Iowa DOGE, a Miller-Meeks challenger, and lots of legislative action
Feb. 10 edition of "KHOI's Capitol Week"
Every day I’m scrambling to get to as many subcommittee or committee meetings as possible. But I took a break Monday afternoon to watch from the Iowa Senate gallery as Democrat Mike Zimmer was sworn in.
and I covered the Senate district 35 special election on last week’s show, and my deep dive on how this upset happened in a Trump+21 district is here. Republicans now have a 34-16 majority in the chamber, the same as in 2023 and 2024.The audio file from Monday night’s 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.
Enter Iowa DOGE
As promised during her Condition of the State address, Governor Kim Reynolds signed an executive order on February 10 to establish an Iowa Department of Government Efficiency Task Force. Emily Schmitt of Sukup Manufacturing—who was considered for the lieutenant governor position—will lead the effort. The governor’s office hasn’t released a full list of members; most will come from the business community.
KWQC posted the video from the governor’s press conference here. The task force will work broadly in three areas: increasing “return on taxpayer investment,” improving the state’s workforce and job training programs, and figuring out the best use of AI (artificial intelligence) in government efforts.
Reporters sought to clarify whether Iowa’s task force would have the sweeping access that Elon Musk’s minions have gained as DOGE rampages through the federal government. Reynolds promised that Iowa’s DOGE task force will not have access to people’s private data. The group also will not have the authority to enact policy changes. The task force will hold its first meeting within 60 days and will release written recommendations within 180 days of that meeting. Reynolds indicated that the legislature will consider ideas during the 2026 session.
Schmitt told reporters the task force will solicit feedback from people within state government as well as from the public. She wants to know “Where are the hurts, habits, and hangups?” that people deal with on a regular basis. One way to make a suggestion is through the IowaDOGE account on X/Twitter.
The governor goes to Washington
Reynolds was in Washington, DC last Wednesday to testify before the House Oversight Committee about Iowa’s state government reorganization efforts. The governor’s office alerted the news media to her planned testimony less than 20 minutes before the Oversight committee hearing started—hardly helpful for planning our coverage! You can watch the whole hearing on C-SPAN.
Reynolds bragged about alleged savings to the state as well as her tax cuts.
The Democrats on the committee asked some tough questions. One highlighted how Reynolds did not hire her top donor to unilaterally make decisions and fire people. (Reynolds emphasized that no state employees were laid off during Iowa’s reorganization; rather, hundreds of vacant positions went unfilled.)
Another challenged Reynolds’ claim to address waste in government, since she signed a 2023 law limiting the state auditor’s authority, and has dedicated taxpayer dollars to private schools with no oversight.
I expect some of these clips to be used in 2026 campaign ads.
There was an awkward exchange as a House Democrat tried to get Reynolds to say Lutheran service organizations are not money-laundering operations. The governor suggested that “every program should be looked at.” Iowa’s Lutheran bishops wrote to the governor last week urging her to denounce the false claims about church-led humanitarian efforts. Reynolds did a bit of cleanup near the end of Monday’s press conference, saying, “I absolutely do not think that Lutheran Services is a money-laundering operation.”
More news about the Iowans in Washington
Reynolds, Attorney General Brenna Bird, and some of Iowa’s Congressional delegation watched President Donald Trump sign an executive order banning transgender athletes from competing in girls’ or women’s sports.
Iowa already enacted a transgender sports ban in 2022. Republicans shamelessly use this issue to build their brand, making grand claims to “save girls’ sports.” (The NCAA has said it will align its policies with the executive order.) In reality, not one transgender athlete ever denied any Iowa girl a championship, scholarship, or even a spot on a varsity team in any sport. The NCAA president said last month that fewer than ten transgender athletes are among some 510,000 currently competing in collegiate sports.
Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst were among more than 40 Senate Republicans who flew to Florida last Friday to have dinner with the president at Mar-a-Lago. We don’t know the details of the discussions; Grassley tweeted, “As u wld expect Joni Barbara and I talked about the gr8 ppl of IOWA w President Trump 2nite at Maralago.” The focus seems to have been on confirming Trump’s remaining cabinet nominees.
On Monday afternoon, Iowa’s senators were part of a party-line vote to advance Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination for director of national intelligence. Ernst spoke in favor of Gabbard at her confirmation hearing in January.
Grassley has rebuffed calls from Democrats and others (including Republican William Webster, a former head of the CIA and FBI) to reopen the confirmation hearing on Kash Patel for FBI director.
Six Iowa Democratic legislators who represent parts of Johnson County wrote to Grassley, Ernst, and Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks in late January “to share our concerns about the Trump Administration’s decision to pause National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant review panels.” They noted, “NIH grants provided $190,931,119 in funding to the University of Iowa in 2024. Iowa State University received $18,466,246 in NIH funding.” (The six are State Representatives Adam Zabner, Amy Nielsen, Dave Jacoby, and Elinor Levin, and State Senators Janice Weiner and Zach Wahls.)
I circled back with Zabner over the weekend. He told me the group did not hear back from staff for Ernst or Miller-Meeks. Grassley’s office told him last week that peer review meetings at NIH were back on.
That communication happened before the NIH announced a new policy on February 7, limiting the “indirect costs” for grant recipients.
Spencer and I will return to this topic in the future, because I learned after our show that the University of Iowa has halted the submission of all NIH grant applications.
Iowa election news
On Friday, Governor Reynolds scheduled a special election for March 11 in Iowa House district 100, due to the recent passing of State Representative Martin Graber. At Bleeding Heartland I reviewed the political landscape in this district and provided background on Nannette Griffin, the Democrat who announced her candidacy on Monday.
Republicans are certainly favored to hold this seat, but after what happened in Senate district 35, I wouldn’t count Griffin out—especially if there are hard feelings after the GOP nominating convention.
Last week I interviewed David Pautsch, the MAGA Republican who plans to run against Miller-Meeks in the 2026 primary for Iowa’s first Congressional district. He had a lot to say! Spencer and I talked about how vulnerable Miller-Meeks may be, after she won only about 56 percent of the vote against Pautsch in the 2024 primary. One big question is whether any nationally-known figures (like House Freedom Caucus member Jim Jordan) decide to get involved.
Miller-Meeks may have improved her prospects recently by joining Trump as a plaintiff in the lawsuit against Ann Selzer, her polling company, the Des Moines Register, and the Gannett Corporation. Former State Senator Brad Zaun also signed on as a plaintiff. We discussed the legal strategy and what’s likely to happen next in court.
I had much more to say about these developments at Bleeding Heartland. The plaintiffs still offer no evidence supporting any of their consumer fraud claims. It’s particularly absurd for Zaun to blame the Iowa Poll for his defeat, when 1) the poll didn’t ask about any state legislative races, and 2) his problems were baked in years ago when redistricting took out the areas that provided his margin of victory in 2020.
One more bit of news from the political world: the Republican Party of Iowa’s governing body re-elected Jeff Kaufmann as state party chair and former House Speaker Linda Upmeyer as co-chair.
News from the Iowa legislature
A five-year casino moratorium went out with a whimper in the Iowa Senate State Government Committee last Tuesday, when Senator Ken Rozenboom announced he won’t advance the bill. He said in a statement that he’s not a fan of gambling, but “this bill did not have enough support from Senate Republicans to advance all the way through the Senate process.” I tried to find out whether anyone tried to determine how many Senate Democrats would have supported the measure on the floor, but there was no response.
With the bill dead, the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission voted 4-1 on Thursday to approve a casino license for a Cedar Rapids project. Backers broke ground on Friday morning and hope the Cedar Crossing Casino & Entertainment Center will be ready to open by New Year’s Eve in 2026. But not so fast: Riverside Casino & Golf Resort has filed a lawsuit seeking to block the license. The dissenting commissioner, Alan Ostergren, thinks their case has merit.
Education
On the education front, House Republicans released their K-12 school funding proposal (House Study Bill 138). They want a 2.25 percent increase in state funding per pupil; the governor and Iowa Senate Republicans want a 2 percent increase. House and Senate Democrats are calling for a 5 percent increase, which would work out to around $315 million additional dollars for public schools.
I forgot to mention during last week’s show that a bill requiring teaching materials to refer to the Gulf of America (not the Gulf of Mexico) and Mount McKinley (not Denali) is moving forward (House Study Bill 97).
Also last week, a House subcommittee advanced House Study Bill 56, which would create a new mandatory U.S. history and civics course for all students at Iowa’s state universities and community colleges. I have been trying (without success so far) to find out how much it would cost to hire enough faculty and teaching assistants to offer this course with a very specific curriculum to thousands of students every semester.
Efforts to stop CO2 pipelines
Last week I attended a subcommittee on this year’s first legislative proposal seeking to block CO2 pipelines. State Representative Charley Thomson, a leader of Republican lawmakers’ lawsuit seeking to block approval of the Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline, is the main proponent of this bill. It would prohibit the Iowa Utilities Commission from considering climate change when deciding on a permit for a hazardous liquid pipeline.
As Stephen Gruber-Miller reported for the Des Moines Register,
The bill would also strike language in Iowa law that says the goal of the state's renewable fuels policy is "to reduce the state's dependency upon petroleum products" and "to reduce atmospheric contamination of this state's environment from the combustion of fossil fuels."
Sierra Club Iowa chapter director Pam Mackey Taylor spoke against the bill at the subcommittee. The Sierra Club has opposed CO2 pipeline proposals but wants the Iowa Utilities Commission to be able to consider climate change.
Democratic State Representative Adam Zabner opposed the bill, saying any Iowan who has received a homeowners insurance bill “knows that Iowa’s climate is changing.” He told reporters, “When you’re talking about long-term planning for the future of our energy resilience, these are really important issues. And so, you can’t just close your eyes to the changing climate. And my concern is we’ll fall behind other states that are using all of the available information to make the best decisions about the future of energy.”
Following approval by the House Commerce Committee, the bill has been renumbered House File 302.
Pesticide immunity bill is back
Last week I attended a packed subcommittee hearing on Senate Study Bill 1051, which would prevent Iowans from suing pesticide manufacturers under the “duty to warn” doctrine. The Bayer corporation is pushing this bill, and several farmers and representatives from Big Ag lobby groups spoke in its favor. They noted that farmers rely on chemicals like Roundup, that the EPA has not found glyphosate to cause cancer, and that most Roundup sold in the U.S. is manufactured in Muscatine.
Doctors, attorneys, and some farmers gave testimony against the bill, saying we know more about the risks from agricultural chemicals, and Iowans shouldn’t be blocked from suing if exposure caused serious health problems.
The Iowa Senate approved this bill last year, and I expect the chamber to pass it again. The battle will be in the House, where all Democrats and many Republicans oppose the legislation. (House leaders didn’t bring the bill to the floor last year.)
On February 10, at least 150 people rallied against the pesticide immunity bill in the capitol rotunda. Julie Russell-Steuart took this photo of the event:
Several bills addressing cancer moving forward
I wanted to flag three bills that are related to Iowa’s high cancer rate.
House Study Bill 100 would stipulate that insurers couldn’t charge higher co-pays for supplemental diagnostic breast exams (like a breast MRI) than for a regular exam. Supplemental exams are recommended for some women due to family history or dense breast tissue that doesn’t show up well on typical mammograms. The lobbyist for the Federation of Iowa Insurers spoke against the bill, but the subcommittee advanced it unanimously. Democratic State Representative Megan Srinivas said the data she’d seen suggested this provision would save more than it would cost, because it would lead to earlier detection of some cancers.
House File 116, introduced by Republican State Representative Hans Wilz, would prohibit a tanning salon from allowing anyone under age 18 to use a tanning bed. Twenty-two states already have such laws on the books, and the Iowa Senate (then controlled by Democrats) passed a similar bill in 2015, but the House didn’t take it up. The American Cancer Society Action Network supports this bill. A representative of a tanning industry trade group argued it could lead to more unsafe sun exposure outdoors for teens denied the use of a tanning bed. But Democratic State Representative Austin Baeth, a physician, noted that the World Health Organization classifies indoor tanning as a group 1 carcinogen. The subcommittee unanimously advanced the bill.
Wilz also introduced House File 82, which would require radon mitigation in new construction for single-family or two-family dwellings. Iowa has high levels of naturally occurring radon, which can cause lung cancer. This bill is through the House State Government Committee.
A good year for vaccine skeptics
Republicans have advanced several bills backed by groups like Informed Choice Iowa, which generally oppose vaccinations. Spencer and I discussed four.
On a party-line vote, the House Human Services Committee approved a bill now numbered House File 299, requiring child care centers and child development homes to give parents information about how to obtain a vaccine exemption anytime they are communicating about required immunizations. Baeth harshly criticized this bill in committee, saying it will lead to fewer kids getting life-saving vaccines. I forgot to mention during the show that a Senate subcommittee has advanced a companion bill.
Republicans in both chambers have advanced bills to remove adolescents’ ability to get the HPV vaccine without parental consent (House File 104 and Senate File 120). Representatives of medical and public health groups strongly oppose this bill. The HPV vaccine prevents several types of cancer, but it’s most effective if children get vaccinated before exposure to the virus through sexual activity.
A wide-ranging homeschooling bill (House File 88) would remove the Iowa Code section that requires parents to tell school districts which vaccines their homeschooled child has received. It’s through the House Education Committee.
Finally, a Senate subcommittee advanced Senate File 128, which could increase vaccine skepticism by calling for medical examiners to look into all vaccines received by children who died under age 3.
Thanks for reading or listening! We didn’t have time to talk about last week’s federal court hearing on lawsuits challenging Iowa’s school book ban and “don’t say gay or trans” teaching restrictions. Spencer and I will make time for that on next week’s show, because the legal arguments are fascinating.
The coverage you provide is priceless and irreplaceable. So welcome and necessary.
Is the governor's DOGE task force going to look into her no-bid contracts?
https://www.ottumwacourier.com/news/lawmakers-declined-to-fund-workday-contract/article_1d09a6b6-13c2-11eb-8718-23b47ff5ab43.html