the Iowa political landscape.
Very comprehensive update. Thanks for the interesting insights!