New subscribers: Every Monday, you’re invited to join a live Zoom podcast conversation with a person of interest. Next week, we’ll turn our attention to Greenland. The following week—January 26—Neil Brown, president of the Poynter Institute, will join us for a timely conversation about the future of journalism.
This podcast features a wide-ranging, call-in discussion with Iowa political journalist Laura Belin about the coming Iowa legislative session and the larger forces shaping state politics. Laura frames the session as “interesting” but constrained: Governor Kim Reynolds enters as a lame duck, leadership has shifted in both chambers, and new committee chairs could change what bills advance—especially on major issues like property-tax reform. With big Republican majorities and a tense House–Senate dynamic, Laura and several participants describe a Legislature that feels increasingly dysfunctional, less transparent, and less open to minority-party amendments than in past decades.
As the conversation opens up to the group, participants explore what lopsided power can mean for democracy, the decline of statehouse journalism, and how citizens can stay informed—often by subscribing to watchdog outlets and advocacy-group newsletters. The group also digs into the state’s fiscal outlook: Laura argues Iowa is heading into sustained deficit spending due to deep tax cuts, rising voucher costs, and shrinking federal support, and she warns proposed constitutional amendments could lock in a flat tax and make future revenue fixes harder. Later, discussion ranges to water quality, high cancer rates, and the defunding of water monitoring, along with concerns about avian flu, public health skepticism, and how environmental and agricultural policy is shaped more by the federal farm bill than by the state. The call ends with Laura inviting guest columns at Bleeding Heartland and Julie previewing expanded legislative coverage through the Iowa Down Ballot podcast and Laura’s KHOI “Capitol Week,” alongside a push to support local journalism.
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(00:00:02) Julie: I’m so glad to have everybody on board with Laura Bellin,
(00:00:09) who is an amazing analyst of all things Iowa politics—and certainly the Iowa
(00:00:16) Legislature.
(00:00:18) Laura portrays a Legislature increasingly shaped by national politics,
(00:00:26) executive power, and campaign strategy,
(00:00:29) often at the expense of transparency,
(00:00:33) deliberation, and everyday Iowans’ needs.
(00:00:36) Her reporting consistently shows lawmakers governing with one eye on 2026 and the
(00:00:43) other on Donald Trump.
(00:00:45) We’re going to talk to her primarily about the Iowa Legislature, but as those of you
(00:00:50) who are familiar with this podcast format know, any question is fair game for Laura—
(00:00:56) and I’ve seen her answer it all. So, Laura, what is your take on the Iowa Legislature
(00:01:04) coming up? What do you think are the surprises? How is it going
(00:01:08) to be different from the last session?
(00:01:10) Laura: Well, I think it’s shaping up to be kind of an interesting year.
(00:01:13) One thing that’s different is that Governor Kim Reynolds is a lame duck right
(00:01:17) now going into the session.
(00:01:19) So I do think she’ll have less leverage over the Republican lawmakers than
(00:01:23) she’s had in the past.
(00:01:25) We’ve also had some pretty significant leadership changes on both sides.
(00:01:29) On the Senate side,
(00:01:31) Jack Whitver,
(00:01:32) who was the longtime majority leader—
(00:01:33) he’d been the majority leader since 2018—
(00:01:36) stepped down.
(00:01:37) So now there’s a new majority leader, Mike Klimesh.
(00:01:40) And that led to a little bit of a reshuffle on some of the significant committees
(00:01:44) over on the Senate side.
(00:01:47) I don’t anticipate huge changes in how Mike Klimesh runs things, but you never know.
(00:01:52) There could be some slight differences.
(00:01:55) On the House side,
(00:01:56) the number-two guy in the House—this is confusing because in the Senate,
(00:02:00) the majority leader is the top person.
(00:02:02) But in the House, the speaker is the top person and the majority leader is the second person.
(00:02:06) So on the House side,
(00:02:08) the longtime majority leader,
(00:02:09) Matt Windschitl,
(00:02:10) stepped down from that role because he’s running for Congress in the Fourth
(00:02:13) District.
(00:02:14) And that meant Bobby Kaufmann moved up to be House Majority Leader.
(00:02:18) And at least a half dozen—
(00:02:20) I think more than a half dozen—House committees now have new leadership because
(00:02:24) of that,
(00:02:24) the knock-on effects from that.
(00:02:26) Plus also, Shannon Lundgren, who is running for Congress in the Northeast Iowa district,
(00:02:32) has left the position of House Commerce Committee chair.
(00:02:35) So, in any case, when committee chairs have a lot of discretion over
(00:02:41) what bills get through their committee,
(00:02:43) it can be rather important who’s in charge of some of these key committees.
(00:02:48) So that’s one thing I’ll be watching.
(00:02:49) Generally speaking,
(00:02:52) in an election year,
(00:02:53) the Legislature likes to adjourn a little bit earlier,
(00:02:56) because they like to get home and start campaigning.
(00:02:59) I think that’s going to be especially true this year because some Republican
(00:03:03) legislators will have primary challengers.
(00:03:06) The scheduled adjournment date is April 21.
(00:03:11) We see they usually do go into overtime.
(00:03:14) And I think the one issue that could push them into longer overtime this year
(00:03:19) would be property taxes,
(00:03:20) because that is going to be very complicated.
(00:03:23) It’s something Republicans have been promising to do for years.
(00:03:26) I don’t think they can afford to go home empty-handed.
(00:03:29) And yet it’s a really difficult thing to solve.
(00:03:32) There’s not a lot of money in the state budget to help cushion the blow for local government.
(00:03:36) So I’m not sure.
(00:03:37) But there are these cross-cutting pressures: getting to an agreement on property taxes
(00:03:41) might be quite difficult,
(00:03:43) but then legislators really are going to want to get back in their districts and campaign.
(00:03:48) And one thing many people aren’t aware of is that while the Legislature is in session,
(00:03:51) the campaign committees of state lawmakers
(00:03:55) can’t accept any contributions from PACs.
(00:03:59) And that’s very significant for a lot of legislators—
(00:04:03) except for the very top leadership.
(00:04:05) In many cases, the majority of what they raise comes from PACs.
(00:04:10) So if they can’t accept PAC donations until after the Legislature adjourns,
(00:04:15) and the primary date is coming up in early June,
(00:04:19) I think a lot of people are really anxious to get back home and start campaigning.
(00:04:24) And I’ll be very interested in following some of the primaries on both sides—
(00:04:28) Democratic and Republican—
(00:04:30) but I think the Republican primaries are going to be especially interesting this year.
(00:04:36) Julie: So if you could pick three words to describe this upcoming Legislature—or
(00:04:43) legislative session—what three words come to mind?
(00:04:49) Laura: Well, I think the Legislature generally is fairly dysfunctional.
(00:04:52) And I say that even though there is a trifecta: the relationships between the House and Senate Republicans
(00:04:56) are not good.
(00:05:00) They haven’t been good for a while.
(00:05:01) I’m curious to see whether that improves a little bit with the new leadership on the Senate side.
(00:05:06) But they had a big mess near the end of the last session in the Iowa Senate—
(00:05:13) a wild debate on eminent domain that leadership didn’t want.
(00:05:18) Nobody I talked to had ever seen anything like it: a group of rebels forced leadership to bring a bill to the floor
(00:05:22) that they didn’t want,
(00:05:26) and then passed a bill leadership didn’t want.
(00:05:31) So there are still a lot of messes to clean up there.
(00:05:34) Governor Reynolds ended up vetoing that bill anyway.
(00:05:36) So I think the relationships are a little dysfunctional.
(00:05:40) I do think there is, generally speaking, a lack of transparency.
(00:05:49) It can be difficult for ordinary people to follow what’s going on.
(00:05:56) Subcommittee and committee meetings for the most part are not archived.
(00:06:01) If you don’t watch live, you’ve kind of missed it—you can’t go back and get it later.
(00:06:07) So that’s another thing.
(00:06:09) You said three words, though—now you’re putting me on the spot.
(00:06:13) I think “lopsided” would be another word.
(00:06:16) The Republican majorities right now are very, very large.
(00:06:20) The Republican majority in the Iowa House is 67–33,
(00:06:24) which I think is the largest it’s ever been since the late ’60s, basically—
(00:06:29) since we had a malapportioned Legislature.
(00:06:33) And in the Senate, Democrats did break the supermajority last year through special elections,
(00:06:38) but it’s still a 33–17 Republican majority—very large.
(00:06:43) Most of our lifetimes, the Senate hasn’t been that lopsided.
(00:06:48) Democrats don’t have much ability to get a lot of things done.
(00:06:54) The lopsided nature means there’s not as much dealmaking as there would be if, say, the Senate were 26–24.
(00:07:01) Julie: Right. So we have a lot of smart people on this call—many who have served in the Legislature and other capacities in state government.
(00:07:06) I’m going to go to them fairly soon. Those of you who may have a question, please unmute your mic and get ready to roll.
(00:07:13) Chuck, I’ll invite you to lead the parade, if you would be so kind.
(00:07:24) Chuck: Okay.
(00:07:32) Julie: Chuck, your mic is off, but somebody else’s is on.
(00:07:37) Chuck—looks like you’re still muted.
(00:07:40) Chuck, you’re still muted. So I’m going to go to John Schmidt.
(00:07:43) Do you have a question or a comment for Laura? And then I’m going to go to the members of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative.
(00:07:51) John Schmidt: Thanks, but I’ll pass. I’m sure others have better questions.
(00:07:55) Julie: Okay. All right. Barry Pyatt, do you have a question?
(00:07:58) Barry Pyatt writes the “Behind the Curtain” column for the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative about national politics in the Iowa delegation. Barry?
(00:08:08) Barry: Well, not so much a question, but an observation. I spent some time working for members of Congress and Senate from North Dakota.
(00:08:19) If you want to take a look at the future of Iowa with a lopsided Legislature like this and lopsided state politics, look to North Dakota.
(00:08:28) They have practically systematically dismantled most of the machinery of democracy.
(00:08:40) I know that’s kind of a strong statement. But for example: if a legislator dies in office, they changed it so that the Republican committee chooses their successor.
(00:08:51) Julie: Oh, wow.
(00:08:52) Barry: Now—how democratic is that?
(00:08:55) And the other observation I would make, and Laura, tell me if I’m right in terms of my recollection of history here,
(00:09:07) we’ve had lopsided Legislatures in Iowa before.
(00:09:10) You mentioned that the Democrats had a majority at one time.
(00:09:15) What I remember from those days is we did things like create community colleges. We did really good things for the state with those majorities.
(00:09:28) And I don’t see any of that happening with the Republicans. They’re on the MAGA warpath, as far as I can tell.
(00:09:37) And I wasn’t following it in the 1970s, but from what I’ve learned: there have been Republican trifectas, but the Legislature didn’t just do everything the governor wanted.
(00:09:47) Bob Ray—he didn’t impose it. When they developed the collective bargaining bill, they had a Republican trifecta, but he didn’t try to ram through the most disadvantageous system they could scrape together a majority vote for.
(00:10:10) They pulled together stakeholders to try to get a reasonable compromise.
(00:10:14) People who were in the Legislature in the ’90s can speak to this better than I can.
(00:10:18) But in 2018, I interviewed Ron Corbett, who was Republican House speaker during the 1990s.
(00:10:26) He briefly ran for governor and then crashed out and didn’t qualify for the ballot in 2018.
(00:10:33) He was talking about how, when they did a tax cut, he saw it as a benefit if they could make compromises, get Democrats on board, and get 65 or 70 votes in the Iowa House for the tax bill.
(00:10:50) He viewed that as better than going the Newt Gingrich approach—or Kim Reynolds approach—of: what’s the most extreme thing I can get 51 people in the Iowa House to vote for?
(00:11:04) I’ve been told by many people in both chambers that they used to be much more open to amendments from the opposition party.
(00:11:09) There used to be much more real discussion in committees and floor debate rather than everything being a foregone conclusion the way it is now.
(00:11:23) You basically almost never see the minority party get an amendment added to a bill now, which I’ve been told was not the case for many decades.
(00:11:35) Julie: Okay. I’m going to go to Chuck, and then I’m going to go to Ralph Rosenberg.
(00:11:38) But I’m going to insert something here: something I’m extremely excited about and proud of is that Iowa Writers’ Collaborative members Dave Price and Laura Belin will be joining Kathy Obradovich of Iowa Capitol Dispatch in a podcast to cover what’s going on in the legislative session.
(00:11:58) And if we get enough paid subscribers, we’ll continue through the fall 2026 election cycle.
(00:12:05) This one requires some production costs, so if you want to help out with that, please do. That’s the end of my commercial.
(00:12:13) Now, Chuck Offenburger.
(00:12:14) Chuck: Hello. Thanks, Julie. Hi, Laura and everybody else. Thanks for tuning in today.
(00:12:21) Julie, your point about that podcast coming up—I’m excited to think about that because it deals with the question I was just going to ask.
(00:12:30) Thank goodness for Laura Bellin and her interest in the Legislature and Iowa politics, because my question is:
(00:12:42) how many fewer people are covering the Legislature and state government?
(00:12:49) I think this may even be worse in covering the agencies of state government than in the Legislature itself.
(00:12:58) What is the reduced amount of coverage that citizens of Iowa are getting about state government now compared to when you first started into this?
(00:13:12) Laura: Well, I know it’s less. In the ’80s, I think the Register some days used to have four or five people down there.
(00:13:19) Sometimes two covering the House and two covering the Senate.
(00:13:24) They still have most days—Des Moines Register usually has a couple of people there.
(00:13:30) The Cedar Rapids Gazette usually has a couple of people there. I’m kind of holding my breath under new ownership to see whether the Gazette cuts back. I’m a little nervous about that.
(00:13:41) Lee Newspapers has a statehouse person there, and Iowa Capitol Dispatch—if we didn’t have Iowa Capitol Dispatch, there would be almost no coverage of some state agencies right now. That’s been quite depleted.
(00:13:56) The Associated Press always has one statehouse reporter, and they used to pick up a second person during session—hire a temporary for four or five months—and they stopped doing that in 2019.
(00:14:09) In late 2018, I heard three things: William Petroski was retiring from the Des Moines Register; Joyce Russell was retiring from Iowa Public Radio; and AP wasn’t going to hire a second person for session.
(00:14:28) That influenced my decision to apply for credentials myself. I’d always thought I’d do that someday when my kids were older.
(00:14:37) But I realized there were going to be fewer people—this was before Iowa Capitol Dispatch started—and I thought: I’m going to have to spend a lot more time down at the statehouse. And if I’m going to be down there, I might as well have a place to work.
(00:14:55) Little did I know that I would embark on this five-year adventure of fighting for credentials, which I wasn’t expecting.
(00:14:58) In any case, the press corps down there is pretty depleted.
(00:15:02) Iowa Public Radio still has someone. Kay Henderson is still there for Radio Iowa.
(00:15:07) Some days IPR has a couple of people there, depending on what’s going on in the subcommittees.
(00:15:13) But I’m often having to make trades with other reporters when different subcommittees happen at the same time—
(00:15:21) I’ll say: I’ll share my audio from this one if you can share what happened at that one.
(00:15:28) That’s one of the issues I have with subcommittee meetings not being recorded and archived. It’s very frustrating.
(00:15:34) In Minnesota, you could just go online and watch the recording later of any subcommittee you wanted.
(00:15:43) And I’m excited—Dave and Kathy and I really enjoy doing the Iowa Down Ballot podcast.
(00:15:48) Even though we cover some of the same issues related to the Legislature and elections, it’s more freewheeling, and we dig into fewer topics compared to my radio show for KHOI Radio, which is 30 minutes and we try to pack in as much as we can.
(00:16:17) Julie: Thank you. Yes, thank you. And let me say: Iowa is the only state providing this kind of coverage through Substack. I’m so proud of that.
(00:16:25) Ralph Rosenberg, you’re—oh, thank you.
(00:16:28) Ralph: Thank you very much, and good afternoon.
(00:16:31) When I started, and through the ’80s, Iowa Public Radio would cover live debate on both the House and Senate side. They’d be there every day.
(00:16:41) Media would fill the benches—behind the Legislature.
(00:16:58) So Chuck’s right: what Laura does and what Capitol Dispatch does is of expanded importance.
(00:17:07) Social media—for its importance—and podcasts and Substacks don’t meet those needs.
(00:17:14) What I end up telling people to do is subscribe to individual advocacy groups. My former Iowa Environmental Council puts out weekly newsletters keeping people up to speed because they’re not going to get that anymore from the Register.
(00:17:31) I was first elected with Bob Ray as governor, and I was in the minority. Not only did they take my amendments, I floor-managed bills when I was in the minority.
(00:17:41) Laura: Yeah, that’s wild. I’ve heard of that happening.
(00:17:45) Ralph: It’s important to keep that in mind, to help figure out going forward what we can do.
(00:17:51) I served in the ’80s and ’90s; later I lobbied on civil rights and environment. We would get a lot more bipartisan—
(00:18:07) and I’m still trying to figure out why we didn’t get bipartisan.
(00:18:09) Governor Branstad signed progressive legislation in the ’80s because I was the floor manager on LGBT issues and environmental issues. He could have vetoed all that, and we wouldn’t have had the numbers to overturn vetoes.
(00:18:29) Something has changed in the last 20 years.
(00:18:41) For a number of years now, Republicans say: we’re not going to take any Democratic amendment.
(00:18:46) And the chill is that some legislators tell me they don’t even want to bother filing amendments or bills to educate the public because they aren’t going anywhere.
(00:19:06) My looking forward is: existing legislators could do a lot more by filing amendments or issuing statements to educate the public and advocate. For example, on SNAP—debating putting more money into SNAP. Amendments can fail, but they educate.
(00:19:20) So I’m curious what Laura thinks: can’t legislators at least help educate and advocate?
(00:19:28) Laura: Yeah, I agree with that.
(00:19:29) I’ve seen a trend the last few years of the opposition party offering fewer and fewer amendments. It’s unfortunate. I enjoy those debates when I’m covering them, and it’s helpful to have Democratic amendments there.
(00:19:42) Sometimes they’re ruled not germane, so you don’t get an up-or-down vote. But a lot of times you do.
(00:19:50) Late last spring, because Jennifer Konfrst is running for Congress, she stepped down as Iowa House minority leader.
(00:19:57) I got the strong impression from Brian Meyer—at his first press conference after he was elected—that House Democrats will be offering more amendments this year than we’ve seen for the past few years.
(00:20:10) I don’t know about the Senate side, but I’ve wondered why we don’t see more opposition amendments.
(00:20:19) One thing I hear consistently from people who served in the ’80s and ’90s—and maybe less so the 2000s—is there’s much less socializing, fewer friendships across party lines.
(00:20:32) There used to be a regular Wednesday lunchtime meeting for women of the Iowa House and Senate for many years. It seems to have stopped sometime around 2000 or the early 2000s.
(00:20:50) You just don’t have the relationships. I’m not saying there aren’t Democrats and Republicans who are friendly, but it’s definitely not like it was back in the day—more cordial, more willing to listen and negotiate.
(00:21:13) And I need to write something—interview a few people who were able to floor-manage bills as members of the minority.
(00:21:23) Herman Quirmbach told me that Amy Sinclair, now Iowa Senate president, floor-managed a bill as a member of the minority when Democrats had the majority in the early 2010s—an education-related bill. But I don’t know; she probably wouldn’t agree to talk to me about it.
(00:21:42) Julie: I want to insert: I don’t want anybody not to subscribe to the Des Moines Register. We need to support them. They are doing the best they can with corporate ownership.
(00:21:54) A couple of comments: Mary McCarthy says the Gazette and Lee Enterprises do have journalists focused on the Legislature. The Gazette has a podcast every week—she just got an email about it.
(00:22:08) Courtney Crowder: I subscribe to the Cedar Rapids Gazette and the Des Moines Register; I encourage people to do that.
(00:22:15) Me too. Courtney says the Register has three reporters assigned to the Legislature during session, and two full-time all year round.
(00:22:24) Susan Beckman says: can we blame the Heritage Foundation?
(00:22:29) Lowell Norland is on the call—former legislator. He says he handled the last property tax bill in 1977: “We worked hard to have a bipartisan bill that passed the House 80–20. The Senate was 26 votes—lots of Republican votes. And Governor Ray made calls to Republican members asking them to vote for the bill.”
(00:23:02) Now it’s hard sometimes to get directors of state divisions to return phone calls—to the press or the public.
(00:23:14) Laura: Susan Beckman asks: can we blame the Heritage Foundation and Koch for writing legislation for all Republican states?
(00:23:23) I have a little contrarian opinion on this. It’s true there are model bills—from ALEC or Americans for Prosperity, and other states.
(00:23:34) However, I think some people on the left overhype this. I see pernicious legislation that comes from the Iowa Farm Bureau, the Iowa Association of Business and Industry—homegrown.
(00:23:53) The governor’s Area Education Agencies thing—no national group pushing that.
(00:23:57) So we have a lot of very bad homegrown ideas.
(00:24:02) It is true that some things—like school vouchers—have a national infrastructure pushing certain bills. Destroying collective bargaining: yes, that was modeled across Republican-controlled states.
(00:24:15) The pesticide immunity bill is another where Bayer/Monsanto has pushed versions across the country.
(00:24:29) So I don’t want to discount national groups. But I also don’t think all model bills are bad. The ACLU might have good model legislation enacted in Massachusetts or Minnesota.
(00:24:39) So just because something is a model bill doesn’t mean it’s automatically bad.
(00:24:43) And there are local groups too—the Family Leader generates some pretty bad legislative ideas.
(00:24:55) Americans for Prosperity is definitely a powerful lobby group that I don’t often agree with up there. But I don’t think most bad legislation is just coming from national groups.
(00:25:08) Julie: Democrats have overperformed in some special elections. Do you think that’ll have any impact on this session?
(00:25:16) Laura: In the Iowa Senate, Democrats now have the numbers to vote down some of the governor’s appointees. I expect them to use that power sparingly—based on years I covered the Legislature when there was no supermajority. Usually only a handful of nominees go down.
(00:25:37) But if Democrats had had 17 seats the last couple years, several people wouldn’t have been confirmed to the Board of Regents.
(00:25:46) Makenzie Snow, who is totally unqualified, would not have been confirmed as director of the Department of Education.
(00:25:57) So there could be edge cases where Democrats block some of that.
(00:26:00) It’s hard to know how much to assign special-election results compared to next November.
(00:26:09) The latest special election in the western suburbs of Des Moines—a Democratic hold—could be important because it showed Polk County Democrats have a well-organized turnout machine. If I were Zach Nunn, I’d be extremely worried.
(00:26:27) The other Senate seats Democrats flipped—Sioux City and Clinton County—will be on the ballot in November. I don’t know who the Republican candidates will be. Those could be difficult holds, but we’ll see. I think they’ll both be competitive seats.
(00:26:47) Julie: Okay. We have almost 50 folks on the call. If you have a comment or question, I’d love to engage you.
(00:27:03) I see another question: Diane Pritchard wants to know where Republican friends are getting their news regarding legislation. What is their version of Iowa Capitol Dispatch?
(00:27:12) Laura: There really isn’t one. The main conservative website that covers the Legislature is Jacob Hall’s The Iowa Standard.
(00:27:20) His coverage can sometimes be useful because he records and videotapes some subcommittees, so you can see them on his Facebook page.
(00:27:31) But he’s not doing rigorous reporting. He’s a very strong MAGA social-conservative voice. You’re not getting balanced coverage.
(00:27:44) I have a point of view, but I’m scrupulous about accuracy and presenting the other side’s arguments—which I don’t see on The Iowa Standard a lot of times.
(00:28:00) And I want to second what Ralph said earlier: if there’s a set of issues you care about, sign up for newsletters—Iowa Environmental Council, Iowa Safe Schools, One Iowa, Iowa Library Association, whatever it is—because some groups have action alerts.
(00:28:22) Sometimes a bill pops up with very little time to react: it appears on the website and the subcommittee is the next day.
(00:28:29) So to find out when things come up and when you can weigh in, it’s important to sign up.
(00:28:44) Julie: Laura, what newsletters do you sign up for personally?
(00:28:48) Laura: For the Legislature, I pretty much read everything: the Register, Gazette, Lee newspapers, Iowa Public Radio, Radio Iowa, Iowa Capitol Dispatch.
(00:29:03) I’m always looking for angles to cover things differently, because it’s not a good use of my time—or my readers’—to repeat what everyone else has.
(00:29:16) For the radio show, I’m often looking for an obscure bill people didn’t notice, or a subcommittee others didn’t attend.
(00:29:25) I do listen to the On Iowa Politics podcast as well. I’m not really the target audience because I’m immersed in everything, but it can be useful.
(00:29:42) And frankly, I even listen to the Family Leader podcast. I don’t agree with them on almost anything, but sometimes they have a heads-up when something is going to be debated soon.
(00:30:03) Julie: Who are some of the most respected interest groups that follow what’s going on in the Legislature?
(00:30:09) Laura: Respected by whom—by legislators?
(00:30:14) I think a lot of groups are subject-area experts. Iowa Environmental Council, Environmental Law and Policy Center—if I don’t understand something in a bill, I can trust their explanations.
(00:30:28) ACLU of Iowa—if I don’t have a clear understanding of what a bill would do, their lobbyists can often explain it.
(00:30:40) Lobbyists represent interests, but some—like Iowa Association for Justice or Iowa State Bar Association—can explain technical justice-system-related bills.
(00:31:04) I even like the League of Cities or Iowa Association of Counties. I often don’t agree with their positions, but their analysis of what’s in a bill is usually on target.
(00:31:21) I’ll definitely be asking them about whatever property tax thing comes up, because their staff will be more on top of the details than a lot of legislators.
(00:31:33) One thing I’ve learned: a lot of legislators don’t have a firm grasp on what’s in a lot of the bills. They’re going by what someone told them in caucus, which may or may not be accurate.
(00:31:52) Julie: What’s the impact of the school voucher program now? Are people waking up to what it’s meaning for public schools around the state? Or is that next year?
(00:32:07) Laura: It’s hard to say what people feel because we don’t have much public polling about anything with Ann Selzer no longer doing polls for the Des Moines Register.
(00:32:18) We really haven’t had public polls: approval ratings, what Iowans think about the abortion ban, what they think about school vouchers—I have no idea. I don’t think we have data.
(00:32:38) I think more school districts will be hurt every year. Private schools are expanding; new ones are popping up. So it’s going to be a continuing huge problem. But I don’t have data on whether people are more upset or not.
(00:33:01) Julie: Susan Beckman, what do you think? Are people more upset in Burlington?
(00:33:08) Susan Beckman: The groups I’m directly connected with—absolutely. Our blue women’s group and our League of Women Voters.
(00:33:18) I think the Iowa League of Women Voters—one of their topics of concern is the voucher program. They have an email list as well.
(00:33:34) The restriction is that we’re bipartisan, so it can’t be partisan, but you can defend public education as a reason our state once led the country.
(00:33:55) I’m not in touch with people who are staunchly right wing.
(00:34:03) And on the other hand, the people elected from Southeast Iowa are very poor quality. It looks like they were recruited and groomed, told what to say, follow the line—no independent thinking, and no response to people in their districts.
(00:34:35) Laura: A lot of younger Republican legislators were political staffers. Taylor Collins worked on staff in the governor’s office. Austin Harris was a campaign staffer for Mariannette Miller-Meeks, then worked on her congressional staff. Blaine Watkins—elected in a special election from Lee County—was a clerk. Many clerked for legislators.
(00:34:58) They like bringing in people steeped in the system who won’t challenge anybody.
(00:35:07) You rarely see younger Republicans voting against something. If there are independent-minded Republicans, they tend to be Gen X or older, in my experience.
(00:35:24) Susan Beckman: They’re not invested in our communities. They’ve been brainwashed. They don’t have experience with the effects of the legislation on communities. And they don’t want to talk about that. We’ve done repeated outreach and they don’t find it worth their time.
(00:36:05) Julie: Okay. Martha Wolf, let’s bring you up.
(00:36:08) Martha: A couple of comments. With Blaine Watkins, our former mayor in Fort Madison is running as a Democrat, and I think he’ll run a strong campaign—board of supervisors, mayor recently.
(00:36:29) Did he announce?
(00:36:31) Susan Beckman: Yes.
(00:36:33) Laura: Oh, I need to add that.
(00:36:40) Martha: The other thing is the money kind of fell apart last year for Republicans—having to use rainy-day funds. Do you see the same? That would impact property tax reform. They’re in dire straits.
(00:37:01) Laura: We’re going to be spending this current budget year more than a billion dollars more than expected state revenue. They haven’t finalized the budget for next year, but we’re going to be in deficit spending for several years. There’s no way revenue will match what they want to spend.
(00:37:21) They’re pulling money from the accumulated surplus and what they call the Taxpayer Relief Fund.
(00:37:28) My guest author John Muller—former Legislative Services Agency staff and a revenue estimator—wrote an outstanding piece explaining why: the surplus came from huge federal pandemic funding, and instead of using it intelligently, Republicans stockpiled it and then cut income and corporate taxes too deeply.
(00:37:57) We’re going to eat into surplus and reserve funds, but it hits a wall probably by 2028 or 2029.
(00:38:06) I think very few Republican legislators have any clue this is going to happen—at least publicly.
(00:38:15) They say revenue is projected to rise again in 2027. I don’t believe it. But even if it did, we’re way down, way in the hole. We could have a recession.
(00:38:28) Federal funding for SNAP and Medicaid will likely be on a downward slide because of the budget reconciliation bill they just passed. That’s a hole the state will need to fill.
(00:38:42) On property tax reform: one floated idea last year was the state providing $400 million to school districts to make up for lost property tax authority. We just don’t have that money—partly because they cut taxes too much, accelerated the flat tax, and now we’re spending $350 million a year on school vouchers, escalating every year.
(00:39:28) There’s also a conspiracy theory that the weak Republican field for governor is because they expect the budget to crash and want to blame it on Rob Sand. I don’t think that’s what’s happening. But if he did win, he’d have to contend with a collapsing budget and Republicans would try to pin it on him.
(00:39:53) Martha: Mike Owen always said they do a tax cut, but never wait a couple years to see how it impacts the budget.
(00:40:02) Laura: Correct. It was clear even when they did the tax cuts they were too deep. Going to a flat tax—partly the governor wanted Iowa to be at a certain ranking.
(00:40:26) They’re trying to lock in tax rates. Two constitutional amendments likely on the ballot this November would make it much harder to dig out: one would require a supermajority to raise income or corporate taxes; the other would put a flat income tax in the Constitution.
(00:40:52) That means you could never go back to a progressive system. And because you’d never get a supermajority to raise income taxes, they’d raise sales and use taxes more and more—the most regressive taxes there are.
(00:41:05) The fiscal mismanagement is huge. John Muller’s piece—highly recommended. It has graphs that bring it into relief.
(00:41:13) Maybe I’ll send it to you, Julie, and you can put it in the show notes.
(00:41:29) And Ed Tibbetts had a good column last week—read Ed Tibbetts if you’re not already.
(00:41:41) Julie: Along the Mississippi—essential reading for me.
(00:41:47) Anybody else? Carl Schilling? Lowell Norland—can you get your mic on?
(00:42:12) Carl—your mic’s off too.
(00:42:20) While you get your mic on, I’m going to ask Laura a question about Randy Feenstra—and the rest of the group. Is he out in the state campaigning? Have you seen him?
(00:42:35) Have you seen Randy Feenstra? Where’s the “wanted” poster?
(00:42:40) Laura: He’s possibly been in your area, but you probably haven’t seen him.
(00:42:44) If you look at his social media, it’s absolutely hilarious. He’s doing these events and getting like 12, 15, 18, 20 people—
(00:42:58) in big cities. His campaign is trying not to have a high turnout.
(00:43:03) Althea Cole, the conservative columnist for the Cedar Rapids Gazette, wrote a pretty devastating column a week or two ago. She went to his event in Cedar Rapids at a Pizza Ranch—14 people, in a city of 100,000. She said she was only informed about it the day before.
(00:43:25) They’re trying to hide out and hope he skates through the primary on money and name recognition.
(00:43:37) Literally, the Windsor Heights and Clive Democrats get more people at their monthly meetings than Feenstra gets at these meet-and-greets on his social media.
(00:43:50) Julie: John Schmidt, you’re ready to roll.
(00:43:56) John Schmidt: Back to property tax. There’s been a task force working on proposed legislation that includes local government leaders.
(00:44:05) Laura, are you familiar with that group and where they’re at as far as what they’re proposing when the Legislature begins?
(00:44:13) Laura: No, I don’t know the details of what they’re proposing.
(00:44:15) John Schmidt: I don’t either.
(00:44:19) Laura: I think everyone’s kind of—one issue is there’s been a reshuffle on the House side. Bobby Kaufmann, now House Majority Leader, used to chair Ways and Means, so he was one of the main people working on property taxes last year. He’ll still have input.
(00:44:38) But now there’s a brand-new House Ways and Means chair, Carter Nordman. That makes it even more difficult, because he wasn’t immersed in it last year the way Kaufmann was.
(00:44:51) Julie: Laura, it seems there’s been a narrative shift to focus on water quality and high cancer rates in Iowa. Do you see that reflected at all in this upcoming session?
(00:45:09) Laura: Among a lot of Iowans, it’s a growing issue. At town halls—Rob Sand, other candidates—people bring it up all the time.
(00:45:22) But I don’t see Republicans talking about it. It never seems to be a top priority they name. I don’t get a sense it’s on their agenda.
(00:45:36) There’s a new chair of the Iowa House Agriculture Committee because the former chair, Mike Sexton, left to take a job in the Trump administration at USDA.
(00:45:47) But I don’t see urgency. There’s denial. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig is like: we’re doing a lot, these projects are working. There’s a strong desire to believe it’s working.
(00:46:03) I don’t see urgency. Democrats care about it, though.
(00:46:10) Julie: Who else has a question or comment? Bill Stappin, I see you’re on the call.
(00:46:17) Bill: I wrote a couple years ago—maybe a couple sessions ago—that the Iowa House Environmental Protection Committee almost never even meets.
(00:46:24) Last year they had a meeting to try to push a conspiracy-theory bill about chemtrails out of committee. That’s kind of where we are.
(00:46:41) I have a dumb question for my friends involved in agriculture: is the DNR’s position basically “let avian flu take over these flocks of geese”? Is that okay policy, or should there be something to mitigate avian flu?
(00:47:02) I have no clue. But if anyone has an opinion, I’d love to hear it.
(00:47:11) Julie: Bill, that’s not what I’m expecting you to talk about.
(00:47:16) Bill: Actually, I was going to bring something up about that. I believe California did some sort of deal where they’re not taking Iowa poultry because—
(00:47:35) I know Randy Feenstra was for mass vaccination of flocks. But the problem is: if there’s a weakened bird that also gets avian flu, the virus can get around the vaccine.
(00:48:12) Then you’ve got a compromised population and the vaccine becomes worthless. Did everybody follow that?
(00:48:19) Sorry—I explained that in a roundabout way. Basically the virus learns to get around the vaccine and it propagates.
(00:48:34) Feenstra is for vaccination. I’m not sure about Hinson, Miller-Meeks, or Nunn, but Feenstra at least was for mass vaccination.
(00:49:04) The tried-and-true thing is to let sick birds get sick so it’s easy to identify them, rather than obfuscating by vaccinating in unison. Does that make sense?
(00:49:18) Laura: Well, yeah. What I don’t understand is: we have a flock of geese dying of avian flu at Maffitt Reservoir—which is a backup for the Des Moines water supply. Does that need wider attention? I don’t know.
(00:49:39) And I don’t expect you to cover it, Laura.
(00:49:41) Laura: I will say vaccine skepticism is on the rise. I expect to see more bills every year.
(00:50:06) If we have another pandemic, we’re in so much trouble, because the majority party’s position is everybody did too much with COVID and should have done less.
(00:50:19) I still wear a mask at the Capitol—terrible ventilation, people from all over the state, and I can’t afford to get sick during session. I don’t have backup.
(00:50:38) Julie: You should wear a mask—flu, COVID. And Laura, help me: the name of the woman who does—
(00:51:06) Laura: Sarah Anne Willette.
(00:51:09) Laura: I haven’t been keeping up with her site. She doesn’t live in Iowa anymore but still tracks Iowa, I think. They don’t release as much data as they used to. I think they stopped releasing wastewater data, which was a proxy for how widespread COVID was.
(00:51:27) Frankly, I can’t afford even a regular cold during session. If I’m wiped out for a week, I miss too much.
(00:51:48) Julie: Barb Madden Biddle asks: what are rating agencies saying about Iowa municipal bonds? Relying on surplus funds is a red flag.
(00:51:58) Laura: I think in the future we are going to see downgrades for Iowa as a state—maybe municipal as well. Great question. I don’t know what they’re saying.
(00:52:14) Moody’s did an analysis: we’re among the states either already in recession or close to recession. We’re one of those states.
(00:52:25) Julie: Bob Leonard, I see you joined. Comments?
(00:52:48) Bob Leonard: Comment: I found a bunch of dead geese and a dead pelican below Lake Red Rock and called a DNR friend who’s a game warden. He says it’s a real problem. They’re not handling them, not processing them—at least in rural areas. They want people to stay away.
(00:53:16) Bird flu has been increasing the past three years. He knows of no plans to change what they’re doing. Basically: leave them alone and tell people to stay away.
(00:53:42) Julie: Liz Garst, any opinion?
(00:53:46) Liz Garst: Not really, other than I think the DNR is doing a good job publicizing the safety hazards and making clear they want to be called if it’s a significant outbreak. At the very least they’re trying to monitor it.
(00:54:04) Julie: I worry about two things: one, there’s a vaccine but we won’t use it because of Europeans, so we’re risking it evolving into other species.
(00:54:16) And—amateur opinion—there are a lot of corn piles on the ground that geese can eat and poop on. I imagine that’s a vector, though I don’t know.
(00:54:32) Ralph asks: any chance Reynolds or leaders propose a sales tax increase to pay for property tax changes and help balance the budget? That would impact IWILL—the Water and Land Legacy Trust.
(00:54:52) Laura: I don’t think they’ll do that in an election year. I do think later this decade they’ll have to raise the sales tax.
(00:54:57) My big concern is they’d do it while changing the funding formula so it wouldn’t fund the kind of conservation we want.
(00:55:13) I was always apprehensive about a sales tax increase to fund the conservation trust because of the optics of environmental groups lobbying for a regressive tax increase. Under a Republican trifecta, I’m even more worried: if we ever get the sales tax increase, it probably won’t fund conservation as we want. It would fund big-ag greenwashing, in my opinion.
(00:55:35) But I do think there will be a sales tax increase later this decade because they won’t be able to avoid it.
(00:55:41) And the Constitution will probably make it almost impossible to have an income tax increase.
(00:55:47) Hypothetically, with a Democratic governor, there could be negotiations about what happens in exchange for a sales tax increase. With a Republican trifecta, they’d raise the sales tax and use it for giveaways—school vouchers, etc.
(00:56:15) Rob Sand wants to put back income caps on vouchers. With divided government, that might be negotiable. Now, Democrats can’t really do anything.
(00:56:35) Democrats proposed a property tax plan this morning, but I’m sure whatever comes to the floor won’t be modeled on it.
(00:56:47) Julie: On water: environmental groups are coalescing around restoring—and improving—water quality monitoring. Any comments or suggestions for political amateurs?
(00:57:06) Laura: They defunded that. I don’t think the money will be there. That was one of the last-minute budget amendments a couple sessions ago—defunding the water quality monitoring system.
(00:57:19) I don’t know where the money will come from. If there’s an alternate way besides the state budget, that might be advisable.
(00:57:34) Ralph: A tax on nitrogen, for example.
(00:57:40) Laura: Logical—sure. But I can’t see anything like that getting through the Legislature as currently constituted.
(00:57:54) Julie: Laura, if you don’t mind staying over a little bit with Liz on the call, I want to ask Liz a question.
(00:58:04) Liz has scared the bejesus out of me about soil—our vanishing topsoil. Liz, is anybody making substantive suggestions about how to address that issue? Is the Legislature bringing up anything?
(00:58:24) Liz: Topsoil is governed above all by our row-crop land use—75% of our state. And that’s governed by the federal farm bill. It’s far more a federal issue than a state issue.
(00:58:39) The feds have the money to influence behavior. The state really doesn’t.
(00:58:53) There are all sorts of proposals around water, and I make the point that protecting soil is doing something about water.
(00:59:03) Julie: Anybody listening: if you haven’t visited White Rock Conservancy and gotten a lecture and conversation with Liz Garst, I highly recommend it. Any public tours coming up?
(00:59:24) Liz: No, but I’m always available for tours for people who want to talk ag policy. Especially if they’re politicians.
(00:59:34) Julie: Liz, are you endorsing anybody in any of these primaries?
(00:59:37) Liz: No.
(00:59:39) Julie: All right. Laura, you’ve got the last word.
(00:59:42) Laura: Yeah, I’m also not endorsing anybody in any of the primaries.
(00:59:45) I wanted to invite people: if you have expertise or memory of how things used to work in the Legislature, my door is always open for guest commentaries and columns at Bleeding Heartland.
(00:59:58) I publish hundreds of those every year and am always interested—particularly if there’s a bill you’re following, especially one that didn’t get a lot of attention in mainstream media.
(01:00:13) There are hundreds and hundreds of bills—more than any of us can cover—so I welcome guest posts about those.
(01:00:21) Julie: Okay, thanks. The Iowa Down Ballot podcast will now be a weekly feature.
(01:00:27) You’ll be recording on Fridays, uploading Friday afternoon or Saturday morning.
(01:00:32) Laura: Yeah, the new episode should drop Saturday morning.
(01:00:36) And my KHOI Capitol Week: we record live on Monday evenings. People can find it starting Monday evenings on podcast platforms or smart speakers.
(01:00:48) And Tuesdays, I send out the audio file and a written recap on my Substack newsletter, because I know a lot of people don’t like to listen—they’d rather read or skim.
(01:00:59) Julie: Thank you everybody for participating in this wonderful discussion. Hooray.
(01:01:04) Laura will also be listening to the podcast.
(01:01:07) Liz, we need you to be a regular on this call. I need your voice.
(01:01:11) Maybe you can write one of those guest posts for Laura about the farm bill and why it’s important. We’d love to read your thoughts.
(01:01:20) Everybody take care till we meet again.
