Digging deep on Iowa's new transgender discrimination law
March 3 edition of "KHOI's Capitol Week"
When Dennis Hart and I launched “KHOI’s Capitol Week” in February 2021, we made an editorial decision early on: we would try to cover lots of Iowa politics news in our 30 minutes together, rather than drilling down on a few big stories of the week.
and I have continued that more comprehensive approach, sometimes touching on 20 or more topics in a show.We made an exception for our March 3 program, because the rollback of civil rights for transgender and nonbinary Iowans is not only one of the biggest stories of the year, but one of the most important events of the decade.
If you’re reading this, you already know that last week, Republicans rammed through Senate File 418, a bill repealing civil rights protections for trans people. I wanted to share some information and perspectives you haven’t seen in other reporting.
The audio file from our latest show is embedded above, or you can find “KHOI’s Capitol Week” on any podcast platform or smart speaker. The full archive (going back to February 2021) is available on KHOI’s website.
If you’re looking for more takes on this momentous story, several other Iowa politics podcasts are available through Substack: Iowa Down Ballot, Iowa Revolution, and Cornhole Champions.
Iowa’s new transgender discrimination law
To start our discussion, I recapped the key provisions of the bill Republicans fast-tracked. News coverage focused on changes to the Iowa Civil Rights Act, but there was much more to this bill:
Removing gender identity from the civil rights code, which since 2007 has offered protection from discrimination in employment, housing, education, credit, public accommodations. Iowa will be the first state in the country to remove a protected class from its civil rights act.
Defining terms like man, woman, mother, and father in ways that exclude trans or nonbinary people.
Establishing a framework for discrimination by declaring, “Separate accommodations are not inherently unequal.”
Removing the ability to get a new birth certificate that reflects someone’s gender identity. Birth certificates would have to note the sex assigned near the time of birth (within six months). People typically need a birth certificate to replace other important documents like a driver’s license.
Laying the groundwork for a statewide bathroom bill.
Altering the “don’t say trans” teaching restrictions enacted in a 2023 law, which are now being challenged in federal court. Instead of banning programs, curriculum, instruction and so on about “gender identity” from grades K-6, Iowa law will ban “gender theory” in grades K-6.
I discussed all of these in more detail in last week’s post.
We talked about the atmosphere in the building on Thursday, crammed with an estimated 2,500 people—mostly there to protest the discriminatory bill.
I was in the House chamber for the entire floor debate and watched the Senate proceedings online. The debates were one-sided, since no Republicans spoke other than the floor managers (State Senator Jason Schultz and State Representative Steven Holt). Many Democrats rose to speak against the bill, often becoming emotional. Senators were angry that the majority party used a “time certain” motion to cut off debate at 3:30 p.m. on Thursday. That left only about three hours to consider an extremely important bill.
One thing I forgot to say during the show: most House Democrats and several Senate Democrats ended their floor speeches with the state motto: “Our liberties we prize, and our rights we will maintain.”
House Democrats gave State Representative Aime Wichtendahl a standing ovation after her very moving speech near the end of the chamber’s debate. I included that video and other clips from the public hearing and floor debates in this post.
The Senate vote fell along party lines, as expected. Five House Republicans joined Democrats to vote no; a sixth was absent on Thursday afternoon but put a note in the journal on Friday to indicate he would have voted no.
Was there ever any doubt this bill would pass? I always felt it was highly unlikely that more than sixteen Republicans would break ranks with leadership on the issue. That said, there were rumors early in the week that House Republicans might not have the votes to pass the bill. As many as 20 members of the GOP caucus supposedly had doubts.
I wanted to take a minute to discuss a last-minute amendment co-sponsored by ten House Republicans, which seemed like an effort to scuttle the bill. The amendment would have kept gender identity in the portions of the civil rights code that deal with employment, housing, and credit discrimination. Chuck Hurley of the social conservative group The FAMiLY Leader said on that group’s podcast that they were worried on Wednesday evening the bill might not have the votes.
In the end, Republicans withdrew that amendment, and eight of the ten co-sponsors ended up voting for the bill.
During Thursday’s debate, Iowa House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst referred to “arm-twisting.” So when House Speaker Pat Grassley took questions from reporters on Monday afternoon, I asked him whether he had warned any members of his caucus that they might lose committee chairmanships or see their bills held up if they didn’t vote for the bill. He basically denied doing that (you can watch our exchange here, starting around the 3:55 mark). But at the state capitol, it is widely believed that holdouts faced immense pressure from fellow Republicans to vote yes.
They presumably also were concerned about 2026 primary challengers, given how intensely much of the GOP base fears and loathes trans people and the LGBTQ community more broadly.
We briefly discussed the six House Republicans who publicly opposed the bill: Austin Harris, Brian Lohse, Michael Bergan, Norlin Mommsen, David Sieck, and Chad Ingels. I have a Bleeding Heartland post in progress with more background on them and their districts. Subscribe to my other newsletter if you want to receive a link to that story soon.
I was struck by how many very young legislators (including Carter Nordman, Taylor Collins, Devon Wood, and David Blom) voted for this bill. I didn’t say this on the show, but I believe most of them will one day be ashamed to explain that vote to their kids or grandkids.
Although Governor Kim Reynolds signed the bill on Friday, it doesn’t go into effect until July 1. I wanted to highlight this point, which hasn’t been emphasized in other reporting. Through June 30, it remains illegal in Iowa to discriminate against transgender people, and it is still possible to obtain a new birth certificate reflecting your gender identity. The Drake University LGBTQ+ legal clinic will offer some free assistance this spring with name and sex designation changes and related matters.
I’ve sought answers on why Senate File 418 didn’t include language to make the law take effect immediately after the governor signed it. Speaker Grassley indicated that they had conversations with the Iowa Civil Rights Commission about implementation. His legislative aide told me last week that her impression was, an immediate enactment provision would have required a fiscal note on the bill, slowing down the legislative process.
So why did Republicans fast-track a bill that doesn’t go into effect until July 1?
I found it very odd that Iowa Senate President Amy Sinclair missed Thursday’s debate, apparently on vacation in Colorado. A Senate staffer flew to Denver on Friday morning to bring the enrolled bill to Sinclair to sign, so the bill could be delivered to Governor Kim Reynolds for her to sign later that day. Often there’s a delay between final passage of a bill and delivery of a signed bill to the governor’s office. I don’t understand why they didn’t wait until Monday, when Sinclair was back at the capitol.
The floor managers and House Speaker Grassley have claimed this legislation was needed to head off lawsuits seeking to overturn previous anti-trans bills. I’m only aware of one lawsuit that was recently filed in Johnson County, by a trans man who was prevented from using the men’s room during public events at Liberty High School. But why the rush, if the bill doesn’t take effect immediately?
We spent several minutes previewing the main issues likely to come up in lawsuits that will surely be coming soon. I touched on these last week and have another Bleeding Heartland post in progress on this topic. The “separate but equal” language is problematic, and the birth certificate provisions raise equal protection problems.
In addition, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Romer v Evans (1996) that when a state has given legal protection to a group of people, without being required to do so, it raises equal protection problems to target that group in removing those rights.
I explained how the state will defend the law in court: saying Iowa has an interest in “protecting” women and girls, and keeping previous enacted laws in place (the trans sports ban, school bathroom bill, and the ban on gender-affirming care for minors). Governor Reynolds made those points in a statement released after signing the bill. They will also claim that if the legislature has the authority to amend the civil rights code to add a protected class, it has the authority to remove a protected class.
But even if courts use the most lenient standard, known as “rational basis,” there are big questions about whether this bill is constitutional. A key point here: House and Senate Democrats offered amendments to restore gender identity language in the portions of civil rights code that address discrimination in the areas of employment, housing, and credit. Republicans rejected all of those amendments. It’s hard to understand how allowing employers to fire trans people, or landlords to evict trans people, is related to defending state policies on girls’ sports or separate bathrooms.
Finally, I wanted to touch on the provision that changes the Iowa Code section enacted in 2023 as part of a wide-ranging education law, now being challenged in federal court. Current law says: “A school district shall not provide any program, curriculum, test, survey, questionnaire, promotion, or instruction relating to gender identity or sexual orientation to students in kindergarten through grade six.” Senate File 418 replaces “gender identity” with “Gender theory,” defined as follows:
“Gender theory” means the concept that an individual may properly be described in terms of an internal sense of gender that is incongruent with the individual’s sex as either male or female. “Gender theory” includes the concept that an individual who experiences distress or discomfort with the individual’s sex should identify as and live consistent with the individual’s internal sense of gender, and that an individual can delay natural puberty and develop sex characteristics of the opposite sex through the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical procedures.
I don’t think this solves their problem, because the law doesn’t take effect until July 1, and they didn’t change the “don’t say gay” provision for grades K-6. But I’m watching this closely.
Other news from the state legislature
An important legislative deadline is coming up this Friday, so I explained what the “funnel” means and why it matters. I don’t focus as much on the funnel as I used to, because every year, some proposals that appear to be “dead” come back later in appropriations bills.
We touched on a couple of important pending bills. Republicans held Iowa House and Senate subcommittees last Thursday morning on proposals to add work requirements and reporting requirements for Iowans on Medicaid and federal food assistance known as SNAP. (House Study Bill 248 and Senate File 363) Tom Barton reported for the Cedar Rapids Gazette on the bills and the subcommittee meetings.
Experience from Arkansas and Georgia suggests that these work requirements end up kicking a lot of eligible people off the Medicaid rolls without boosting employment. Those who spoke against the bill also raised concerns about the lack of exemptions in the bill for students, caregivers, or others facing barriers that keep them out of the workplace (e.g. lack of transportation or affordable child care).
A separate bill Republicans plan to move forward (House Study Bill 216) would “severely restrict the food items” Iowans could purchase with SNAP benefits.
Also, last month an Iowa Senate subcommittee advanced a proposed state constitutional amendment (Senate Joint Resolution 6) to repeal the Natural Resources Trust Fund, often called I-WILL. The concept is to open the door to raising the sales tax without three-eighths of a cent going to the Natural Resources Trust Fund. Proponents hope to use sales tax revenue to cover the costs of tax cuts for other groups.
I am skeptical this will get through the House, even if Senate Republicans pass it out of that chamber.
Iowans in Congress vote for budget blueprint
The U.S. House took an important vote last Tuesday to pass a budget resolution including all of the major items in President Donald Trump’s agenda: border security, energy policy, and tax cuts. All four Iowans voted for this plan, and their votes were needed, because House leaders didn’t have a single vote to spare.
This is the first step in the budget reconciliation process, but we have a long way to go. The House and Senate Republicans need to agree on a blueprint before the details can be hammered out. Under this plan, Republicans would cut taxes by $4.5 trillion and cut spending by at least $1.5 trillion.
Different House committees would need to find savings in specific areas of the budget. For instance, the Energy and Commerce Committee (on which U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks serves) would need to find $880 billion in savings. Most would probably come from Medicaid cuts. The House Agriculture Committee members (including Representatives Zach Nunn and Randy Feenstra) would need to find about $230 billion in savings. Probably most would come from food assistance programs.
The bottom line is House Republicans will need to take some tough votes. I expect to see lots of 2026 campaign ads about Republicans supporting big cuts to safety net and entitlement programs.
Miller-Meeks challenger makes it official
I reported a few weeks ago that David Pautsch was planning to run against Miller-Meeks again in the GOP primary for the first Congressional district. Pautsch ran a low-budget race in 2024 and did surprisingly well, winning about 44 percent of the vote in the primary.
I had planned to attend Pautsch’s campaign announcement at the state capitol on February 27, but I was in the Iowa House chamber covering the debate over the anti-trans bill. Jacob Hall of The Iowa Standard recorded Pautsch’s event, and I wrote about it over the weekend at Bleeding Heartland.
Spencer and I touched on Pautsch’s main talking points. I think he has a real shot to win the nomination, if nationally known MAGA Republicans help him raise more money.
2026 is shaping up to be the most interesting year I can remember for Iowa Republican primaries.
By the way, I saw on Monday that Mariannette Miller-Meeks has invited Riley Gaines to be her guest for President Trump’s address to Congress on March 4. Gaines is the former collegiate swimmer who is among the most prominent critics of transgender participation in sports. So Miller-Meeks is working hard to shore up her right flank.
Thanks so much for reading or listening! Spencer and I will be back next Monday to talk about what did and didn’t get past the legislature’s “funnel” deadline.
Every time I read one of your columns, you impress me both about how much of the law you know, and how much I don't. I hope you and other legal like minds prevail against this rightwing hate campaign.
Iowa Repubs....marching backward through Time!