The Iowa Senate reconvened on January 12 with a different look: a new majority leader (Mike Klimesh) and a changed balance of power: 33 Republicans and seventeen Democrats, down from a 34-16 GOP majority for most of the 2025 session.

Seven senators (four Republicans, three Democrats) were elected to the chamber for the first time in 2024, and three more won their seats in special elections during 2025.

Fourteen senators are women (eight Democrats and six Republicans)—that’s one more woman than last year, since Democrat Catelin Drey won the race to succeed the late Rocky De Witt in Senate district 1, and Renee Hardman won the race to succeed the late Claire Celsi in Senate district 16. The high point for women’s representation in the Iowa Senate was in 2023 and 2024, when the chamber had 35 men and fifteen women.

Hardman is the first Black woman to serve in the Iowa Senate and only the third African American ever elected to the chamber. Democrat Izaah Knox is also Black. The other 48 senators are white. No Latino has ever served in the chamber, and Iowa’s only Asian-American senator was Swati Dandekar, who resigned in 2011.

In 2023, Democrat Janice Weiner became the first Jewish person to serve in the Iowa Senate since Ralph Rosenberg left the legislature after 1994. She became the first Jewish person to lead an Iowa legislative caucus when her peers elected her minority leader in November 2024.

Democrat Liz Bennett is the only out LGBTQ member of the Iowa Senate.

I enclose below details on the majority and minority leadership teams, along with all chairs, vice chairs, and members of Iowa Senate committees. Where relevant, I’ve mentioned changes since last year’s legislative session. Although there hasn’t been as much turnover as the Iowa House saw during the interim, Klimesh did make quite a few changes in the committees compared to last year. He took all committee assignments away from one Republican (Doug Campbell) and took certain positions away from Kevin Alons, Mark Lofgren, Sandy Salmon, and Dave Sires.

Some non-political trivia: the 50 Iowa senators include four men named Mike (three Republicans and a Democrat), two Toms (a Democrat and a Republican), a Dave and a David (both Republicans), and two men each named Jeff, Mark, and Dan (all Republicans).

Transparency advocates found something to celebrate in Governor Kim Reynolds’ final bill signings on May 17. The governor rejected House File 2539—her only veto of the Iowa legislature’s 2024 session—due to language that would have created an “enormous loophole” in the open meetings law, experts inside and outside state government warned.

Drafting a better bill to strengthen penalties for open meetings violations should be easy, if Iowa lawmakers return to the topic in 2025.

But fixing the process that allowed such a poorly-worded bill to reach the governor’s desk would be a tall order. Because while House File 2539 suffered a unique fate, its journey through the legislature illustrated broader problems with how the GOP-controlled House and Senate do business.

Des Moines City Hall, photographed by James Steakley in 2009. Photo licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council and can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. 

The Iowa legislature took an important step last week in voting to toughen penalties for state and local officials who violate a key government transparency tool, Iowa’s open meetings law.

Unfortunately, lawmakers’ actions may not be enough to reverse the love for secrecy that too many government boards and councils demonstrate. The latest example comes from Des Moines. 

For the second time in three years, a bill backed by top Iowa House Republicans failed to gain the 51 votes needed on the House floor. Senate File 455, which would restrict local government authority to regulate topsoil and stormwater, topped out at 49 votes in favor during floor debate on March 6. By the time the clerk closed the machine a few minutes later, yes votes had dropped to 44.

Such events are rare in any legislature, because leaders typically don’t bring a bill to the floor unless they know it will pass. No bill favored by the majority has failed an Iowa Senate floor vote for many years.

The last time Iowa House GOP leaders lost a floor vote was in March 2022, on an amendment that combined liability protection for trucking companies with limits on private employers requiring employees or customers to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Republicans had a 60-40 majority at that time; the GOP advantage in the chamber has since grown to 64-36.

Majority Leader Matt Windschitl quickly filed a motion to reconsider Senate File 455, indicating leaders plan to call another vote on the bill soon. Even so, the episode revealed surprisingly deep opposition to this legislation in Republican ranks.

Photo provided by the author, showing maternal health advocates advocating for licensure of certified professional midwives during an Iowa House Ways and Means subcommittee meeting in February 2023.

Rachel Bruns is a volunteer advocate for quality maternal health care in Iowa.

This time last year I wrote about five policies that would improve maternal health in Iowa. I’m updating the piece for the 2024 legislative session with a focus on three core priorities. 

Although access to abortion care and contraceptives are critical to maternal and infant health, I do not discuss those topics here. I want to highlight lesser-known aspects of maternal health specific to prenatal, birth, and postpartum care, which receive much less media coverage.

For the 2024 legislative session, I am focusing on three issues I raised last year, which have a strong chance to be enacted. These policies would improve maternal health in Iowa by expanding access to midwives and expanding prenatal care options. I wrote at length in 2021 about how midwives save lives, and it seems like every week a different study or article underscores how the midwifery model of care leads to better outcomes. If you’re interested in diving deeper, one of my favorite resources released in 2023 is this Issue Brief on Maternity Medicaid Strategies from the Maternal Health Hub.

The Iowa Senate convened in Des Moines on January 8 for the first day of the 2024 legislative session. Although the balance of power remains the same (34 Republicans, sixteen Democrats), I’m publishing a new version of this post to note changes in leadership or among the chairs, vice chairs, and members of standing Senate committees.

Fourteen senators (nine Republicans, five Democrats) were elected to the chamber for the first time in 2022. Seven of them (four Republicans and three Democrats) previously served in the Iowa House.

Fifteen senators are women (eight Democrats and seven Republicans), up from twelve women in the chamber prior to the 2022 election and more than double the six women senators who served prior to the 2018 election.

Democrat Izaah Knox is the second Black state senator in Iowa history. The first was Tom Mann, a Democrat elected to two terms during the 1980s. The other 49 senators are white. No Latino has ever served in the chamber, and Iowa’s only Asian-American senator was Swati Dandekar, who resigned in 2011.

Democrat Janice Weiner became the first Jewish person to serve in the Iowa Senate since Ralph Rosenberg left the legislature after 1994. Democrat Liz Bennett became the first out LGBTQ state senator since Matt McCoy retired in 2018.

The weekend could hardly have gone better for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Although he has not formally launched his presidential campaign, he landed more Iowa legislative endorsements than any other GOP candidate has had in decades. He drew large crowds in Sioux Center at a fundraiser for U.S. Representative Randy Feenstra and in Cedar Rapids at an event for the Republican Party of Iowa.

Finally, DeSantis made an unscheduled stop in Des Moines, where former President Donald Trump—who had hoped to upstage his leading Republican rival—canceled a rally earlier in the day.

Job number one for DeSantis was to turn the GOP race for the presidency into a two-person contest. At an elite level, he has already accomplished that task, more than six months before the Iowa caucuses.

Second in a series analyzing Governor Kim Reynolds’ plan to restructure state government.

Blind Iowans showed up in large numbers at the state capitol on February 13 to speak out against one part of Governor Kim Reynolds’ plan to reorganize state government.

A common thread running through the bill, numbered House Study Bill 126 and Senate Study Bill 1123, is giving the governor more power to hire and fire the few state government leadership positions that have some independence under existing law.

The relevant section would give Reynolds power to appoint the director of the Iowa Department for the Blind, a position that the Iowa Commission for the Blind has long filled. The director would serve at the pleasure of the governor, so Reynolds could fire the person at any time, for any reason.

The Iowa Senate began its 2023 session on January 9 with 34 Republicans and sixteen Democrats, the largest majority seen in the chamber for about five decades. Five of the last seven Iowa general elections have been Republican waves.

Fourteen senators (nine Republicans, five Democrats) were just elected to the chamber for the first time in November. Seven of them (four Republicans and three Democrats) previously served in the Iowa House.

Fifteen senators are women (eight Democrats and seven Republicans), up from twelve women in the chamber prior to the 2022 election and more than double the six women senators who served prior to the 2018 election.

Democrat Izaah Knox is the second Black state senator in Iowa history. The first was Tom Mann, a Democrat elected to two terms during the 1980s. The other 49 senators are white. No Latino has ever served in the chamber, and Iowa’s only Asian-American senator was Swati Dandekar, who resigned in 2011.

Democrat Janice Weiner became the first Jewish person to serve in the Iowa Senate since Ralph Rosenberg left the legislature after 1994. Democrat Liz Bennett became the first out LGBTQ state senator since Matt McCoy retired in 2018.

I enclose below details on the majority and minority leadership teams, along with all chairs, vice chairs, and members of standing Iowa Senate committees. Where relevant, I’ve mentioned changes since last year’s legislative session. The Senate has added a new Technology Committee and renamed what used to be “Labor and Business Relations” as the Workforce Committee.

Some non-political trivia: the 50 Iowa senators include two Taylors, a Democrat and a Republican. As for first names, there are three Jeffs and two men each named Mark, Mike, and Dan.

Editor’s note: This analysis has been updated with unofficial results from all the races. Original post follows.

The major parties have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the most competitive 2022 Iowa House and Senate races.

This post highlights seven state Senate districts where one or both parties have spent large sums, and another seven where even without a big investment by Democrats or Republicans, the results could shed light on political trends.

All voter registration totals listed below come from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office, as reported on November 1. All absentee ballot figures come from the Secretary of State’s office, as reported on November 7. All past election results come from the map Josh Hughes created in Dave’s Redistricting App.

All figures for in-kind spending by the Iowa Democratic Party or Republican Party of Iowa come from filings with the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board. I focus on in-kind spending, because candidates in battleground Iowa legislative races typically give most of their funds to the state party. The party then covers the bulk of the large expenditures for direct mail and/or television, radio, and digital advertising.