Iowa Republicans suddenly want to limit governor's powers

It's not hard to guess why

Terrace Hill (the Iowa governor’s residence). Photo by Joseph Sohm,/ Shutterstock.

This original reporting and analysis first appeared at Bleeding Heartland and is shared here as part of the Iowa Writers Collaborative. For regular emails linking to all recent Bleeding Heartland articles and commentary, subscribe to the free Evening Heartland newsletter.

For the past nine years, Iowa’s Republican-controlled legislature has given Governor Kim Reynolds a free hand. GOP lawmakers allowed Reynolds to spend billions of federal dollars provided through the CARES Act and American Rescue Plan with no legislative input.

They approved most of the governor’s signature proposals, expanded her power to hire and fire officials, and allowed her to set agency directors’ salaries with no constraints.

Neither chamber’s Government Oversight Committee has investigated any alleged malfeasance or mismanagement in the Reynolds administration, such as the governor’s questionable spending of pandemic relief funds on her staff’s salaries, or the tens of millions of dollars wasted on a no-bid contract for Workday.

Now, in the tenth year of Iowa’s GOP trifecta, the ruling party has suddenly decided the legislature should be a check on the executive. Several bills that are eligible for floor debate could prevent Reynolds’ successor from making big changes in state government.

Insulting all of our collective intelligence, Republican lawmakers claim these bills aren’t fueled by concern that State Auditor Rob Sand may win the governor’s race in November.

Here’s a rundown of pending bills that could hamstring the next Democratic governor.

A legislative block on “Major Rules”

For generations, Iowa governors have had broad latitude to set policy within the executive branch. But companion bills in the House and Senate would put up new roadblocks.

Senate File 2395 (initially numbered Senate File 2314) and House File 2413 would create a cumbersome process for adopting a “major rule,” defined broadly as any rule that would incur annual expenditures of at least $200,000 (or at least $1 million within five years), or a rule that would have “significant adverse effects on competition, employment, investment, productivity, or innovation, including significant adverse effects on individual industries or regions.” Changes to how Iowa implements the federal Clean Air Act would also be considered major rules.

When proposing any major rule, a state agency would need to provide voluminous information about potential costs or savings, including compliance costs for entities subject to regulation, estimated “secondary or indirect costs,” and estimated “opportunity costs.” The agency would also have to describe “any actions taken” to minimize the rule’s cost and impact. It would need to provide support for its legal authority to propose the rule, along with “all sources consulted by the agency,” “all key assumptions made,” and “all sources of uncertainty identified” while drafting the rule.

Once that work is finished, the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency would “conduct a legislative regulatory analysis” of each proposed major rule. The bills prescribe a long list of elements that analysis must include. It would take weeks, if not months, for the (already overworked) LSA staff to complete such reports.

The icing on the cake: under the bills, a major rule could not take effect “until it is ratified” by a joint resolution of the legislature, or temporarily approved by the Legislative Council if the legislature is not in session. Given the large Republican majorities in the Iowa House and Senate, the GOP would be able to block any policy of any significance from a Democratic administration.

The Senate State Government Committee and House Judiciary Committee approved these bills on party-line votes on February 19.

During the subcommittee and committee discussions, GOP State Senator Scott Webster said House Republicans took the lead in drafting this legislation. The co-sponsors of the House bill were State Representatives John Wills, Judd Lawler, Bobby Kaufmann, Henry Stone, Heather Hora, Cindy Golding, Taylor Collins, Bill Gustoff, Steven Holt, Charley Thomson, and Jon Dunwell.

Webster indicated some amendments would be filed before floor debate. For instance, the Iowa Public Employee Retirement System (IPERS, the state’s largest public pension fund) will have an exemption allowing it to set annual contribution rates without the massive delays baked into the “major rule” process. Republicans also plan to address concerns raised by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, so that air quality regulation wouldn’t revert to the federal government.

Those tweaks wouldn’t affect the main goal: creating a path for the majority party in the legislature to prevent the executive branch from changing course.

Webster told State Government Committee members he wanted to make sure “Iowans are more in the room when it comes to major rules that affect our lives every day.” Yet he and his Republican colleagues have shown zero interest in giving Iowans more of a voice over any of Reynolds’ executive actions, or rules enacted by her appointees.

Limiting the governor’s appointment powers

Speaking of appointees, Division III of House File 2413 and Senate File 2395 would shorten the terms of the next governor’s picks for some important state boards and commissions.

Currently, members of the Iowa Finance Authority Board of Directors, the Agricultural Development Board, IPERS Investment Board, State Board of Education, and Iowa Board of Regents (the governing body for state universities) serve six-year terms. The pending bills maintain that length of service for those “appointed by the governor on or before June 30, 2026,” but shorten the terms to four years for everyone “appointed by the governor on or after July 1, 2026.”

In other words, whoever wins the 2030 election will be able to replace the next governor’s nominees more rapidly. Republicans have some reason to believe Reynolds’ successor will be a one-term governor, in light of the state budget crash coming soon.

It’s worth noting that the 1,500-page state government reorganization plan Reynolds proposed in 2023, which GOP lawmakers approved with no significant changes, expanded the governor’s authority to hire and fire at will. She gained the power to name certain officials who had been appointed by independent bodies.

In addition, that 2023 law eliminated fixed-term offices for positions that were supposed to be insulated from political pressure (labor commissioner, workers’ compensation commissioner, superintendent of banks, and the superintendent of credit unions, to name a few). Republican lawmakers ensured that all of those officials and many more would serve “at the pleasure of the governor.”

There’s no way they would have filed this bill if Reynolds were seeking a third full term.

Reducing the governor’s leverage in budget negotiations

Passing a state budget is one of the few tasks Iowa legislators must do every year. But a bill introduced by Senate State Government Committee chair Ken Rozenboom would change that.

Senate File 2388 (previously numbered Senate Study Bill 3176) would establish “continuing appropriations in fiscal years for which the general assembly does not pass an annual budget.” If lawmakers adjourned without approving a budget, spending would continue at the previous year’s levels. That would force cuts in many government operations, since costs would rise while appropriations stayed flat.

The obvious purpose is to ensure the GOP majority won’t have to make meaningful concessions to a Democratic governor during the budget process. As Democratic State Senators Cindy Winckler, Tony Bisignano, and Janice Weiner all pointed out, Republican lawmakers could simply walk away from what is arguably their most important job.

Webster told State Government Committee members, “I don’t like government shutdowns at the federal level. I don’t like them at the state level. That’s why I like this bill.” Speaking to reporters on February 19, Senate Majority Leader Mike Klimesh denied that Republicans are pushing this bill to avoid compromise with a Democratic governor. He pointed out that the record-long federal government shutdown in October and November 2025 “caused a lot of disruption,” and Republicans “want to make sure that we continue to fund those services that Iowans depend on, and this does just that.”

Iowa’s state government has never shut down due to failure to approve a budget, despite having divided control for most of Terry Branstad’s tenure and all eight years of Tom Vilsack’s administration. There was a close call in 2011, when the Republican-controlled House, Democratic-controlled Senate, and Branstad reached a deal on the final spending bills with about eight hours to spare before the new fiscal year began.

Klimesh also denied the bill was designed to prevent members of his own caucus from refusing to approve a budget in order to force a floor vote on certain legislation. In May 2025, a dozen Senate Republican holdouts were able to pressure leaders to bring an eminent domain bill to the floor, which they managed to pass with Democratic support.

There is no House companion to Senate File 2388. Asked about the idea on February 19, House Speaker Pat Grassley said he hadn’t thought about that legislation. He observed that whether there was split government or a trifecta, Iowans have “generally been able to get a budget done.”

Locking in Medicaid privatization

Many Iowa media have covered the bills on “major rules” and continuing appropriations, but I haven’t seen any reporting on two short paragraphs tucked into Senate Study Bill 3140 (later renumbered Senate File 2422). Senate Health and Human Services Committee chair Kara Warme introduced that bill, which would codify many changes to public assistance programs including Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Division III would require the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services to use a “managed care program” to furnish benefits to Medicaid recipients.

Democratic State Senator Sarah Trone Garriott zeroed in on that provision during the Senate Health and Human Services committee’s February 19 meeting. This video combines her questions to Webster (the floor manager) and her closing remarks on the bill a few minutes later.

Branstad privatized the Iowa Medicaid Enterprise through a 2015 executive order—fortunately for him, no “major rules” process allowed the Iowa Senate (then under Democratic control) to stop him from upending health care for more than 700,000 Iowans.

The transition to managed care happened in 2016. So Trone Garriott correctly noted that Senate Study Bill 3140 would “tie the hands of a future governor” on Medicaid, “when we’ve been operating under an executive order for nearly ten years.”

Privatizing Medicaid has not delivered better care or lower costs. On the contrary, it has ruined lives, especially for disabled Iowans needing long-term in-home supports. Many thousands of others have been harmed by denials of care or inconvenienced by turnover of managed care providers.

Sand promised to audit the Medicaid program during his first campaign for state auditor in 2018. His office released a damning report in 2021 that found illegal denials of care skyrocketed after for-profit insurance companies received state contracts to manage care. “Privatized Medicaid in Iowa is substantially less likely to follow the laws and regulations regarding providing care to members,” the report concluded.

As a candidate for governor, Sand has repeatedly promised to undo Medicaid privatization, which he calls a “disaster.” The issue came up three times at a town hall I attended in Osceola last August. I pulled together those clips in this video. Sand promised “an executive order on day one” reversing Medicaid privatization. Responding to later questions, he explained in more detail the problems he hears about when he visits hospitals and speaks to recipients and service providers around the state.

If the legislature approves this bill and Reynolds signs it, the next governor would not be able to abandon the failed managed care model without legislative approval.

Could Sand convince Republican-controlled chambers to return to a state-run Medicaid program? Unlikely—especially since the legislature may not need his signature on budget bills.

UPDATE: The Iowa Senate approved this bill on a mostly party-line 30 to 17 vote on February 25. State Senator Jeff Taylor was the only Republican to join Democrats in opposing the bill.

Limiting the governor’s powers in emergencies

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed the scope of the governor’s emergency powers, some of which hadn’t been used in our lifetimes. Many conservatives denounced what they viewed as government overreach. For the past several years, some Iowa legislators have expressed interest in limiting a future governor’s ability to forbid large indoor gatherings or shut down schools and businesses.

Those bills never gained traction under Reynolds, who has built her brand on keeping Iowa open during the pandemic (at the cost of “many preventable deaths”).

Two proposals to curtail the governor’s powers got through the Iowa House Judiciary Committee on party-line votes before the February 20 “funnel” deadline. House File 2145 is narrowly focused: “the governor shall not close, place a mandate on, or otherwise regulate a place or practice of worship for any reason, including through the proclamation of a disaster emergency.” At the subcommittee meeting on that bill, State Representative John Wills argued that churches can decide whether it’s safe to gather, and individuals can decide whether they feel safe going to church.

Judiciary Committee chair Steven Holt introduced the wide-ranging House Study Bill 726. It would not only forbid church closures, but also shorten disaster proclamations from 30 days to fifteen days. Only the state legislature or the Legislative Council (not the governor) could extend disaster proclamations, in fifteen-day increments.

Disaster proclamations could not violate constitutional rights, or require that any private business halt “lawful operations.” They could not change any election procedures or restrict health care professionals from practicing within the scope of their license. The Iowa Department of Health and Human Services could recommend tests, vaccines, or treatment for a communicable disease, but could not require Iowans to submit to them.

These proposals wouldn’t affect the next administration most of the time. But they would interfere with the governor’s ability to manage emergencies including natural disasters, terrorist attacks, or pandemics—even if the next novel virus is far more deadly than COVID-19.

“Don’t be fooled”

GOP trifectas in North Carolina and Wisconsin sharply restricted the powers of incoming Democratic governors in 2016 and 2018, so I wasn’t surprised to see any of these bills pop up this year.

After seeing the bills related to emergency powers, I asked Speaker Grassley on February 12 whether we would see more proposals along these lines in anticipation of a possible Democratic governor. He denied having a “partisan focus.” He said the GOP caucus was looking at this issue because Iowa will definitely have a new administration after many years of a consistent approach from Branstad and Reynolds.

I doubt these bills would be advancing if Republicans were confident the GOP nominee would defeat Sand (the likely Democratic candidate) in November.

Sand’s seen this movie before. A few months after he was re-elected in 2022, Republican lawmakers approved Senate File 478, limiting the State Auditor’s access to documents and preventing auditors from going to court to enforce subpoenas. He still calls that measure the “most pro-corruption” law in Iowa history.

I sought comment from Sand’s campaign on the constellation of bills that would limit his ability to change the direction of state government. Staff pointed me to the candidate’s February 20 social media post:

Insiders again are corrupting the system to avoid accountability. They already stripped the powers of the Auditor’s Office after I uncovered record amounts of waste. Now, they see us coming to flip their tables, so they’re rigging in their budgeting control past the next election. They’ll lock in sweetheart deals for companies like Odyssey, whose tax dollar paychecks they doubled, against the rules, to run the unaccountable private school voucher program. Enough. They are showing how badly we need change.

“Flip their tables” is a nod to a line Sand frequently uses at his town halls and other political events. After sharing that one of his favorite Bible stories is about Jesus flipping over money-changers’ tables in the Temple, he will add, “In November of 2026, with your help, we’ve got a few tables in Des Moines that we could be flipping over.”

Sand followed up with a February 21 comment on a newspaper article framing the continuing spending bill as a “bill to avert shutdowns.”

“Don’t be fooled,” he wrote on X and Bluesky. “Federal government shutdowns have been around for decades. This bill is moving now because the insiders running state government want to lock in their power to spend your money beyond when voters take that power away.”

No lies detected.

I’ll continue to track efforts to limit the governor’s powers as the House and Senate shift their focus from committee work to floor debate in the coming weeks.