It was a busy week in the Iowa Legislature, and the team starts with the House education committee grilling Des Moines Public School officials on their hiring of former superintendent Ian Roberts. Republican legislators tried to blame DEI for Roberts’ hiring. Officials from the school say they were looking for someone with a history of working with a diverse school population.
That conversation segues into Laura giving us an eyewitness report from an explosive House subcommittee meeting focused on eliminating affirmative action, “minority grants”, and nondiscrimination language about citizenship in state licensure.
Kathie then highlights the work Clark Kauffman has done for Iowa Capital Dispatch regarding nursing home safety violations. That dovetails with the legislature killing a bill that would have allowed ‘granny cams’ to be used in nursing homes.
We finish off this week’s discussion with campaign news. We start with the competitive republican primary race in Iowa’s 4th district in the NW part of the state possibly narrowing down soon. The Family Leader CEO Bob Vander Plaats has endorsed Adam Steen in the governor race, does that help narrow the race to a Steen vs. Feenstra battle?
Thanks for being a part of the show however you consume it. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber if you are able to help cover our production costs. Have a great weekend, we’ll see ya next week!
AI generated transcript below:
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Hi, and welcome to the Iowa Down Ballot Podcast.
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I am Dave Price, joined by the regulars, Kathie.
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They’re not regular, but they are consistent contributors.
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Nothing about these two women is regular.
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Kathie Obradovich and Laura Belin.
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Hello, ladies.
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Hello.
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Thanks for not calling us odd.
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I bring the oddity to this conversation.
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Thank you.
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I had a conversation with somebody a couple of weeks ago, a friend, probably about my age.
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And we talked about one of the blessings of adulthood and really middle age hood.
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Is that a thing?
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Middle age,
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dumb,
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whatever you call it when you’re in middle age,
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is that you just sort of embrace what you are,
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right?
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Like I remember in high school,
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I was in the band and I had good grades and,
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you know,
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I was a skinny little,
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from the beginning of high school especially and so you know it would hurt when
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somebody would call you a dork or a geek for being smart or a band geek or what
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have you blah blah blah until and then at some point in your life you sort of
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embrace being different and you know all those things don’t really matter you’re
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like somebody thinks I’m smart cool
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They think I’m dorky.
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I’ll take that.
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Well, you would have been just my type back in high school, apparently.
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We would have had much in common.
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I was a debate geek.
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See, there you go.
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There you go.
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Well, anyway, happy Friday to you both on a pretty pleasant Friday, right?
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I mean, it’s windy, but not all that bad.
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This is another thing you talk about once you hit middle age.
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You just talk about the weather all the time, right?
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Especially if you live in Iowa.
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Yeah.
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We’re supposedly obsessed with the weather.
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Yeah, exactly.
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I got a nice long walk yesterday after getting out of the state state house.
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It was outstanding.
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My dog got a very nice long walk last night, which she desperately needed.
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And she slept like a baby overnight.
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So it was a gift for all of us, for our whole household.
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We do,
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just as a little insight for all of you fine folks who join us every week,
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we have this email that goes back and forth between the three of us where we kind
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of talk about,
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hey,
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what’s on your mind?
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What topic should we talk about?
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Whatever.
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Laura,
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as she frequently does,
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ruins the plan because she emails back this morning with this long,
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lengthy email that
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about the 500 gazillion things that happened at the Statehouse this week.
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And she’s not wrong, because all of those things are worthy.
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Our challenge is how in the holy heck we’re going to get to all of them, so we’re not.
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We’re going to hit as many as we can,
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and we try to be respectful of everybody’s time and try to be about 30 minutes or
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so,
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which means I should shut up now,
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and let’s get into some of those.
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So, Laura, you and I were at...
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the same uh house committee meeting or whatever day that was wednesday wednesday
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okay and so they brought in a couple folks from des moines public school so you had
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the interim superintendent matt smith and you also had the school board chair um
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kim how do you say your last name i think it’s mar toronto
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Or Toronto.
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Yeah, I think so.
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Okay, so they’re sitting kind of at the end of the table, and they had somebody with them.
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She’s an attorney for the district.
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Okay, okay.
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To help out.
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Well, I think, is it Allers and Cooney?
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She’s with one of the law firms.
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Okay, fair enough.
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And so, Laura, I’m curious...
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What your thoughts were as an observer to this?
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I have been, I mean, there are a gazillion things to follow about this, right, with Ian Roberts.
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Obviously,
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the guy somehow was one of these unique characters who was inspirational to a lot
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of people,
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but he was a liar about a lot of stuff too,
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right?
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So he really inspired people,
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but he also really,
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really disappointed people,
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and he broke laws on top of it.
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And so in the end, it probably cost Jackie Norris her U.S.
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Senate campaign.
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She used to be the chair of the Des Moines School Board,
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and she took a lot of flack for what happened.
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And Republicans had kind of made her sort of a central target, really, with a lot of this.
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But, Laura, what did you take from the questioning?
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It went on for quite a while, maybe an hour and a half, two hours.
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I think it was close to an hour and a half.
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Okay.
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so i thought the questioning was a little bit strange i mean the republican members
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of the house education committee were very focused on a few things first of all
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wanting to get the des moines school board or school district representatives to
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admit that it was their fault and they made a mistake and they were responsible so
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The school board chair walked through this report that they had this third party
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investigation of what happened and really laying more of the blame on this
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consulting firm.
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Which was out in November.
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It was the same report.
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Right.
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The report was out in November.
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The school district has sued the consulting firm that was involved,
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that recommended Ian Roberts as a candidate and so on.
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But the other issue that just kept coming up again and again was pressing the Des
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Moines School District on.
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Was he hired because of diversity initiatives, the policies that the board had in the future?
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Are they going to be looking at DEI when they’re hiring again?
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Of course,
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they’ve given this interim superintendent,
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Matt Smith,
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I think he has a two-year contract,
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so they’re not actively searching for a new superintendent right now.
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But
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There was a real heavy focus on that aspect of it.
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And I just think it reflects a broader obsession that some of the Republican
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legislators have with DEI.
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And they had acknowledged that it was a priority for
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in their conversations with that search firm to find somebody who had experience
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essentially in a diverse district like Des Moines.
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And Des Moines is kind of a unique district in our state,
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both in its size and the makeup of the student body,
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which,
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I mean,
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they said up front that was a priority.
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They never did say
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She never did say that they were under any directive to hire a person of color for
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this position because you have a lot of students who are of color.
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It more so was just you wanted somebody with they just wanted somebody with
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experience in a district such as theirs with that makeup.
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Yeah,
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and State Representative Eleanor Levin,
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who’s one of the Democrats on the committee,
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she asked for more information just about the diversity of the district and some of
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the statistics that they shared.
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I mean, they have 15% of the students have some kind of a disability, so they have an IEP plan.
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About 25% are English language learners.
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The white students make up about 40% of the district.
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So,
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I mean,
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it is a very diverse district and it is,
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like you say,
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unlike any other school district in the state of Iowa.
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Of course, it’s also far larger than any other school district in the state.
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I’ve done stories in the past for TV on the diversity of the district.
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I will say that that stat about the 25% were ELL surprised me.
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I didn’t realize it was that high.
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Yeah.
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And I think, did they say 70% are on free or reduced price?
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It was something like that.
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Yeah.
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It’s well, you know, substantially above 50%.
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I don’t remember exactly the number.
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So it is, but I have sensed there have been so many bills in past years.
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And again, this year aimed at rooting out DEI initiatives.
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And I think that
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What none of these are really getting is that sometimes when you’re serving a
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diverse population,
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it is a benefit to hire someone with experience with a diverse population.
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This issue just hits the Republican conservative hot buttons,
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immigration,
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DEI,
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and also the Statehouse obsession with finding fault with the Des Moines public
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schools.
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So,
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I mean,
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I think that there’s a lot of joy in being able to catch the Des Moines Public
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School District in a major screw up,
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which this obviously was.
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And I would just predict that this is not the last time they’re going to try to call the
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school district officials in to try to grill them about this.
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It’s great election fodder, I would say.
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The other thing is that the peril for Des Moines in public schools and the trap
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that I think they mostly avoided walking into
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at this hearing was saying something that could jeopardize their lawsuit.
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If they,
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as Laura mentioned,
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had admitted under this questioning that it was really all their fault,
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suddenly that lawsuit just collapses.
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So this is their best shot.
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The one thing that I was reminded as we were sitting there,
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though,
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is that you remember when this all happened last fall and ICE apprehended Roberts
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and then that began the court proceedings and such.
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Immediately,
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there were calls by a few Republican legislators for the state to take over,
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that the entire school board should resign and the state should take over.
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one thing that unless something really takes a 180 huge change here that has not
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happened and you do not have republican leadership at the state house calling for
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this and i would argue we have a couple of things here for one governor reynolds
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had a series of meetings with ian roberts
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and has a series of pictures that she had posted over the time when he was still in
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office about the work he was doing and all of those things.
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But also, if you’re looking for placing blame
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at various points along the line here the question is whether how much culpability
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the state has with this right the state department of education the board of
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educational examiners for licensing the guy i mean there were there were numerous
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checks here that didn’t work and you know perhaps all of this ultimately is the
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fact that you know he
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provided untruthful information about different things and the system didn’t catch
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it and he got through all of this.
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But I mean,
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it’s pretty difficult to,
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it’s hard to point all of the blame at the Des Moines School Board when there were
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various other entities involved.
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What’s the last thing that the state of Iowa wants to be doing is running a school
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district that has as many challenges as Des Moines Public Schools?
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I mean, why would they want to become responsible for all of that?
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You know,
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it’s a kind of thing you make,
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you know,
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you make that sort of call that the state should take over,
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I think,
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in full confidence that it would never happen.
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There were some questions that came during it that just seemed
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like they just took up time when you’re asking what roberts was paid some other
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things that were clearly in the report and whether he was found with a gun and all
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those kind of things the school board has never professed any kind of knowledge
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that he carried the gun on the premises which would be a violation of school policy
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then you also had people pointing out well what are you trying to get at here are
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you this this was more after the hearing but so is it bad for somebody to have a
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gun on school grounds or
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You know,
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that’s something that some Republican legislators had been pushing as an enhanced
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security measure.
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So those things kind of contradict.
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Which way is it here?
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Well,
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I think State Representative Jeff Shipley,
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who’s a big pro-gun guy,
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and he kept pressing about that,
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about wasn’t he committing a felony every time he had a gun in his vehicle?
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And I think that he would like to repeal those restrictions on having guns in
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vehicles on school grounds.
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So I think that that was sort of what he was getting at.
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But
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This did come up.
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I could not remember whether it was in the special meeting and press conference
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that they had on September 27th or the one that they had on September 29th,
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but there were a series of special school board meetings and press availabilities
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right after,
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soon after Ian Roberts was arrested.
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And I remember somebody asking if you had known that he was
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carrying a gun in his vehicle,
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would that have been a serious infraction or could it have been a firing offense?
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And Jackie Norris said yes.
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I mean, they would have taken that very seriously.
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That could potentially have been a firing offense.
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So there was no,
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I mean,
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nobody’s ever shown any evidence that the school district knew about this stuff and
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looked the other way on it.
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And at the end of the day,
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they had a couple other questions where,
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you know,
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if you’re looking at where does this go next,
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what the changes because of this,
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I mean,
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they’re obviously suing the firm.
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They say they’re going to use E-Verify,
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which I don’t know anybody out there who would argue that E-Verify is 100%
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accurate,
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which has been the pushback.
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I mean, the state doesn’t use it.
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for all public employees,
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which one of the Democratic members of the committee pointed out during that.
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And I think there was also the push.
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I think it was Schuyler Wheeler who may have pushed for this about,
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will you cooperate with ICE if ICE wants to do anything at one of the schools?
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And they said, I think Matt Smith was picking his words carefully.
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and was saying that if there is some kind of warrant or something,
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I think he said,
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I think he may have even said judicial warrant,
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judicial warrant.
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I think that, I think that he was clear that they would cooperate with any lawful authority.
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So.
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Do you have something else on this, Kathie, or should we move on?
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Let’s move on.
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All right.
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Laura, all right.
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And I’m poking fun of you for your email this morning, but with merit, though.
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There were some things sort of related.
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You know,
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we talked about the DEI push at this hearing,
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but that’s kind of a theme in some other ways,
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too.
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Well,
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there are a lot of bills this year that have been introduced,
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some through subcommittee already,
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that address DEI in various forms much more,
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both at the higher education level,
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K-12 education.
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And then on Thursday morning, I was a very contentious subcommittee.
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This was a bill that dropped late on Wednesday afternoon,
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and then they scheduled a subcommittee at 8 a.m.
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Thursday morning, which people were already very unhappy about.
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the lack of notice making it difficult for people to find out that this was going
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to be considered and get to the Capitol in time to testify about it.
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But it was one of those subcommittees where every single person who spoke at the
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subcommittee was against the bill,
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and it moved forward anyway with Republican support.
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So this is kind of a wide-ranging measure introduced by the House Judiciary
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Committee Chair Stephen Holt,
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and it deals with a lot of
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areas so first of all removes all iowa code references to affirmative action in
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many different parts of the code eliminates grants or other programs that are
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encouraging targeting to minority groups or encouraging minority success or
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opportunities for minorities it also removes some language i think it would repeal
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part of
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that bill,
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what were they calling that bill that they passed unanimously in 2020 that was
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after George Floyd,
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they were trying to address the police violence.
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It would repeal,
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I think,
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something that was related to bias training for police that was in that bill.
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And also in the area of state licensure,
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it would remove language from various parts of the code related to licensing that
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they currently say that you can’t be considered ineligible ineligible to have a
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license for this that or the other reason age citizenship sex race religion marital
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status or national origin
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And this would remove the word citizenship from that list so that apparently,
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I’m not an attorney,
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but it looks to me like it would be saying that somebody could be denied licensure
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in the state of Iowa solely because of their citizenship status.
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So anyway, it was rushed through and there was a lot of yelling.
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There were people chanting and shouting down the Republicans on the subcommittee.
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Then later on Thursday,
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during the House Judiciary Committee meeting,
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the chair,
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Stephen Holt,
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had some really harsh words about the way people had conducted themselves.
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And there were some friction between members of the legislature,
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the chair of the subcommittee,
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Republican Skylar Wheeler,
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and some Democrats who were in the room.
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So anyway, it was kind of a mess.
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The full House Judiciary Committee is probably going to consider that bill sometime next week.
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But it’s just one example of
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There is a really strong focus in rooting out any references to diversity or
(00:17:08):
anything that could encourage the success of communities of color in Iowa.
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Yeah,
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I would just mention Renee Hardman,
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the senator who was chairing that subcommittee for managing the bill.
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um,
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said that,
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you know,
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basically portrayed it as a code cleanup,
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you know,
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that,
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you know,
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we,
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we,
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uh,
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took out all of this other DEI stuff,
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uh,
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last year,
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last couple of years and that they,
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you know,
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they just need to make it,
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um,
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Oh, no, I’m sorry.
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It wasn’t Renee Hardman.
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I’m sorry.
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It was Samantha Fett who was the chair.
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Yeah, I’m sorry.
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Renee Hardman is a Democrat and was a critic of the bill.
(00:17:45):
But Samantha Fett basically talked about it as being a code cleanup that we needed
(00:17:50):
to eliminate these things that are incongruous with the changes that they made to
(00:17:55):
DEI before.
(00:17:57):
But one of the points against the bill that I want to make sure we mention is
(00:18:04):
Laura mentioned the removal of immigrant as a reason somebody could not be denied a
(00:18:11):
license to practice.
(00:18:13):
And one of the speakers during that subcommittee made a point that if we do not license
(00:18:23):
people to work in nursing homes,
(00:18:25):
that there will be,
(00:18:28):
nursing homes are very,
(00:18:30):
very reliant on immigrant labor and there will be nobody to take care of our
(00:18:35):
elderly loved ones if they stop granting these licenses on the basis of immigration
(00:18:41):
status.
(00:18:42):
So I think that that’s one serious foreseeable harm that could come from that bill.
(00:18:50):
Well,
(00:18:50):
I asked during House Speaker Pat Grassley’s gaggle later on Thursday morning,
(00:18:55):
he was asked about the bill and he said something about how we just want to make
(00:18:59):
sure that hiring always happens on merit.
(00:19:03):
But how is it merit-based?
(00:19:05):
I tried to ask him, how is it merit-based?
(00:19:07):
If you take away citizenship as a reason that somebody can’t be denied a license,
(00:19:12):
You could have a very highly qualified foreign born person.
(00:19:16):
So how is it merit based hiring to say that somebody could be excluded from getting
(00:19:20):
a state license solely because they were they’re not a citizen of this country?
(00:19:25):
Yeah, Kathie, this might be a good time to segue into Clark Kaufman, who I think
(00:19:32):
At least my kids use the word unicorn for different things.
(00:19:37):
Clark Kaufman to me is probably an Iowa unicorn.
(00:19:40):
Do you agree with the work he’s done with his coverage of nursing homes across the state?
(00:19:45):
I don’t know if anybody...
(00:19:48):
I don’t know that anybody from any other entity does the depth he does, do they?
(00:19:54):
No.
(00:19:55):
And I think that one of the reasons why he spends so much time on it is just
(00:20:03):
because nobody else is doing it.
(00:20:06):
And, you know, I get it because it is very laborious, some of this work.
(00:20:10):
It’s all mostly based on public records.
(00:20:13):
There’s always a lot of pushback from the state agency.
(00:20:19):
A lot of these records that get posted,
(00:20:22):
you know,
(00:20:22):
are not timely or the,
(00:20:24):
I mean,
(00:20:25):
Clark finds errors in the documents that the agencies are posting.
(00:20:31):
So, yeah, so these are
(00:20:37):
It’s laborious work,
(00:20:37):
but it’s really important because people otherwise would really probably not have
(00:20:43):
any idea
(00:20:44):
um whether you know if you meet it comes time to put a left one in a nursing home
(00:20:50):
you can at least now google it and find out if they’ve had major cases of abuse and
(00:20:55):
neglect at least um whereas you know before if you if you had to rely on you know
(00:21:02):
the federal government seeing their their um like five star system um you know
(00:21:08):
you’re you’re going to be lost so
(00:21:11):
So one bill that he was tracking this year and has for the last couple of years
(00:21:18):
relates to a desire by some people to be able to put cameras in the rooms of loved
(00:21:26):
ones in nursing homes so that they can monitor for potential abuse and neglect
(00:21:31):
issues.
(00:21:32):
You hear these horror stories, for example, where
(00:21:34):
An elderly person falls out of bed and it’s hours before somebody finds them, et cetera.
(00:21:40):
And,
(00:21:41):
you know,
(00:21:41):
you have,
(00:21:41):
in some cases you have to sort of work around dealing with the fact that there
(00:21:45):
might be a roommate,
(00:21:46):
you know,
(00:21:47):
and a roommate would have to consent to having a camera.
(00:21:50):
Some of these nurse homes do have cameras in public spaces,
(00:21:54):
and there have been quite a number of issues where,
(00:21:57):
you know,
(00:21:58):
treatment of residents get caught on camera.
(00:22:02):
So it has been beneficial.
(00:22:05):
But the nursing home industry is adamantly opposed to it.
(00:22:09):
Clark wrote a story a couple of years back where the major association that
(00:22:15):
represents the nursing home industry actually had audio posted on their website
(00:22:20):
publicly of their lobbyists talking about how they’re going to kill this bill,
(00:22:25):
essentially.
(00:22:26):
So I do think it was...
(00:22:31):
it was encouraging that it came out of a subcommittee,
(00:22:35):
but it was basically killed in committee without debate.
(00:22:38):
And the floor manager said they didn’t have the votes for it.
(00:22:40):
So I’m guessing that that’s probably the end of the road for that bill.
(00:22:44):
Again,
(00:22:46):
advocates will continue to push for this,
(00:22:48):
I think,
(00:22:49):
because it is one way to at least know if
(00:22:57):
Clark wrote about a case this week where a woman walked out of a nursing home,
(00:23:04):
I think it was a memory care unit,
(00:23:07):
was gone for 15 hours overnight in sub-zero weather and froze to death.
(00:23:12):
I mean,
(00:23:13):
a camera in their room would have at least possibly tipped up a loved one like,
(00:23:17):
hey,
(00:23:17):
where’s mom?
(00:23:18):
She’s not in a room, we haven’t seen her.
(00:23:21):
And meanwhile,
(00:23:23):
the alarms,
(00:23:24):
door alarms were going off for 15 hours and ignored by everyone,
(00:23:29):
including the administrator who this week was disciplined by being required to take
(00:23:36):
10 hours of training so uh you know ignore the ignore the alarms for 15 hours woman
(00:23:43):
freezes to get to death and you get 10 hours of training as a as a discipline so i
(00:23:49):
wanted to chime in clark kaufman’s reporting on this subject has been phenomenal
(00:23:55):
for many years but just when Kathie said that it wasn’t moving forward because they
(00:23:59):
didn’t have the votes
(00:24:00):
Just to be clear,
(00:24:02):
that means they didn’t have the Republican votes because the way the Iowa House and
(00:24:06):
Senate leaders operate is they don’t bring a bill up unless a majority of
(00:24:11):
Republicans on the committee or in the chamber support it.
(00:24:15):
So there are any number of bills that they could pass that a lot of Democrats would
(00:24:20):
be happy to vote for,
(00:24:21):
but they never come to the floor because they typically don’t bring it to the floor
(00:24:24):
unless they can get to a majority with only Republicans.
(00:24:28):
Yeah, and that is a really good point.
(00:24:30):
And it is...
(00:24:32):
It’s interesting how many bills,
(00:24:34):
you know,
(00:24:34):
actually go through the committee process and Republicans who don’t even really
(00:24:40):
support the bill will vote for it.
(00:24:43):
You know,
(00:24:43):
we’ve seen any number of bills come out of subcommittee where there were serious,
(00:24:48):
real concerns raised about the function of the bill,
(00:24:53):
how it’s written,
(00:24:54):
you know,
(00:24:55):
and even by people who weren’t necessarily trying to oppose the bill,
(00:24:57):
just trying to make it better.
(00:24:59):
And,
(00:24:59):
you know,
(00:25:00):
the bill gets moved forward,
(00:25:01):
you know,
(00:25:01):
because it deserves more discussion,
(00:25:03):
you know,
(00:25:04):
whatever.
(00:25:05):
But these these bills, you know, the caucus will move them forward regardless.
(00:25:14):
And, you know, sometimes it has to get sorted out on the floor.
(00:25:17):
Well, I mean, I mean, there are bills that come out of committee unanimously.
(00:25:24):
Last year, the community solar bill came out of the House Commerce Committee.
(00:25:28):
either unanimously or with only one no vote the payday lending bill came out with
(00:25:32):
almost no opposition and then they never come up on the floor so i think some
(00:25:36):
people are just voting for things in committee because they have assurances that
(00:25:39):
leadership is never going to bring it to the floor but sometimes when they say it
(00:25:43):
can’t get through committee that’s just the committee chair not wanting to run it
(00:25:48):
and and get it through with the help of democrats
(00:25:51):
Yeah.
(00:25:52):
Yeah.
(00:25:52):
And I,
(00:25:53):
you know,
(00:25:53):
I just I bring up the fact that these bills often move without resistance,
(00:25:58):
even if they’re never going to become law.
(00:26:00):
So it makes it significant, you know, when they actually do stop a bill.
(00:26:08):
It’s just not that common.
(00:26:10):
So and it’s not that it’s not the only one that we’ve seen here in the past couple of weeks.
(00:26:15):
There’s a there’s a bill that would put major restrictions on biking in Iowa to the
(00:26:23):
point of,
(00:26:25):
you know,
(00:26:25):
actually outlying RAGBRAI.
(00:26:28):
that also got killed at the committee level,
(00:26:31):
but it’s,
(00:26:33):
that one may have died in subcommittee,
(00:26:34):
I’m not sure,
(00:26:35):
but it’s,
(00:26:38):
you know,
(00:26:38):
that one,
(00:26:39):
you would have kept bikes off streets that had speed limits of 30 miles an hour or
(00:26:46):
higher,
(00:26:47):
which I was remarking to somebody earlier,
(00:26:51):
you know,
(00:26:53):
the public library is,
(00:26:54):
a 10-minute bike ride from my house.
(00:26:56):
And I couldn’t get there without being on a street that has a 30-mile-an-hour,
(00:27:00):
you know,
(00:27:01):
even though there are bike lanes.
(00:27:06):
I want to take us out of that building,
(00:27:08):
although this actually impacts people who either did or do work in that building,
(00:27:14):
to look at...
(00:27:16):
election 2026 because there could be some movement with this and I wanted to start
(00:27:20):
with the fourth congressional district.
(00:27:22):
So just to catch everybody up Randy Feenstra is the incumbent Republican
(00:27:27):
congressman there from hall but he’s running for governor not running for
(00:27:30):
reelection so that opened this whole thing up.
(00:27:32):
And this was kind of the domino effect when Kim Reynolds ended her reelection
(00:27:35):
campaign for governor.
(00:27:37):
So you had
(00:27:39):
You had five.
(00:27:39):
Now you have four.
(00:27:40):
You have four Republicans running there.
(00:27:42):
Chris McGowan, the president of the Sioux Lane Chamber of Commerce.
(00:27:46):
Ryan Rhodes, the Iowa Tea Party founder who also has worked for the Trump campaign before.
(00:27:52):
Matt Winchittle,
(00:27:53):
who is a high-profile Republican legislator since he served as the House Majority
(00:27:57):
Leader.
(00:27:57):
And then you have a lesser-known Republican
(00:27:59):
fellow Christian Schlafer, who is a software consultant from Lakota.
(00:28:04):
So those were the four in there.
(00:28:06):
But it seems like this race has really shifted in the last,
(00:28:09):
we’re talking on Friday here,
(00:28:11):
but in the last 48 hours in the sense that we already saw the campaign finance
(00:28:15):
reports,
(00:28:16):
McGowan,
(00:28:17):
the clear front runner when it comes to raising money.
(00:28:21):
So that can be an important attribute, obviously.
(00:28:24):
But then he also was able to lock up the endorsements of President Trump.
(00:28:29):
And then after that, Speaker Mike Johnson.
(00:28:32):
That’s a pretty powerful one, two, and then add the money combo to that kind of three.
(00:28:37):
I will be curious as we watch through the weekend what happens to the rest of that field.
(00:28:44):
and will they be able to see any realistic path to get this republican nomination
(00:28:50):
if you look at matt winch it’ll he did not seem to raise any money at all in the
(00:28:56):
fourth quarter which is pretty shocking for a candidate not to run not to raise any
(00:29:02):
money at all but i’m also curious what happens with ryan rhodes who had hoped that
(00:29:07):
his connection with the president
(00:29:09):
would benefit him in this race,
(00:29:11):
even if he couldn’t get the endorsement,
(00:29:14):
you know,
(00:29:14):
to try to keep Trump out of the race.
(00:29:16):
And he was not able to keep Trump out of the race since Trump got behind McGowan.
(00:29:20):
I was very surprised that Matt Winchettel raised a little money in the third quarter.
(00:29:25):
He raised,
(00:29:25):
I think,
(00:29:26):
less than $70,000 in the third quarter as the House Majority Leader for the last
(00:29:31):
six years.
(00:29:31):
He had a lot of connections, a lot of money was coming to him.
(00:29:35):
Of course,
(00:29:35):
when you’re a powerful person in the legislature,
(00:29:37):
in the majority party,
(00:29:39):
the money just comes to you.
(00:29:40):
You don’t even really have to ask people for it.
(00:29:42):
It’s very different from running for Congress,
(00:29:44):
where you have to spend hours every day on the phone.
(00:29:48):
asking people for money.
(00:29:49):
And I have to say,
(00:29:50):
I really miscalled this race last summer because when Chris McGowan announced the
(00:29:54):
Siouxland Chamber of Commerce person,
(00:29:56):
I said,
(00:29:57):
to me,
(00:29:58):
he looks like the kind of person who would have been a Republican nominee for
(00:30:01):
Congress like 20 years ago,
(00:30:03):
a country club Republican guy.
(00:30:05):
And in the MAGA era, I just questioned whether he would really
(00:30:09):
be able to gain the support, but he’s pretty much locked up.
(00:30:12):
He had the top fundraising, which isn’t surprising, being a Chamber of Commerce guy.
(00:30:16):
And then he locked up so many endorsements.
(00:30:18):
He locked up a number of senior House Republican endorsements before this week’s
(00:30:23):
news about President Trump.
(00:30:25):
So yeah, I think that that primary race is all but over.
(00:30:29):
And I think he was very successful at kind of that two-fold approach there by
(00:30:34):
really working the donors hard.
(00:30:36):
And to your point,
(00:30:37):
he had the skill set because of his current job and what he’s been doing for years,
(00:30:41):
but also really worked on those relationships to try to get the VIP support behind
(00:30:47):
him rather than kind of focusing on one thing or maybe getting out and meeting with
(00:30:51):
people.
(00:30:51):
Not that he’s not doing that, but
(00:30:53):
In his job, he was already in that region getting out, meeting with a lot of people.
(00:30:57):
He’s come to the Des Moines area a lot to meet with people.
(00:31:00):
I think that kind of two-pronged approach he did really seems to be paying off for him.
(00:31:07):
Yeah,
(00:31:07):
well,
(00:31:07):
I would just say,
(00:31:08):
too,
(00:31:08):
that for Winschettle,
(00:31:11):
that the legislative session is a big handicap.
(00:31:16):
No doubt.
(00:31:17):
He let go of his leadership position, but he’s still...
(00:31:20):
in the Iowa House and not spending time in the district.
(00:31:24):
So it cuts both ways.
(00:31:26):
You do have that access to fundraising if you’re going to use it,
(00:31:29):
but the legislative session puts a big sort of block in the way.
(00:31:35):
It looks like he just gave up in the fourth quarter, though.
(00:31:37):
I mean,
(00:31:37):
unless it was a reporting error,
(00:31:39):
but his FEC report showed that he raised zero dollars from October through
(00:31:43):
December.
(00:31:44):
So
(00:31:44):
The legislature wasn’t even in session.
(00:31:46):
I just think that Matt Winchettel,
(00:31:48):
oh,
(00:31:48):
the other thing I forgot to mention is Winchettel was one of the many legislators
(00:31:53):
who endorsed Ron DeSantis for president before the caucuses.
(00:31:57):
And I just wonder whether somehow, whether the word went out to MAGA people not to support him.
(00:32:04):
Okay,
(00:32:05):
endorsements,
(00:32:05):
and I don’t like to make too big a deal out of endorsements,
(00:32:07):
but another Republican one that I’m curious what the ripple effect will be.
(00:32:12):
Bob Vander Plaats,
(00:32:13):
the president and CEO of the Family Leader,
(00:32:16):
who was also a DeSantis person,
(00:32:18):
if you’ll recall,
(00:32:20):
before the last presidential caucuses in Iowa in 2024.
(00:32:24):
But he has now endorsed Adam Steen,
(00:32:27):
the former director of the Iowa Department of Administrative Services.
(00:32:33):
And it’s interesting to me how that race is sort of shaping up.
(00:32:38):
I mean,
(00:32:38):
we knew going into this that Eddie Andrews,
(00:32:40):
the Johnston state rep,
(00:32:42):
and Brad Sherman,
(00:32:43):
the former state rep from Williamsburg,
(00:32:45):
you know,
(00:32:45):
money might be a tough thing for them.
(00:32:47):
I think Andrews early on was speculating that he may have some big donors,
(00:32:51):
but we have not seen anything.
(00:32:54):
any evidence of that.
(00:32:55):
So it was kind of an uphill slog for both of those two.
(00:32:59):
But you have Congressman Feenster in this race.
(00:33:02):
And just his name alone clearly was not enough to clear the field.
(00:33:07):
And we’re waiting to see is Zach Lane,
(00:33:09):
like what kind of the bell plane,
(00:33:12):
farmer businessman,
(00:33:13):
like what kind of campaign is he running?
(00:33:16):
I know when he launched, he told me he was going to do some kind of 99 county tour by air.
(00:33:21):
where he was going to fly into all these counties or something like that,
(00:33:24):
which,
(00:33:25):
you know,
(00:33:26):
as a TV guy,
(00:33:26):
sounds like a cool visual,
(00:33:28):
but I’m not really sure what has become of that.
(00:33:32):
So I’m wondering,
(00:33:34):
is this thing shaping up to be kind of a,
(00:33:37):
no offense to anybody else,
(00:33:38):
but kind of a two-person race between Feenster and Steen?
(00:33:41):
Steen does definitely have the buzz right now.
(00:33:45):
If you saw any of the reporting out of the mid-year caucuses that Republicans had
(00:33:51):
on Monday night,
(00:33:54):
first of all,
(00:33:55):
there was a number of straw polls,
(00:33:57):
and Steen did very well in those straw polls.
(00:34:00):
Of course,
(00:34:00):
we’re talking about people who show up to mid-year caucuses are going to be super
(00:34:07):
activists,
(00:34:08):
and those super activists in the Republican Party tend to be pretty far to the
(00:34:11):
right.
(00:34:13):
So,
(00:34:13):
I mean,
(00:34:14):
I do think that Steen is starting to be,
(00:34:19):
you know,
(00:34:21):
look like the choice of the most conservative members of the party and Bob Vander
(00:34:27):
Plaats’ endorsement,
(00:34:28):
I think,
(00:34:29):
reflects that.
(00:34:30):
You know,
(00:34:31):
Bob Vander Plaats used to be,
(00:34:32):
I mean,
(00:34:32):
we kind of talked about him for a long time as a kingmaker,
(00:34:38):
but I don’t know that his endorsement is necessarily
(00:34:42):
predictive,
(00:34:43):
you know,
(00:34:43):
that people are going to vote for Steen because Bob Vander Plaats endorsed him.
(00:34:49):
But I do think that Bob Vander Plaats still has his finger on the pulse of that
(00:34:53):
wing of the party and that,
(00:34:55):
you know,
(00:34:56):
if he’s endorsing
(00:34:58):
uh adam steen is because he believes at least that that is the way that the um you
(00:35:04):
know the most conservative block of the party is going to go i think that is so
(00:35:08):
brilliantly stated because it’s like a chicken or the egg thing with vanderplats
(00:35:13):
right either he knows how to read the room because to his credit he picked three
(00:35:17):
republican iowa caucus winners in a row
(00:35:20):
And then for the fourth one with the DeSantis, he got that one wrong.
(00:35:24):
But is he reading the room and he knows where that chunk of people will be and he
(00:35:29):
gets behind that candidate or are a bunch of people following him?
(00:35:33):
And it’s sort of hard to know whether his endorsement brings a lot of people over
(00:35:38):
or does he just sense what’s out there and where that momentum may be?
(00:35:43):
And it could be a little bit of both, too.
(00:35:45):
I mean, this is a situation where, you know, Adamstein’s not well known, in fact.
(00:35:50):
And actually,
(00:35:51):
when it comes right down to it,
(00:35:53):
Randy Feenstra is not very well known either outside of the 4th District.
(00:35:58):
So, you know, certainly people could be swayed by, you know, an endorsement like that.
(00:36:04):
But I also think,
(00:36:06):
too,
(00:36:06):
that it’s just an indication of where probably the religious right is leaning.
(00:36:13):
I think Adam Steen,
(00:36:15):
an endorsement that I think was even more helpful to him was a couple months ago
(00:36:19):
when Steve Dace,
(00:36:20):
the influential radio and
(00:36:22):
TV host.
(00:36:23):
He’s got a big audience, including outside Iowa.
(00:36:26):
I’m sure that helped.
(00:36:27):
But Steen has a couple of problems.
(00:36:30):
And I would say the biggest one is Zach Lane is running Zach Lane,
(00:36:34):
who nobody’s heard of,
(00:36:35):
but has put $2 million of his own money.
(00:36:38):
If he’ll spend it.
(00:36:40):
If he’ll spend it,
(00:36:41):
if he’s serious about running,
(00:36:43):
and I mean,
(00:36:43):
I don’t see any indication that he’s not serious about it.
(00:36:46):
I think if it were a two-person race between Steen and Feenstra,
(00:36:50):
then you’ve got to say Steen has a real chance because Feenstra is just not that
(00:36:53):
well-liked.
(00:36:54):
But if somebody’s spending millions, Steen raised about a half a million dollars
(00:36:58):
in last year.
(00:37:00):
And he had, I think, around 300,000 in the bank.
(00:37:02):
I mean,
(00:37:03):
it’s not that much if you’re trying to run a statewide primary campaign when you’re
(00:37:07):
not that well known,
(00:37:08):
especially when Zach Lane is out there saying some very unorthodox things.
(00:37:12):
I thought that he was kind of the most interesting person to me during last week’s
(00:37:16):
debate,
(00:37:17):
the Moms for Liberty debate,
(00:37:18):
because he was talking about things like on the subject of cancer,
(00:37:22):
that we have to be honest that these big agricultural companies,
(00:37:25):
their products are hurting people.
(00:37:27):
They know
(00:37:28):
their products are hurting people.
(00:37:29):
And I mean, he just says things that you don’t hear very much from a Republican candidate.
(00:37:34):
And he’s got that Maha constellation of issues.
(00:37:37):
And I think there is a constituency for that.
(00:37:40):
He’s been fairly strong on the anti-vaccine talking points as well.
(00:37:45):
So I think that he could cause real trouble for Adam Steen,
(00:37:49):
who Adam Steen needs to make it a two-person race between himself and Feenstra,
(00:37:52):
as far as I’m concerned.
(00:37:55):
I think I’d be curious if the activists think that Lane is doing enough to get out
(00:38:02):
and about and do the groundwork that it takes to win a primary campaign.
(00:38:09):
Well, I don’t think he can win.
(00:38:11):
I don’t think he can win it.
(00:38:12):
Nobody knows who he is.
(00:38:13):
I’ve heard the same concerns about Feenstra, though.
(00:38:17):
And he’s picked it up recently after the donors got to him.
(00:38:21):
Yeah.
(00:38:22):
But the concern, he’s still going to be in Congress.
(00:38:28):
But, you know,
(00:38:29):
getting on the ground outside of the district and,
(00:38:32):
you know,
(00:38:32):
frankly,
(00:38:33):
not skipping all of these multi-candidate events like the debate.
(00:38:39):
You know, that is, I think it’s starting to hurt him.
(00:38:44):
And it’s a calculated move, clearly.
(00:38:46):
I mean, he’s choosing not to do these things.
(00:38:49):
He can try to plan other things at the same time,
(00:38:52):
but at the end of the day,
(00:38:53):
it’s a decision that campaign has made for him not to appear on stage.
(00:38:58):
Now,
(00:38:59):
he may think it’s okay looking at some of the headlines that came out of the Moms
(00:39:03):
for Liberty with what came out with banning COVID vaccines.
(00:39:11):
That may not be a discussion he really wants to be part of and a few others as well.
(00:39:15):
And for sure, he’ll have a target on his back.
(00:39:18):
And he did,
(00:39:20):
even though he wasn’t there,
(00:39:22):
got a lot of criticism from the other candidates,
(00:39:24):
but mostly about the fact that he wasn’t there.
(00:39:26):
I mean,
(00:39:27):
his people know that he’s always getting a lot of flack for not showing up for
(00:39:31):
things,
(00:39:31):
but they’ve clearly calculated that that’s less bad than him showing up and getting
(00:39:36):
booed by the crowd,
(00:39:38):
making a huge gaffe because he’s not very experienced in that forum.
(00:39:43):
I think he did one primary debate in 2020 when he was running against Steve King,
(00:39:48):
but I don’t think he ever agreed to debate any of his Democratic opponents.
(00:39:51):
He did one with J.D.
(00:39:52):
Scholten because I moderated it.
(00:39:54):
Oh, that’s right.
(00:39:55):
In 2020, he did.
(00:39:56):
I was the shortest guy in the room.
(00:39:58):
He refused in 2022 and 2024 to debate.
(00:40:02):
So it’s not his strong.
(00:40:03):
I mean,
(00:40:03):
they clearly believe that they can roll through this thing without having to go
(00:40:08):
through those debates.
(00:40:09):
And I guess we’ll find out if they’re right.
(00:40:10):
But Steen wishes he that it weren’t such a crowded field.
(00:40:14):
The crowded field helps.
(00:40:15):
Exactly.
(00:40:16):
Yeah,
(00:40:18):
that’s what I think I’ll really be watching to see,
(00:40:21):
will those other fellas stay in the race?
(00:40:25):
The fewer, the better, potentially, for Adam Steen.
(00:40:29):
I’ve also had conversations with two different people,
(00:40:32):
and I don’t want to betray these private conversations,
(00:40:35):
but they are two people you both know.
(00:40:38):
uh in the political world and our audience would know as well and both of them one
(00:40:44):
a democrat one a republican underscores that regardless of the individual person so
(00:40:51):
this isn’t necessarily specifically specific to fiendstra
(00:40:55):
But it can be very challenging for a member of Congress to run for a statewide
(00:41:00):
office,
(00:41:01):
because it could be such a completely different environment.
(00:41:04):
And especially for Feenstra in that heavily conservative fourth district,
(00:41:09):
getting his name and everything out there to the other three quarters of the
(00:41:13):
district.
(00:41:14):
That is something that he hasn’t had to do before.
(00:41:17):
He hasn’t had to worry about events and a lot of media stuff and joint appearances,
(00:41:22):
debates,
(00:41:22):
forums,
(00:41:23):
all those kinds of things.
(00:41:24):
This is all sort of foreign territory to him.
(00:41:27):
Yeah.
(00:41:27):
And,
(00:41:27):
you know,
(00:41:28):
when we talk about the benefit of having a primary is that you can test your
(00:41:34):
messages.
(00:41:35):
You can get more experience in doing these kind of things.
(00:41:41):
potentially confrontational events before you get to the general election and,
(00:41:48):
you know,
(00:41:49):
suddenly,
(00:41:50):
you know,
(00:41:51):
you maybe aren’t going to be able to duck a candidate debate,
(00:41:55):
for example.
(00:41:56):
And,
(00:41:57):
you know,
(00:41:57):
without that,
(00:41:58):
without having that experience,
(00:42:01):
you can easily flounder in those kinds of situations.
(00:42:05):
In case we have any listeners who are millennials or Gen Z and not old enough to
(00:42:09):
remember this,
(00:42:11):
the last two times Republicans nominated a member of Congress for governor,
(00:42:15):
they lost with Jim Ross Lightfoot in 1998,
(00:42:17):
and then they lost with Jim Nessel in 2006.
(00:42:20):
Exactly.
(00:42:22):
In fairness to Nussel, that was just such a terrible year for Republicans across the country.
(00:42:26):
But I think Jim Ross Lightfoot clearly fumbled that 1998 race.
(00:42:29):
Definitely.
(00:42:32):
All right.
(00:42:34):
And like usual, I think we’ve blown past 30 minutes, as we do.
(00:42:38):
But, you know, hey, what are you going to do?
(00:42:40):
It was worth it.
(00:42:41):
Too much going on.
(00:42:42):
Too much going on.
(00:42:43):
And we left like three-fourths of it on the cutting room floor to save for next week and beyond.
(00:42:48):
So thank you both.
(00:42:49):
Always great to catch up with you.
(00:42:51):
Have a great weekend.
(00:42:52):
Thank you.
(00:42:53):
Likewise.
(00:42:54):
Thank you for joining us here on the Iowa Down Ballot podcast.
(00:42:57):
Our thanks, as always, to Spencer Dirks for putting this thing together every week.
(00:43:03):
Thanks for your support.
(00:43:04):
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(00:43:06):
share,
(00:43:06):
follow all of those things you do with podcasts and help people know about what
(00:43:11):
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(00:43:14):
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(00:43:16):
Have a great week.
(00:43:17):
Have a great weekend.
(00:43:18):
And we’ll talk to you next week.
