Normally, big changes in the Iowa legislature happen the year after a general election. But there has been much more turnover than usual in the Iowa House since last spring. With two Republicans running for Congress and another resigning from the legislature to take a Trump administration job, a chain reaction leaves ten House committees with a different leader for the 2026 session.

The overall balance of power remains the same: 67 Republicans and 33 Democrats in the chamber. Each party has some new faces in the leadership team, however. All of those details are listed below, along with committee assignments and background on all committee chairs and ranking members. As needed, I’ve noted changes since last year’s session.

Nineteen House members (fourteen Republicans and five Democrats) are serving their first term in the legislature—three more than in 2025, due to special elections that happened last March, April, and December.

The number of women serving in the chamber crept up from 27 at the beginning of 2025 to 29 as of January 2026, since Democrat Angel Ramirez succeeded Sami Scheetz in House district 78 and Republican Wendy Larson was elected to replace Mike Sexton in House district 7. The ratio of 71 men and 29 women is the same as during the 2024 session.

Six African Americans (Democrats Jerome Amos, Jr., Ruth Ann Gaines, Rob Johnson, Mary Madison, and Ross Wilburn, and Republican Eddie Andrews) serve in the legislature’s lower chamber. Gaines chairs the Iowa Legislative Black Caucus.

Republican Mark Cisneros became the first Latino elected to the Iowa legislature in 2020, and Democrat Adam Zabner became the second Latino to serve in the chamber in 2023, and Ramirez the chamber’s first Latina member in 2025.

Republican Henry Stone became the second Asian American ever to serve in the House after the 2020 election. Democrat Megan Srinivas was first elected in 2022. The other representatives are white.

Three House members identify as part of the LGBTQ community: Democrats Elinor Levin and Aime Wichtendahl, and Republican Austin Harris. As for religious diversity, Levin and Zabner are Jewish. Srinivas is Hindu. The chamber has had no Muslim members since Ako Abdul-Samad retired in 2024.

Some non-political trivia: the 100 Iowa House members include two with the surname Meyer (a Democrat and a Republican), two Johnsons (a Democrat and a Republican), and a Thompson and a Thomson (both Republicans).

As for popular first names, there are four men named David (one goes by Dave), three named Thomas or Tom, three Roberts (two Bobs and a Bobby), a Jon and a John, a Josh and a Joshua, a Mike and a Michael, and two men each named Jeff, Dan, Brian, Steven, Chad, Austin, and Mark. There is also an Elizabeth and a Beth, and two women each named Jennifer, Heather, Megan, and Shannon. As recently as 2020, four women named Mary served in the Iowa House, but now there is only one.

First-term State Representative Brett Barker has acknowledged he made a “rookie mistake” when he authorized the distribution of a right-wing Christian pamphlet to all of his Iowa House colleagues. Barker told Bleeding Heartland he didn’t read the publication by Capitol Ministries before it was circulated in the chamber on March 19.

But Barker has not publicly disavowed the contents of the weekly “Bible Study,” which portrays political adversaries as tools of Satan, calls on believers to “evangelize their colleagues,” depicts same-sex marriage and LGBTQ existence as “satanic perversions,” and condemns “women’s liberation” as a “scheme of the devil.”

Staff for Governor Kim Reynolds and U.S. Senator Joni Ernst did not respond to Bleeding Heartland’s inquiries about their association with Capitol Ministries or the views expressed in its latest publication. Both Reynolds and Ernst are among the “Bible Study Sponsors” listed on the front page of the document distributed in the Iowa House.

Third in a series on the new Iowa law that removed legal protection against discrimination for transgender and nonbinary Iowans, as well as any path for the state to officially recognize their gender identity.

Given the choice, most legislators will not cast a potentially career-ending vote—especially when they know the outcome isn’t riding on their decision.

But on February 27, five Republican members of the Iowa House voted against Senate File 418, the bill that laid the groundwork for future discrimination against transgender Iowans and others. A sixth GOP lawmaker (who left the capitol during the floor debate) later put a note in the House Journal to confirm he would have voted no.

These lawmakers come from different political backgrounds but have a couple of things in common. All represent heavily Republican areas, not swing districts—which means they are at greater risk of losing to a GOP primary challenger than to a Democrat in a general election. In addition, all have opposed at least one other high-profile bill the House approved during the past few years.

This post is mostly about the six Republicans who took a public stand against Senate File 418. I also discuss eight of their colleagues, who signaled they were uncomfortable with discrimination against transgender Iowans but eventually fell in line.