Iowa’s Legislative Services Agency (LSA) intends to submit the first set of proposed Congressional and legislative maps to the state House and Senate by Thursday, September 16.

The agency’s senior legal counsel Ed Cook announced the timing during an August 17 meeting of the Temporary Redistricting Advisory Commission (TRAC), which will organize public hearings on the proposed maps and submit a report to state lawmakers summarizing the feedback.

Iowa would be exempt from one part of a wide-ranging election reform bill the U.S. House approved on March 3 on a mostly party-line 220 to 210 vote. This document explains each section of H.R.1, also known as the For the People Act. In her explainer for Vox, Ella Nilsen provided bullet points on the main provisions, which fall into three broad categories: “expanding voting rights, implementing campaign finance reform, and beefing up ethics laws for members of Congress.”

The bill won’t advance in the U.S. Senate unless Democrats limit the use of the filibuster, which at least two senators now oppose. But if they come around, President Joe Biden has indicated he would sign the bill.

H.R. 1 would ban partisan gerrymandering for federal elections, requiring states to use independent redistricting commissions to draw Congressional districts instead. Representative Cindy Axne (IA-03) successfully advocated for language that would allow Iowa to keep the nonpartisan process used here since 1981.

Evan Burger speculates on how statutory requirements for drawing new Iowa House and Senate districts could impact partisan control of the legislature during the 2020s. -promoted by Laura Belin

Last month, I wrote about the rules governing Iowa’s Congressional redistricting process, and made some predictions. For this post, I’ll do the same for the legislative side of redistricting – but first, a quick mention of two related developments since my last piece. 

Former Iowa House Majority Leader Chris Hagenow has joined the conservative advocacy group Iowans for Tax Relief as vice president, the organization announced on November 10. In that position, he will “develop public policy solutions and strengthen relationships across the state to advance ITR’s goals of lower taxes, less government spending, and fewer onerous regulations.” Iowans for Tax Relief said Hagenow’s “new role will be an advisory one and he will not be participating in the organization’s lobbying efforts.”

Speaking to WHO Radio host Simon Conway on November 11, Hagenow said he would spend a lot of time “traveling around the state, visiting with business leaders and activists, and frankly the taxpayers and find out what’s important to them, and communicating the things we think should be done.”

Democratic activists are highly motivated to take back the Iowa House majority, judging from the latest round of campaign finance reports for legislative candidates.

Iowa has never seen anything like this kind of fundraising for state House races.

At least six minor party or unaffiliated presidential candidates have qualified for Iowa’s general election ballot, according to the official list published on August 14. (Petitions for a seventh, Kanye West, are still under review in the Iowa Secretary of State’s office.)

One of the little-known presidential contenders, Ricki Sue King, set out to make history with her candidacy and succeeded. But she doesn’t want Iowans to vote for her.