Chuck Isenhart is an investigative reporter, photographer and recovering Iowa state legislator offering research, analysis, education and public affairs advocacy at his Substack newsletter Iowa Public Policy Geek, where a version of this essay first appeared.

Iowa has a new director of the Office for State-Federal Relations. But it’s not clear whether anyone is looking out for Iowa as the federal government slashes programs.

Madeline Willis, a former staffer for U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst and U.S. Representative Zach Nunn (IA-03), posted on LinkedIn that she accepted “a position with Governor Kim Reynolds as her DC-based Director of State and Federal Relations” in April. Only a few weeks earlier, the Iowa Senate had confirmed Eric Baker as director of that office, an “independent agency” position he had held for the past two years.

I put “independent” in quotes because, although Iowa Code says the Office for State-Federal Relations is a nonpartisan program “accessible to all three branches of state government,” Baker led that office from Des Moines while also serving as Governor Kim Reynolds’ director of strategic operations.