Funnel week surprises, new job for Zaun, ProPublica reports on Ernst

March 10 edition of "KHOI's Capitol Week"

Iowa House Speaker Pat Grassley takes questions from reporters on March 6 (photo by Laura Belin)

The last two weeks at the statehouse have been exhausting, from covering one of the worst bills I’ve ever seen to tracking dozens of committee and subcommittee meetings ahead of the legislature’s self-imposed “funnel” deadline. Most policy bills (that is, not related to taxes or spending) needed approval from at least one standing committee in the House or Senate to stay alive.

For more takes on funnel week, check out the latest edition of the Iowa Down Ballot podcast (featuring Dave Price, Kathie Obradovich, and me), and the long “what’s alive and dead” lists published by the Des Moines Register, Cedar Rapids Gazette, and Iowa Capital Dispatch.

Let’s get right to it. The audio file from our March 10 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.

Spencer Dirks and I were racing against the clock here.

The big picture from funnel week 2025

Some general takeaways from the session so far:

• I had a sense that there were more bills floating around this year, especially in the Iowa House. It’s true: the Cedar Rapids Gazette counted more than 2,000 pieces of legislation introduced so far. That number will rise as more tax and policy bills appear. Also, we know the Legislative Services Agency hasn’t yet published all of the policy bills lawmakers have put into drafting. Jack Hunt of the Iowa Legislative News Service, who has been covering the legislature’s work since the mid-1990s, told me he thinks the Iowa House will set a record this year for bills introduced.

• The House has far more bills in play than the Senate, which is consistent with the past few years. It’s not just that the House has twice as many members; it seems to be part of the culture that Senate Republicans don’t believe in the need to pass as many bills as House Republicans do.

• Every major piece of Governor Kim Reynolds’ legislative agenda is on track, which hasn’t always been the case during this GOP trifecta. We will cover these bills in more detail after the House or Senate debates her proposals on cell phones in schools, math education, integrating child care and preschools, energy policy, and more.

• As always, lots of bills popped up shortly before the funnel deadline. Some disappeared almost as quickly as they arrived. There were also some last-minute amendments in committee that dramatically changed the scope of a bill. (That’s a problem because the public no longer has an opportunity to weigh in at a subcommittee.) For example, the Senate Commerce Committee amended a bill on alcoholic beverage control to eliminate the requirement for bars to carry dram shop liability insurance (Senate File 584).

Funnel week surprises

We took some time to talk about a few of those newsworthy last-minute bills.

Anti-vax bills

Republicans on a Senate subcommittee made national news by advancing Senate File 360, which would have made it a crime to administer gene-based (mRNA) vaccines in Iowa. The bill sponsor, State Senator Doug Campbell, said he planned to amend the bill in committee to conform to House File 712. But the Senate Health and Human Services Committee didn’t take up the bill.

Although the House bill on vaccines sounded less wacky on its face, I heard from some physicians that it could be even more damaging in terms of limiting vaccine access. It would have required vaccine manufacturers to waive their federal liability from lawsuits related to vaccine injuries, if they wanted to have their vaccines administered in Iowa. The likely outcome would be for all vaccines (not just mRNA ones) to become unavailable here. Republicans on a House subcommittee advanced HF 712 on Wednesday, but House Judiciary chair Steven Holt pulled it from the full committee agenda the next day.

House Speaker Pat Grassley was clearly spooked by the intensely negative reaction to the Senate bill. He assured reporters on Thursday that the House would not ban mRNA vaccines. Watch here, starting around the 12:00 mark.

I think Republicans don’t understand how damaging it is for these bills to get any serious consideration in the Iowa legislature. State Representative Austin Baeth, who is a physician, told me,

It continues to baffle me just how much control a tiny fringe group of antivaxxers has had on Iowa lawmakers. […]

It's very difficult to combat the vaccine disinformation that's spouted from these antivaxxers when we live in an era where a large proportion of society no longer values expertise. Whether or not this bill becomes law, the fact alone that it was proposed and advanced by our state government lends credence to the disinformation that vaccines are harmful and serve no positive value.

A few other bad vaccine-related bills are still moving. For instance, Senate File 304 and House File 384 would prevent adolescents from receiving the HPV vaccine (which prevents many forms of cancer) without parental consent.

Criminalizing homelessness

For the second straight year, wide-ranging legislation on homelessness (House Study Bill 286 and Senate Study Bill 1195) appeared just before the funnel.

The Texas-based Cicero Institute is pushing these bills all over the country. Among other things, it would become a crime statewide to sleep in public places. At both the House and Senate subcommittees, the only person to speak in favor of the bill was the lobbyist for the Cicero Institute. Representatives of many organizations that registered against the bill spoke at the subcommittees to highlight ethical, practical, and logistical problems.

Something really unusual happened in the Senate subcommittee: Republican Senator Dave Sires refused to sign off on the bill, so it died right there. I got a kick out of this part of the Iowa Capital Dispatch story:

Sires said he was “shocked” by the proposed punishments of “$800 fines for people who really don’t have any money.”

“This is not fair to people, whether they’re down on their luck or they’re having a problem — I know that sounds crazy coming from conservative Republican, but I do support my food pantry in my own hometown,” Sires said. “… We have to change the things and come back with this a second time.”

At the House subcommittee, Republican State Representative Judd Lawler listed a lot of his concerns about the bill, but signed off anyway (Republicans often do this “to keep the conversation going”). It was on the agenda for the Judiciary Committee to consider on Thursday, but Holt pulled it, saying it needed too much work and there were other priorities this year.

Keep an eye out for some version of this bill to come back in 2026.

Big pay increases for state legislators and statewide officials

State Senator Jason Schultz introduced a bill last week that would give big raises to Iowa lawmakers and statewide elected officials. Following approval by the State Government Committee, it is numbered Senate File 544. Annual pay for most state legislators would go up from $25,000 to $45,000. Pay for legislative leaders would go up from $37,500 to $67,500.

The governor’s salary would go up from $130,000 to $230,000. The lieutenant governor’s pay would rise from around $103,000 to $140,000. The attorney general’s salary would go from $123,000 to $210,000. Other statewide elected officials who now earn $103,000 would receive $180,000.

The bill has built-in cost of living salary adjustments to avoid a repeat of the current situation, where statewide officials haven’t had a raise since 2005, and state lawmakers haven’t had a raise since 2007.

Former State Representative Phil Thompson testified at the subcommittee. He retired from the Iowa House last year because he couldn’t support a family on the salary.

These raises are more generous than what was in the bill the Iowa House approved on the last night of the 2024 session.

Surprise bill on payday lending

I was bracing for the worst when the House Commerce Committee went into a “subcommittee of the whole” last Tuesday. Usually a late arrival in committee during funnel week is not good news. But I just about fell out of my chair as I listened to State Representative Carter Nordman introduce a bill to address predatory payday lending.

Democrats tried and failed to deal with this problem when they had the trifecta in 2010. At that time, there was no question of any Republicans supporting the bill. A handful of Democrats joined the GOP to keep it bottled up in committee.

Last week, all but one member of the Commerce Committee supported the payday lending bill, now numbered House File 878. Some Christian conservative organizations have been pushing for this bill behind the scenes, which explains why many Republicans are now on board.

I’m skeptical about its prospects for getting to the governor’s desk, since there is no companion bill in the Iowa Senate. But this is a big step in the right direction.

House bill on chem trails

The Iowa House Environmental Protection Committee rarely meets or considers legislation. But the panel did convene last week to advance House File 191 on a party-line vote. This bill would ban “the intentional emission of air contaminants into the atmosphere,” and would require the state's Environmental Protection Commission to adopt rules to enforce the prohibition.

It’s grounded in conspiracy theories about “chem trails” and geoengineering.

Switcheroo on immigration bill

Last week, House Judiciary chair Holt swapped out his proposal to force all Iowa law enforcement to sign cooperation agreements with federal immigration authorities for a new bill. House Study Bill 285 would make it a crime for Iowa law enforcement to “knowingly and intentionally” fail to comply with federal immigration officers.

Representatives of sheriffs and deputies expressed concern that the bill could lead to harsh punishments over misunderstandings, or local offices lacking the resources to pursue a detainer request. Holt said during the Judiciary Committee meeting that he plans to amend the bill to drop the crime down from a class D felony to a serious misdemeanor. But he is determined to run this bill, which was inspired by Winneshiek County Sheriff Dan Marx. He recently vowed not to cooperate with ICE detainer requests, saying they were unconstitutional.

New property tax reform plan

Tax and spending bills aren’t subject to funnel deadlines. Last Thursday, Iowans got the first look at property tax legislation jointly introduced by House Ways and Means Committee chair Bobby Kaufmann and Senate Ways and Means Committee chair Dan Dawson (House Study Bill 313 and Senate Study Bill 1208). You can read about the main provisions here and here.

The details may change, because Kaufmann said they plan to spend the next couple of weeks hearing feedback from stakeholders before they bring the bill up in subcommittees. He told reporters on Thursday they are open to amending the proposal.

I was struck by how different this approach is from previous attempts to deal with property taxes. In 2023, House and Senate Republicans were working on very different tracks. They cobbled together a compromise behind closed doors and rammed it through in a short time. Local governments have complained about the unintended consequences.

What’s “dead” and alive

A reminder: just because something didn’t make it through the funnel doesn’t mean we won’t see it again this year. State Senator Mike Bousselot’s proposal to buy the southern tier of Minnesota counties (Senate File 354) did not get a subcommittee hearing. But Cedar Rapids Gazette reporter Erin Murphy said on the On Iowa Politics podcast that he heard this one might come back. I could see it being an appropriations bill, since it would clearly involve spending.

We didn’t have time to go into details about the bills that got through the funnel but wanted to flag some of the most newsworthy items.

K-12 education

Eligible for floor debate:

• Governor’s bill banning cell phone use during instructional time at school (Senate File 370 and House File 782)

• Governor’s bill on math education (Senate File 450)

• Governor’s bill related to pre-K and child care integration (Senate File 445 and House File 623)

• Letting homeschool parents charge tuition and teach more unrelated kids; ending requirement to report vaccination status to school districts (House File 888)

• Fetal development videos that are designed to persuade kids to be against abortion (Senate File 175 and House File 391)

• Allowing schools to offer an elective course on religious scripture (Senate File 510 and House File 448)

• Allowing school districts to have religious chaplains in the schools (House File 884)

• Requiring schools from grades 6-12 to make period products available for free in school restrooms (House File 883)

• Changes to requirements for school districts when students are chronically absent (Senate File 277)

Education bills that didn’t make the cut include a proposal to extend the ban on teaching about sexual orientation or gender identity (which currently applies to grades K-6) to grades 7-12 (House Study Bill 84). Also measures allowing firearms in school parking lots (House File 621), requiring schools to use the term “Gulf of America” instead of Gulf of Mexico (House Study Bill 97), allowing schools to hire athletic trainers instead of nurses (House Study Bill 10),

Higher education

Lots of bills targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs passed out of the House Higher Education Committee. Those include House File 269 (prohibiting any required courses at state universities from incorporating DEI), House File 855 (banning DEI offices at community colleges, and House File 854 (prohibiting the use of the Iowa Tuition Grant financial aid program at any private college that has a DEI office).

Legislation to create a “school of intellectual freedom” at the University of Iowa has advanced in both chambers. (House File 437 and Senate File 519)

State universities would have to post the syllabus for every course online under House File 270.

House File 402 would require all students at Regents universities or community colleges to complete a course on U.S. history and civics with very detailed curriculum requirements.

House File 379 gives preference for Iowa-based applicants when interviewing for medical residency programs.

House File 867 would require that at least half of Iowa Tuition Grant funds go to students “pursuing majors leading to high-wage and high-demand jobs.”

Libraries

Two bad library bills are eligible for floor debate. Under House File 521, libraries and educational institutions would no longer be exempt from Iowa’s obscenity law, which currently states “nothing in this chapter prohibits the use of appropriate material for educational purposes in any accredited school, or any public library, or in any educational program in which the minor is participating.” It could open libraries up to lawsuits from community members who found any book in the collection offensive.

House File 880 would make libraries ineligible for state funds through the Enrich Iowa grants if they are dues-paying members of state or federal library advocacy organizations, such as the American Library Association and Iowa Library Association.

One horrible library bill (a Senator Sandy Salmon special) didn’t make it through. Senate File 347 would have extended the prohibitions Republicans enacted for school libraries in 2023 to all public libraries: they could not purchase any book with descriptions or visual depictions of a sex act.

Energy

The governor’s wide-ranging energy bill containing provisions favorable to large investor-owned utilities (Alliant and MidAmerican) is alive in both chambers. (Senate File 585 and House File 834)

A slew of bills related to eminent domain or Iowa Utilities Commission procedures connected to pipelines are eligible for debate in the House. The Des Moines Register listed them here. These are designed to undermine the Summit Carbon Solutions CO2 pipeline.

A community solar bill unanimously advanced from the House Commerce Committee (House File 404). The investor-owned utilities argued against this at subcommittee level and I get the impression that if this comes to the floor it will pass easily.

State government

In contrast to the last two years, Governor Reynolds didn’t introduce any huge, controversial state government bills this year.

Still eligible for floor debate: the Senate bill on legislator and statewide officials’ salaries mentioned above, a proposal to cut the tax that businesses pay into the unemployment trust fund (Senate File 504), the governor’s paid family leave for state employees bill (House File 889), and yet another effort to restrict the Iowa Department of Natural Resources from acquiring more public land at auction (Senate File 553). The House companion to that bill did not get through committee.

Last week we discussed the proposed state constitutional amendment to repeal the Natural Resources Trust Fund (Senate Joint Resolution 6). That was pulled from the Senate State Government Committee agenda last week, so it’s dead.

Health care

There are so many of these. We had time to mention just a few:

• House File 775 requires physicians to give patients seeking abortions inaccurate information about “reversals” of medication abortions.

• As mentioned above, bills are alive in both chambers to make it harder for adolescents to receive the HPV vaccine.

• So-called “medical conscience” bills (House File 571 and Senate File 220) would allow health care providers and insurers not to participate in or pay for services that go against their beliefs.

• As we discussed last week, both chambers have bills that would add work requirements for Iowans on Medicaid and federal food assistance (Senate File 363 and House Study Bill 248)

• There are a couple of bills to regulate pharmacy benefit managers (Senate File 383 and House File 852)

• A number of bills to address Iowa’s cancer problem are eligible for debate.

• House File 781 would remove the casino exemption from Iowa’s indoor smoking ban, which was adopted in 2008.

I wanted to highlight another bill that got through committee. Democratic State Representative Josh Turek has championed the “Work Without Worry” legislation, which would allow permanently disabled people to earn more without losing the Medicaid health coverage they rely on for basic needs. The House Human Resources Committee advanced one version of this bill, House File 905.

Crime and courts

Again, there are so many bills in this area. I wanted to flag a few that are still eligible for the floor:

• Hands-free driving bills made it through committee in both chambers (House File 827 and Senate File 22).

• House Study Bill 262 would lower the legal age to purchase or carry firearms from 21 to 18. This follows some federal court rulings striking down similar age restrictions in other states.

• Attorney General Brenna Bird’s proposed constitutional amendment, which would allow children to testify remotely at some criminal trials. (House Joint Resolution 9 and Senate Joint Resolution 9)

• Several bills would enhance criminal penalties. House File 849 and Senate File 35 would address doxxing (posting personal information online in a harassing way).

• House File 167 would change the definition of “grooming” by school employees.

• House File 792 would allow someone to be charged with first-degree murder if they provided fentanyl to someone who died, even unknowingly (for instance by sharing pills that they didn’t know were laced with fentanyl).

• Senate File 394 would shield pesticide manufacturers from lawsuits. This one will probably get through the Senate, as it did last year, but faces an uphill battle in the House.

Crime-related bills that didn’t survive the funnel: the effort to criminalize homelessness mentioned above, the latest version of a death penalty bill (Senate File 320), and legislation backed by county attorneys to create the crime of “groping.” (Senate Study Bill 1004 and House Study Bill 12)

As for the policies Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice Susan Christensen asked the legislature to approve during her annual address in January, the proposal to peg Iowa judicial salaries to federal judges’ salaries is still alive in the House. The proposal to save money by not having a magistrate in every county did not advance in either chamber.

Not requested by the judicial branch but relevant to their work: a last-minute Senate bill (Senate File 570) would create a business court advanced from the Senate Commerce Committee. The judicial branch is registered against this bill.

Also, the Senate Judiciary Committee again advanced Senator Julian Garrett’s proposal to change the district judicial nominating commissions, removing the judge from those panels and giving the governor an extra appointee. (Senate File 407)

Elections

Several election-related bills are moving forward. Among those proposed by the Iowa Secretary of State’s office, the most controversial would allow election workers to ask about someone’s citizenship at the polls. Democrats warned on the Senate State Government Committee that this could lead to racial profiling and was also unnecessary because everyone who registers to vote already attests to be a U.S. citizen, on penalty of perjury. (Senate File 550)

On March 10, the Iowa Senate debated and approved Senate File 75, which would force Story, Johnson, and Black Hawk counties to elect their county supervisors in a way that would advantage Republicans. The original draft would have applied to all counties with a population greater than 125,000. Not surprisingly, it was amended on the floor to take out the population language. Republicans in Scott County (which currently has an all-Republican board of supervisors) don’t want to give Democrats a chance to elect one or two supervisors from Davenport.

A new job for Brad Zaun

We had just a few minutes to talk about stories not directly related to the state legislature. Former State Senator Brad Zaun announced last week that he landed a Trump administration job. I wrote more about this at Bleeding Heartland.

Remembering Jack Kibbie

A giant of the Iowa legislature, former State Senator Jack Kibbie, passed away last week at the age of 95. He is most remembered as the father of Iowa’s community college system, an incredible legacy.

Kibbie was also a classic example of rural Democrats, mostly Catholics, who were a significant presence in the Iowa House and Senate for decades. There hasn’t been a Democrat representing any part of northwest Iowa (aside from Sioux City) since Kibbie retired in 2012. Since 2023 there have been no Democrats representing any rural districts in any part of Iowa.

Trouble for the Summit Carbon pipeline?

I wanted to mention this story from South Dakota, where a new state law bans the use of eminent domain for CO2 pipelines. It could cause big problems for Summit Carbon Solutions, which cannot begin construction of its pipeline in Iowa without securing approval in both North Dakota and South Dakota.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see a legal challenge to this statute. But at the very least, it will push back the timetable for construction.

Multiple lawsuits have been filed in Iowa seeking to overturn the Iowa Utilities Commission’s approval of the Summit Carbon project.

ProPublica reports on Joni Ernst

Sadly, we had only about a minute left to discuss this bombshell exclusive by Robert Faturechi for ProPublica. You really need to read the whole thing, but here are some excerpts.

Earlier this year, the Air Force revealed that the general who oversaw its lobbying before Congress had inappropriate romantic relationships with five women, including three who worked on Capitol Hill.

Maj. Gen. Christopher Finerty’s colleagues told investigators the relationships were “highly inappropriate” as they could give the Air Force undue influence in Congress. “I honestly felt sick to my stomach,” one said, according to a report about the investigation, “because it just felt so sleazy.” […]

Six sources who worked for the Air Force or in Congress told ProPublica that they had heard about a relationship between Ernst and Finerty and there had been concerns about it for years. […] Two sources said they heard from witnesses interviewed by the inspector general that Ernst was a focus of the investigation.

A spokesperson for Ernst would not address whether the senator had any relationships with military legislative liaisons but said the lawmaker maintained her independence: “The fake news media is clearly too busy gossiping to report the real news that Senator Ernst is focused on cutting waste at the Pentagon. Her votes and work in the Senate are guided by the voices of Iowans who elected her and her constitutional duty alone. Any insinuation otherwise by tabloid ‘journalism’ is a slanderous lie — full stop.”

We briefly discussed why this story matters. I tried to get a comment from Ernst’s potential GOP primary challengers (Joshua Smith and Jim Carlin), but so far have had no luck.

Dave Price interviewed Ernst last week and tried to ask her about this story, but she shut down his question immediately, calling it “a bunch of baloney.”

Thanks so much for reading or listening!