As many of us consider our New Year’s resolutions for 2022, I have one to suggest for U.S. Representative Cindy Axne: divest from individual stocks in your family’s retirement and savings accounts.

After weeks or months of avoiding public comment on the topic, all three Iowa Democrats in the U.S. House expressed support for a formal impeachment inquiry on September 24, the same day House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced, “I’m directing our six committees to proceed with their investigations under that umbrella of impeachment inquiry.”

Iowans awaiting federal flood relief money will have to wait a little longer.

Congressional leaders thought they had a deal to approve $19.1 billion in disaster aid before the Memorial Day recess. The U.S. Senate passed the bill on May 23 by 85 votes to 8. (Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst both supported the measure and said they’d worked to secure “specific relief for farmers whose grain bins busted because of flooding.”) President Donald Trump was willing to sign the legislation. House passage seemed assured, so most representatives left town for the holiday weekend.

Then a first-term Republican from Texas used a procedural move to hold up the bill on May 24. While most of the blame lies with U.S. Representative Chip Roy and the GOP leaders who failed to dissuade him, top House Democrats should not have put themselves at the mercy of any member of the minority.

When U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called President Donald Trump’s wall “an immorality,” right wing pundits pounced. They conflated Pelosi calling the wall immoral with the message that all Democrats want open borders.

The president defended his monument by claiming the country needs a “powerful wall” to deter the next migrant caravan on its way, news he most likely saw on FOX. In reality, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s policies are humanitarian and Mexican immigration has been streamlined to encourage the refugees and migrants looking to come to the US to stay in Mexico.

Democratic Representatives Abby Finkenauer (IA-01) and Cindy Axne (IA-03) joined a long list of “firsts” when they were sworn in on January 3. Iowa had never elected a woman to the U.S. House before 2018, but now women make up half of our state’s delegation. The “most diverse Congress in history” includes record numbers of women and members of religious, racial, ethnic, or LGBTQ groups that have not previously represented their states in Washington. Finkenauer also became the second-youngest woman to serve in Congress, after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

The first votes in the 116th Congress involved some drama within the Democratic caucus, but Iowans did not rock the boat.

Nancy Pelosi won an important U.S. House Democratic caucus vote on November 28, and all three Iowans who will be part of the majority next year backed her for speaker.