Iran strikes, Bohannan campaign, Iowa angles on ICE and Pride Month

June 23 edition of "KHOI's Capitol Week"

Christina Bohannan at the Polk County Democrats Steak Fry in September 2021 (photo by Greg Hauenstein—find more of his work at GregHauenstein.com and Moonshot Images)

Last week was one of my busiest. I was on four podcasts: “KHOI’s Capitol Week,” the 100th episode of “Iowa Revolution” with Robert Leonard and Spencer Dirks, a Substack live with David Nir and Aaron Rupar, and the last episode of “Iowa Down Ballot” with Dave Price and Kathie Obradovich before that pod goes on summer hiatus. (Contact Dave or Julie Gammack if you would like to help cover the production costs of another season for Iowa Down Ballot.)

I also spoke at the Women for a Stronger America monthly meeting in Des Moines, an empty-chair town hall organized by Friends of Bernie Sanders in Ankeny, and the Grassroots Iowa Network’s first workshop in Monticello.

This week I have just one public event scheduled, in Sioux City on Thursday, June 26. Contact me for more details about the place and time. This is a fundraiser to support my work, but no donations are required to attend. All are welcome to come hear me speak about my reporting journey and ask me anything about Iowa politics. If you can’t be there but would like to support my work financially, you can donate via credit card, PayPal, Venmo, or by personal check (email me for the mailing address), or become a paying subscriber through Substack.

Let’s get to the show. The audio file for Monday night’s edition of “KHOI’s Capitol Week,” is at the top of this post, for those who prefer to listen. The full show archive (going back to February 2021) is available on KHOI’s website.

Here’s the written recap for the June 23 episode, for those who would rather read. If your email provider truncates this post, you can read it without interruption here.

Iowans in Congress cheer U.S. strikes on Iran

We had to start with the world’s biggest news event. The Des Moines Register’s Chris Meglio posted comments from Governor Kim Reynolds and all of the Iowans in Congress about President Donald Trump’s decision to order military strikes against Iran.

We didn’t have time to read them all out loud, so I summarized what stood out to me. First, all emphasized that Trump was keeping us safe, and all accepted the administration’s claim that the mission was a total success. U.S. Representative Randy Feenstra (IA-04), who is desperate for Trump’s approval (or at least neutrality) in the upcoming governor’s race, referred to “obliterating Iranian nuclear facilities”—the same verb Trump himself had used.

Representatives Ashley Hinson (IA-02) and Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-01) expressed confidence that Iran will "never” get a nuclear weapon. (Expert assessments differ on how much the strikes set back Iran’s nuclear program.)

None of the Republicans questioned whether Trump had the authority to order this military action. (Many legal experts would disagree.) Senator Chuck Grassley alluded to keeping the country safe as Trump’s “number 1 responsibility.” Miller-Meeks referred to “the constitutional authority granted to the president as Commander-in-Chief under Article II.”

I was struck by the slightly different tone we heard from Representative Zach Nunn (IA-03): "As President Trump takes decisive action to eliminate Iran’s nuclear threat, I also remain committed to ensuring our troops—including Iowa’s Guardsmen deploying to the region—are protected and not engaged in a forever war. America remains a strong force for Peace through Strength." Is Nunn concerned about a forever war? Or just sucking up to the MAGA contingent?

Democratic candidates challenge Trump’s action

The three Democrats running for U.S. Senate didn’t support the strikes. State Senator Zach Wahls posted the most cautious statement on Saturday night: “Like a vast majority of Iowans, I strongly oppose the U.S. launching another endless war in the Middle East. We must prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Ensuring long term peace requires a diplomatic solution that begins with Congress immediately reclaiming its constitutional authority and deescalating this conflict before more American lives are threatened.”

Nathan Sage, who served three tours in Iraq, was typically blunt in a video posted to social media. “Now 20 years later, we’re bombing Iran,” getting involved in a Middle East conflict we should be staying out of “because nobody in Washington can tell Donald Trump no to endless wars. Well, I can: No to endless wars.”

State Representative J.D. Scholten protested the war in Iraq more than 20 years ago, and wrote Saturday night, "It sickens me to see history repeat itself tonight in this rush to war against Iran."

State Senator Sarah Trone Garriott, one of two Democrats running in the third Congressional district, posted Sunday that she had “spent a long restless night thinking about the people of the region and our US military members. Too many lives are at risk. Impulsive unilateral decisions are already wreaking havoc on our economy.” She added, “Congress must do its job as an equal branch of government, standing up for its responsibility to weigh in on military actions that impact global security.”

Travis Terrell, one of three Democrats running for Congress in IA-01, organized a “No War in Iran” protest in Iowa City on Sunday. He wrote in an email, “where around 10 of us stood in peaceful opposition to the escalation of conflict with Iran—despite a 104° heat index for almost 2 hours. […] It wasn’t a massive crowd, but it was a powerful show of grassroots resistance. We came together on short notice to send a clear message: the people do not want another endless war. We need de-escalation, diplomacy, and a government that listens to the public—not war-hungry politicians or military contractors.”

The other declared Democratic candidates for Congress didn’t make any public comments, to my knowledge.

Christina Bohannan running again in IA-01

Last Tuesday, Christina Bohannan made it official: she’s running for Congress again in the first district. In interviews with me and other reporters, she highlighted the budget reconciliation bill, criticized Trump’s tariffs, which will increase costs for Iowa families, and noted the incumbent’s connection to DOGE cuts and “unaccountable billionaires like Elon Musk.”

Tying Miller-Meeks to “special interests” will be a central theme for Bohannan’s campaign. She accused the incumbent of taking lots of votes that are “clearly bad for Iowa” and just falling in line with party bosses and billionaire donors.

Bohannan kicked off her previous two Congressional campaigns in the late summer. When I asked her about this year’s earlier start, she told me she was initially planning to launch later, but “I think there’s an urgency to the moment.” Many people in the district have been asking her to run.

She’s planning to hold public events around the district and has already done a couple of those. Miller-Meeks hasn’t done any in-person town halls this year; she has occasionally held telephone town halls, where her staff can control who speaks.

Bohannan mentioned last month’s video of Miller-Meeks in the halls of Congress, trying to get away from someone asking her about Medicaid cuts. (She’s lucky that viral moment was overshadowed by Senator Ernst’s infamous town hall.) Bohannan commented that even though Ernst’s comment got the attention, Miller-Meeks was actually on the House committee that decided on those cuts. Then she cast the deciding vote for the bill on the House floor.

Not only could Medicaid cuts cost 100,000 Iowans their health care, Bohannan told me, they could force the closure nursing homes and hospitals, such as the MercyOne center in Newton (Jasper County).

Travis Terrell and Bob Krause also plan to compete in the Democratic primary. Bohannan will be the prohibitive favorite; her campaign claimed to have raised around $500,000 on the first day. EMILY’s List immediately endorsed her, which will help her fundraising. Terrell is holding public events around the district; I haven’t seen much activity from Krause.

During our interview, I asked Bohannan what she would say to primary voters who like all of the Democratic candidates. She told me, “Frankly, I think I’m the only Democrat who can beat Mariannette Miller-Meeks in November,” because of her experience running campaigns. She also mentioned that she was the most outperforming Democratic challenger in any U.S. House race in the country in 2024. (Fact-check: true.)

IA-01 was one of the nation’s closest U.S. House races last year: Miller-Meeks won by 799 votes, or about 0.2 percent margin. I think it could be close again, assuming Miller-Meeks is the nominee. But David Pautsch, who took about 44 percent of the GOP primary vote in 2024, is running in IA-01 again. If he wins the primary I think the general election would be easier for Bohannan, as the big GOP groups might not spend money trying to hold the seat.

The American Action Network (a conservative group) already has targeted IA-01 as a place to run ads about the popular aspects of the reconciliation bill. It’s a sign they think Miller-Meeks needs the help.

I see two big challenges for Bohannan. First, she has to thread the needle in a district Trump carried by 8 and a half points last year. During my interview with her, she estimated that 33,000 people voted for Trump and for her in November.

I was very surprised by her response when Dave Price of Gray Media asked her how she thought Trump was doing, five months into his presidency. She began by saying, “He’s done some good things and obviously some things that are upsetting some people.” (You can watch Dave’s interview with Bohannan here; the exchange about Trump begins around 6:45.)

This is from a constitutional law professor! It wasn’t what I expected to hear from someone who had been criticizing the tariffs and the “big, beautiful bill,” which are of course Trump policies. Bohannan said she supported having no tax on tips and overtime and would vote for those policies in a stand-alone bill.

Side note: Miller-Meeks was back in the district last week and has rebranded her district visits “the One Big, Beautiful Main Street Tour.” As I’ve previously reported, she is desperately trying to associate herself with Trump.

A second challenge for Bohannan will be improving her showing in the mid-sized counties of IA-01. She would be in Congress right now if she had kept those margins closer in Jasper, Warren, Des Moines, Lee, Muscatine, and Clinton counties. She told me they have “big plans” for those areas, and the biggest thing is “We have to be there.” I posted the county-level results from last year’s IA-01 race here:

Ryan Melton ends campaign in IA-04

Ryan Melton announced on social media last Tuesday that he was suspending his campaign in the fourth Congressional district. The Democratic challenger against Feenstra in 2022 and 2024 said he needed to focus on looking for a new job due to his employer reorganizing, as well as a health concern and focusing on his family.

Melton said he’s proud of what his campaign accomplished: improving its vote share in most of the counties and encouraging other Democrats to seek down-ballot offices. He was proud to have highlighted issues including eminent domain abuse, and urged other working-class people to run for office.

I know there are some efforts to recruit another Democratic candidate, but I am not aware of anyone running. IA-04 covers a huge area (36 counties), and a Democrat has no realistic chance to win a district with a Cook Partisan Voting Index of R+15. (That means that in the last two presidential elections, the district voted about 15 points more Republican than the U.S. as a whole.)

Assuming Feenstra runs for governor, we could see a very competitive GOP primary. State Senator Lynn Evans has said he’s considering the race. I have heard a lot of speculation about Iowa House Majority Leader Matt Windschitl. With his experience and fundraising capacity, he might be hard to beat in a GOP primary.

I reached out to Kevin Virgil, who took nearly 40 percent of the vote from Feenstra in the 2024 primary. He hasn’t responded yet. He could run for Evans’ Iowa Senate seat (which includes O’Brien County) if Evans follows through to run for Congress.

Iowa House kabuki theater on a special session

Iowa House leaders announced on Tuesday that they have collected 70 signatures, more than the 67 needed to call for a special legislative session to override Governor Kim Reynolds veto of a bill that would have undermined the Summit Carbon Solutions CO2 pipeline.

We discussed the controversy surrounding Reynolds’ veto at length last week. Wally Taylor wrote more about it at Bleeding Heartland.

House Speaker Pat Grassley said in a statement, "This veto was a major setback for Iowa landowners and the tireless efforts of the House to safeguard property rights, […] We now call on our colleagues in the Senate to join us by securing the necessary signatures so we can convene a special session, override this veto, and deliver the protections Iowa landowners deserve against eminent domain for private gain."

I see this action as a bit of kabuki theater, by which I mean it is mainly for show and media attention. Iowa Senate leaders opposed the pipeline bill and have no interest in a special session to override the veto. Only 27 senators (14 Democrats and 13 Republicans) voted for the bill, while 34 signatures would be needed to call a special session.

Trump administration flip-flop on ICE raids at ag facilities

Over the past few weeks, there’s been a lot of immigration-related news we didn’t manage to cover on the show. Spencer and I briefly discussed several stories.

The Trump administration appears to have changed its position on whether Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) should target agricultural industry facilities for raids and arrests. On June 10 there was an ICE raid at a meatpacking plant in Omaha. At least 70 people were detained.

The president suggested in a June 12 Truth Social post that raids at ag facilities, hotels, and restaurants were taking away workers who were difficult to replace.

The New York Times reported on June 13, “The Trump administration has abruptly shifted the focus of its mass deportation campaign, telling Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to largely pause raids and arrests in the agricultural industry, hotels and restaurants, according to an internal email and three U.S. officials with knowledge of the guidance.”

But on June 16, the Washington Post reported, “The Department of Homeland Security on Monday told staff that it was reversing guidance issued last week that agents were not to conduct immigration raids at farms, hotels and restaurants — a decision that stood at odds with President Donald Trump’s calls for mass deportations of anyone without legal status.”

I haven’t heard of mass arrests at any Iowa meatpacking or agricultural facilities. There has been sporadic ICE activity around the state.

Bird backs Trump on California National Guard

We’ve seen large public protests against ICE raids in some cities. Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird joined two dozen other Republican AGs earlier this month to express their full support for Trump deploying the National Guard in response to protests in California.

There are real questions about whether it’s legal for the president to do this without the governor requesting it. For now, a panel on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has said Trump can retain control over the California National Guard.

The statement from Republican AGs depicted the protesters as not peaceful and said, “We stand with law enforcement, we support President Trump’s action, and we will not let chaos take hold in our states.”

As I reported last month, Bird is going out of her way to publicly demonstrate her support for many of President Trump’s policies. Many people expected her to have Trump’s endorsement for governor by now, but that hasn’t happened. The more time passes, the more I wonder whether it will happen.

Latest on Winneshiek sheriff case

There have been some developments since we last talked about the state of Iowa suing Winneshiek County and its Sheriff Dan Marx over a Facebook post about federal government detainer requests. Clark Kauffman summarized the recent court filings for Iowa Capital Dispatch.

The lawsuit stems from a February 4, 2025, Facebook post in which, Marx, a Republican, stated that if his office received “detainer” requests to hold immigrants suspected of lacking legal status, and those requests were not vetted and approved by the courts, they would be rejected by his office.

In his post, Marx distinguished between detainer requests of that kind and what he called “valid” judicial warrants and court orders. He wrote that “the only reason detainers are issued is because the federal agency does not have enough information or has not taken the time to obtain a valid judicial warrant.”

There have been some delays to give each side more time to respond to briefs. Winneshiek County hired a high-powered legal team based in Des Moines (from the Parrish Kruidenier law firm) to represent Marx. They are trying to move case to Winneshiek County and also have it dismissed.

Even though Marx deleted the offending Facebook post, the state wants to deprive Winneshiek County of all state funds for some time, because the sheriff didn’t retract his comments. Bird claims Marx “intentionally discouraged enforcement of immigration law.”

I listened in on a June 13 status conference, where Judge Scott Beattie and attorneys for both sides agreed to schedule a hearing for 9 am in Polk County on July 18. I intend to be there.

Dubuque sheriff rejected cooperation agreement with ICE

With so many candidate announcements in mid-May, and the legislature wrapping up its work, we didn’t report that Dubuque County Sheriff Joe Kennedy, a Democrat, told the county’s supervisors he won’t sign an immigration enforcement deal with ICE.

According to the Cedar Rapids Gazette’s Emily Petersen, “The Iowa State Patrol is the only law enforcement agency in the state that has signed an immigration enforcement deal, known as a 287(g) agreement, with ICE.” Kennedy indicated to ICE, “he didn’t feel the agreement would be a good fit for the county as its doesn’t have officer time or jail space to spare for federal enforcement. He stated his department is happy to provide officers to assist in an arrest if called upon by ICE, but by declining the agreement, deputies wouldn’t be expected to take on the immigration enforcement responsibility themselves.”

No Iowa cities or counties on short-lived federal “sanctuary” list

In late May, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security released a list of so-called “sanctuary jurisdictions” that “are deliberately obstructing the enforcement of federal immigration laws and endangering American citizens.” No Iowa cities or counties made the cut, even as Bird was pursuing a case against Winneshiek County’s sheriff.

National groups representing sheriffs and law enforcement pushed back against the federal government’s list, and the Department of Homeland Security took it down less than a week later.

News from Congress and the budget reconciliation bill

We will spend more time next week on the U.S. Senate’s work on that big budget reconciliation bill. Over the weekend, the Senate parliamentarian ruled some of the Republican-backed provisions would require 60 votes under the Byrd rule. That includes one piece that came out of the Judiciary Committee, chaired by Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, which would make it harder to sue the Trump administration.

This policy is designed to limit nationwide injunctions blocking Trump policies. It is likely coming out of the bill, because there’s no way to rework the language to make it related to mandatory federal spending.

The parliamentarian also ruled out some parts related to food assistance program known as SNAP, including language that would increase the state share of SNAP spending, and make undocumented immigrants ineligible for food assistance. Republicans may try to revise this part of the bill to get it past the parliamentarian, because they need these savings (an estimated $128 billion over 10 years) to help cover the cost of tax cuts.

Nancy Baker Curtis went to a Senate forum earlier this month to testify against the proposed Medicaid cuts in the budget reconciliation bill. She is the board chair of the nonprofit The Arc of Iowa and co-hosts “I am Able Iowa,” a monthly show on KHOI Radio “that highlights the ability in disability.”

Nancy was there with her son Charlie, who has complex special needs and benefits from a variety of services that Medicaid covers. I haven’t seen this covered in other Iowa media, but I thought her testimony was very powerful. Watch here:

Another story I haven’t seen covered elsewhere: 97 Iowa nonprofit organizations signed a recent letter to Grassley and Ernst to voice some of their concerns with the bill. This was a really wide-ranging coalition, including labor and progressive organizations (Indivisible Iowa, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, the Iowa Citizen Action Network), disability groups (Easter Seals, Disability Rights Iowa) several United Way chapters, community foundations, and groups advocating for food assistance, the environment, domestic violence victims, and LGBTQ people.

The letter asked Iowa’s senators to reject cuts to SNAP, Medicaid, and Pell Grants, preserve incentives for charitable giving, and reject parts of the big, beautiful bill "that could be used to threaten tax-exempt status without due process."

SCOTUS upholds gender-affirming care ban like Iowa’s

We closed out with several stories affecting LGBTQ Iowans to mark Pride Month. Sadly, we didn’t have good news to share. Last Wednesday the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care such as puberty blockers or hormones for minors. You can read more about the Skrmetti case at ScotusBlog and Law Dork.

Iowa enacted a similar law in 2023. Lower court judges, including at least a couple of Trump appointees, had struck down several similar state laws, which made me optimistic a couple of years ago that Iowa’s law would be blocked. But the six conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices said Tennessee’s law was not a sex-based distinction (and therefore not subject to heightened scrutiny) and doesn’t discriminate based on transgender status. The reasoning leaned heavily on the fact that the law regulates controversial medical procedures.

This case didn’t address a potential parental rights argument against gender-affirming care bans–only the equal protection argument. Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent was powerful.

Chase Strangio, a trans man and Grinnell College graduate who argued the case before SCOTUS, was on the Strict Scrutiny podcast last week. He pointed out that the ruling was narrow in some respects, so may not apply to laws targeting transgender people outside the medical context.

Iowa health center stops providing gender-affirming care to adults

While current Iowa law only bans gender-affirming care for people under age 18, those treatments are becoming less accessible to adults as well. Zach Sommers reported an important story for Iowa Capital Dispatch in early June: Primary Health Care, a federally qualified health center in central Iowa, “has terminated core care for its transgender patients for fear of losing federal funding.”

In a letter sent to transgender patients receiving hormone replacement therapy, and obtained by the Iowa Capital Dispatch, Primary Health Care stated in February it would no longer provide hormone replacement therapy care “(d)ue to a recent Executive Order restricting use of federal grant funds from being used for gender-affirming care.” PHC in the letter told patients that should the health center be “out of compliance” with the order, it would risk losing “critical” and “significant” funding.

A former PHC employee, who spoke with the Iowa Capital Dispatch on the condition of anonymity, said PHC’s executive team told employees the health center risked “losing millions of dollars in federal grant funding for the homeless support services” if it continued gender-affirming care.

Democratic State Representative Aime Wichtendahl, who is the first trans person elected to the Iowa legislature, criticized the decision. She noted that “an executive order is not law. It is not force of law. And what the Trump administration is doing, withholding federal funds, is a violation of both the law and funds that Congress has appropriated.”

Planned Parenthood clinics provide gender-affirming care in Iowa, but soon there will be only two Planned Parenthood clinics left in the state.

Iowa slips in LGBTQ equality rankings

Victoria Reyna-Rodriguez reported for the Des Moines Register earlier this month that according to the advocacy group Out Leadership, “Iowa ranks 32nd in the nation on the organization's State LGBTQ+ Business Climate Index, which ranks the most welcoming states for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Americans. In the Midwest, Iowa ranks eighth out of the 12 states.”

They looked at a bunch of different metrics. Iowa ranked as a notable risk in the areas of '“legal and nondiscrimination protection,” “youth and family support,” and “political and religious attitudes.”

It’s not hard to see why Iowa’s score dropped after this year’s legislative action. Republicans passed a wide-ranging transgender discrimination law, making us the only state to remove a protected class from our civil rights law.

In addition, House File 856 prohibits any diversity, equity, and inclusion staff or programs for public entities, including local governments, community colleges, and school districts. House File 1049, the health and human services budget, bans Iowa Medicaid from covering gender-affirming care for adults. House File 865 removed references to protected classes (such as gender identity and sexual orientation) from Iowa’s anti-bullying statute for schools.

ACLU warned five Iowa cities on drag bans

In early June, the ACLU of Iowa sent letters to city councils in Carroll, Harlan, Mt. Pleasant, Polk City, and Webster City, advising them to change their ordinances restricting drag performances.

These ordinances restrict performances by “female impersonators" and "male impersonators" by classifying them as adult entertainment. The ACLU said that’s unconstitutional for three reasons. It’s a First Amendment violation, because drag is free speech and expression. It’s overbroad “because they include all drag shows, regardless of whether or not they actually feature erotic or sexually explicit content, as ‘adult’ expression.” These ordinances also “violate equal protection by specifically targeting the LGBTQ community.”

The ACLU letters gave many examples of how these ordinances could be applied to non-obscene expression, from the movie Mrs. Doubtfire to Shakespeare's play Twelfth Night.

There was one story we didn’t have time for on our 30-minute show: in early June the Des Moines Register reported that Capital City Pride, which organizes the largest Pride events in Des Moines, lost about $70,000 in corporate sponsorships. Executive Director Wes Mullins said some local companies dropped their support after President Trump warned companies that they could be investigated for DEI initiatives. According to the article, new donors were able to make up the funding gap. Still, it’s a depressing sign of the times.

Thanks so much for reading or listening! We’ll be back next week.