I had an anxiety dream last week that I was out somewhere on a Monday and couldn’t make it home for my live radio show at 7:00 PM. So I was a little nervous about going to the open house for Planned Parenthood’s newly expanded Susan Knapp Health Center in the Drake neighborhood of Des Moines yesterday. But I got home in plenty of time, and it was well worth attending the event. We’ll be talking about Planned Parenthood’s Iowa services in the abortion ban era on the next “KHOI’s Capitol Week.”

The sound file from our April 28 show is embedded at the top of this message. If you mainly want to listen, can also subscribe to “KHOI’s Capitol Week” on any podcast platform, or find it through smart speakers. The full archive (going back to February 2021) is available on KHOI’s website.

For those who would rather read than listen, here’s your written recap. If your email provider truncates this message, you can read it without interruption at this link.

Note:

Governor’s office sues Des Moines Register

I didn’t see this coming: on Friday the governor’s office sued the Des Moines Register, seeking an injunction to stop the Register from obtaining four documents. The Register asked for records related to the governor’s comments about Lutheran Services. During a Congressional hearing in February, she declined to say that Lutheran Services was not a money laundering operation. Five days later, she walked that back.

The governor’s office turned over many records related to the controversy but withheld four documents that, according to the court filing, contain “candid private advice and counsel from her most senior advisers.” A privilege log listed these as “media prep” and said “the communication was intended to be confidential.” The lawsuit claims disclosing those records would “inhibit the governor’s ability to receive candid, fulsome, and robust information in the future.”

The governor’s office isn’t seeking monetary damages here. But the lawsuit could have a chilling effect on the media anyway.

ACLU files open records lawsuit against governor’s office

Later on Friday, the ACLU of Iowa filed an open records lawsuit on behalf of Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers. That group’s president, Jason Benell, requested records from the governor’s office related to the cancellation of an Iowa Satanic Temple winter celebration at the capitol in December. The governor’s office cited “executive privilege” in refusing to turn over some of the documents.

Disclosure: I was one of the clients the ACLU represented in a previous open records lawsuit against the governor’s office. We filed suit in 2021, and the case led to the court’s unanimous Belin v Reynolds decision from 2023.

Thomas Story, ACLU of Iowa staff attorney, said,

The specific documents withheld from the public eye in this case are an executive agency report from the Department of Administrative Services and multiple 'media prep' documents. These are not the kind of sensitive matters of national security and foreign diplomacy that courts have protected from disclosure under executive privilege in the past. It may be embarrassing to the Governor’s Office to reveal its role in denying a religious group equal access to the state capitol building, but that does not give it the right to hide what it did and why it did it.

As one of the most frequent requesters of records from the governor’s office, I think this reliance on “executive privilege” is relatively new. I looked through my own files and couldn’t find examples of records the governor’s staff kept from me for that reason.

Cases tee up court battle over executive privilege

To my knowledge, the Iowa Supreme Court hasn’t previously ruled on the scope of the governor’s executive privilege. The court definitely hasn’t said whether “executive privilege” is a valid reason for the governor to withhold public records. Iowa Code Chapter 22 (the open records law) contains 75 exemptions, but “executive privilege” is not one of them.

This issue came up tangentially in the Belin v Reynolds case. The Iowa Supreme Court ruled unanimously that we could pursue our claims that the governor’s office violated the open records law by taking too long to produce documents. The state had argued that letting us sue over extensive delays would lead to discovery that could invade the governor’s executive privilege. But the justices held, “we see no reason why the plaintiffs cannot advance timeliness claims without inquiring into political questions or invading executive privilege.”

It wasn’t directly on point because the governor’s office was not citing executive privilege as a reason to deny us the records.

I think it’s important that the records the governor’s staff are withholding from the Des Moines Register and Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers are not discussions with lawyers, which would already be exempt as attorney work product.

The governor’s lawsuit against the Register cites a different Iowa Supreme Court ruling from 2024 (Smith v. Polk County District Court). That was related to legislative privilege that shields communications of members of the Iowa House and Senate. And it had nothing to do with open records requests, because the legislature is already exempt from Iowa’s open records law. In addition, legislative privilege is not necessarily the same as executive privilege.

The Iowa Freedom of Information Council, a nonprofit that advocates for government transparency and was a plaintiff in the Belin v Reynolds case, said in a statement on Friday that the governor’s refusal to provide records about the Lutheran Services of Iowa and the Satanic Temple display “is a continuation of the governor’s desire to shield from public release documents that might cast her administration in a negative light.” The group added, “The people of Iowa are entitled to evaluate their governor’s actions and comments. That becomes difficult when the governor tries to hide behind what should be a very narrow interpretation of executive privilege.”

The council’s executive director Randy Evans wrote about both lawsuits at his Substack, Stray Thoughts.

It looks like the Iowa Supreme Court will at some point determine the scope of executive privilege and whether that’s a legitimate reason to withhold records.

I wonder whether Reynolds will ask the state legislature to add executive privilege as a new exception to the open records law.

Update to Section 504 lawsuit

While we were on the topic of lawsuits, I wanted to bring listeners up to date on a federal lawsuit I covered in February. Last year, Republican-led states including Iowa sued to block a federal rule adopted by the Biden administration’s Department of Health and Human Services. The rule lays out in detail what kinds of discrimination against disabled people are prohibited under Section 504, a landmark disability rights law from the 1970s.

Earlier this month, the plaintiff states and the Trump administration filed a joint status report confirming that the states are no longer claiming that Section 504 is unconstitutional under the Spending Clause under the U.S. Constitution. That is a big deal, because if courts held Section 504 is unconstitutional, it would raise questions about many other federal laws related to civil rights or disability protections. A lot of laws put strings on federal funding to require compliance with anti-discrimination.

The states are still challenging the rule, and that could affect disabled people in many ways, especially those who need community-based services to be able to live at home. The litigation is in a holding pattern while Trump’s HHS evaluates its position on the regulation. But whatever happens, the U.S. Supreme Court will not eventually be asked to rule on whether Section 504 is unconstitutional.

I did seek comment from the Attorney General’s office about why Iowa is still on the case, but I haven’t heard back.

Julie Stauch may run for governor

Last week, Julie Stauch filed a statement of organization with the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board, setting up a committee to run for governor as a Democrat. When I asked her about it, she said she’s considering the race.

Stauch is well-known to people who follow elections but not to the public at large. She’s worked on many Iowa campaigns, starting with Dukakis for president in 1988. I consider her a friend and met her in 1994, when she was working for Bonnie Campbell’s campaign for governor. She has held jobs in state government and the nonprofit world as well, but most of her career she has either worked on or advised campaigns.

Among other things, Stauch managed U.S. Representative Leonard Boswell’s 2002 re-election campaign, was political director for Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 Iowa caucus campaign, and managed Mike Franken’s 2022 campaign for U.S. Senate, when he came from behind to win the Democratic primary. She has also advised local candidates, from Renee Hardman for West Des Moines city council to Kimberly Sheets, who won a 2023 special election for Warren County auditor. She has led campaigns in other states as well, including Mazie Hirono’s first Democratic primary race for U.S. Senate in Hawaii.

We still don’t have any confirmed Democratic candidates for governor; former State Representative Brad Sherman is running as a Republican. I expect announcements to come fairly soon after the legislative session and certainly by the Fourth of July. State Auditor Rob Sand is expected to run and would be the heavy favorite in a primary. That said, a competitive primary could benefit the eventual Democratic nominee as the race would generate more media coverage.

Chris Cournoyer may run for state auditor

On Friday, Lieutenant Governor Chris Cournoyer filed paperwork to form a committee to run for state auditor in 2026. That isn’t a formal announcement, but most candidates who file a statement of organization do go on to run for that office.

I never thought Cournoyer (a Nikki Haley endorser who has only been lieutenant governor for a few months) would try to succeed Kim Reynolds as governor. But I thought she might try to run for her old Iowa Senate seat. The fact that she is angling for statewide office is good news for Mike Zimmer, the Democrat who won that special election in January for Senate district 35. It is still a GOP-leaning district, but Zimmer’s opponent in 2026 will probably be less strong than Cournoyer.

I had thought State Senator Mike Bousselot was gearing up to run for state auditor. As we discussed on last week’s show, Bousselot has said he’s exploring a run for governor. But I think he may shift to the attorney general race if Brenna Bird runs for governor. Bousselot is an attorney. He also has a master’s in accountancy from the University of Iowa and worked at a big four accounting firm after graduating from college.

It’s worth noting that Cournoyer is not a CPA. That’s not a problem, but when Sand ran for his current office in 2018, Republicans made a big deal out of the fact that he wasn’t a CPA.

I haven’t heard of any Democrats planning to run for state auditor, assuming Sand runs for governor.

News about the Iowans in Congress

We spent a few minutes talking about the Iowa delegation in Congress. As I reported over the weekend, Senator Chuck Grassley made some newsworthy comments about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s latest Signal scandal during an interview his office arranged with two reporters.

Grassley and Senator Joni Ernst both commented on the war in Ukraine over the past week, and both want to see tougher sanctions on Russia. But they struck different tones, perhaps because Grassley is presumably never running for office again, while Ernst is up for re-election next year.

Grassley has tiptoed more toward criticism of Trump’s policy. He told the two reporters, “I’d like to see the president impose the toughest sanctions we have on Russia. Quit leaning to the Russian point of view as opposed to the Ukrainian point of view.” If we don’t want to provide more large military aid packages to Ukraine, Grassley said, the U.S. should give them the Patriot anti-missile weapons to stop Russian drones and missiles. He said, “The president talks regularly about stopping the killing. Well, he’s got to put pressure on Russia to stop the killing” because not many Russians are killed by missiles coming from Ukraine.

Grassley made similar comments at a town hall meeting in Northwood (Worth County) on Wednesday. He also posted on the X/Twitter platform on Friday, "President Trump pls put the toughest of sanctions on Putin. U ought to c from clear evidence that he is playing America as a patsy."

Ernst is playing a balancing act, calling for tough sanctions on Russia and pretending that this is basically Trump’s position. For instance, she posted on Friday: “The deadly attack on Kyiv made clear yet again that Putin is responsible for the senseless killing of too many innocent lives and it must stop. I support President Trump’s efforts to get a peace deal done NOW.”

On Saturday, Ernst posted that she’s working with colleagues to give the president “the ability to enforce crippling sanctions on Russia if they continue to drag out peace talks. As President Trump has said, let’s stop the senseless loss of life and end the war.” What she didn’t say: Trump has mouthed Russian propaganda and blamed Ukraine for the war.

Ernst hasn’t held any public town halls this year, but Grassley held several during the April recess. A lot of angry people attended that Northwood event. He also spoke to crowded rooms in Jefferson and Guthrie Center. He’s been open about disagreeing with Trump’s tariff policies, but otherwise has mostly defended the administration. Grassley does hold many private events on his 99-county tour, but at least Iowans have some opportunities to ask him questions.

Representative Ashley Hinson (IA-02) was the only Iowan in the U.S. House to hold a public town hall during the April recess. Tom Barton covered Hinson’s event in Mason City, where she defended Trump administration policies. The mostly hostile crowd didn’t appreciate many of her answers, such as when she defended the mass deportations to El Salvador: “Look, we've got so many (pending immigration cases) that if we had every single one of these people have an individual hearing, it would take 100 years.”

Hinson also praised Elon Musk’s slash-and-burn approach to the federal government, claiming that he is trying to root out waste, inefficiencies, and fraud. Over the weekend I published a deep dive on Democratic challenger Kevin Techau’s prospects against Hinson. Notably, he has been trying to tie Hinson to Musk, an “unelected, unaccountable billionaire — as he rips apart our government and sticks it to the middle class.”

News from the state legislature

Governor Reynolds signed seven more bills on Friday. The only controversial one is House File 785, which will allow Iowa charter schools to have one board member who lives out of state. All Democrats opposed that bill, along with a few Republicans.

Lawmakers way behind on the state budget

This coming Friday, May 2, is the 110th calendar day of the 2025 session, and members of the Iowa House and Senate will stop receiving their per diem allowances after that point. But it doesn’t look like they are close to adjourning on time. It’s common for the legislature to go into overtime, but quite unusual that we’re closing in on the end of April without any agreement on state budget targets. Some years, the legislature has already adjourned by April 28.

The House and Senate used to agree on joint budget targets in March.

On Monday morning, the governor’s office and Senate Republicans announced that they had agreed on “a compromise for an overall budget of $9.417 billion for Fiscal Year 2026.” House Republicans released their own budget target of $9.453 billion on Monday afternoon. So the two sides are about $36 million apart. House Republicans want to spend more in almost every area of the budget. A couple of the larger points of contention: House Republicans want an additional $14 million to increase paraeducator salaries and higher funding for community colleges.

Senate Republicans plan to move the budget bills through Appropriations subcommittees and Committee this week. Whatever the final budget deal looks like, Iowa will be pulling close to $900 million from the state’s ending balance to cover planned spending in the next fiscal year.

Senate Republicans basically waited the House out on K-12 school funding and ended up with a package closer to what the Senate and governor wanted. Maybe they are playing a similar waiting game now. Once they agree on spending levels, the end of the session could come quickly. But the big picture is that the budget process has completely broken down and is less transparent than at any other point in my lifetime.

Other major unresolved issues

Passing a budget is the only thing the legislature absolutely must do before adjourning for the year. Other big issues still hanging out there include property tax reform and a plan for allocating money from Iowa’s opioid settlement fund. I have the impression Republicans want to move on those, but I am not sure the House and Senate will reach an agreement.

A couple of the governor’s bills are still pending. The House hasn’t yet approved her bill on integrating child care and early childhood education. Neither chamber has approved her energy bill. That contains the “right of first refusal” language opposed by many Republican lawmakers—and the Trump administration’s Justice Department.

House members filed record number of bills in 2025

I wanted to point out that more than 1,000 bills have been introduced in the House this year. Jack Hunt has been covering the statehouse for 30 years for the Iowa Legislative News Service and was unaware of any precedent for this many bills being introduced.

In 2023, the last bill introduced in the Iowa House (the near-total abortion ban adopted in that July special session) was House File 732. We’re already at House File 1036, and more are coming.

Senate Republicans have been less active than their counterparts across the rotunda, but they have seen more bills introduced this year than usual.

“Dead” radon bill comes back to life

After every funnel week, I remind listeners that no bill is ever really dead until the chambers adjourn for the year. Last week we saw a good example of a “dead” bill coming back to life. House File 1027 is one of State Representative Hans Wilz’s bills seeking to address Iowa’s high cancer rates. Although it didn’t get through the funnel, he was able to get it to the House floor as an amendment to a tax bill not subject to those deadlines.

The bill would give homeowners a $1,000 tax credit for installing radon mitigation systems and would require new home construction to have passive radon mitigation systems. Wilz called on colleagues to support the bill because radon causes many cancers. The House approved this bill last Wednesday by 92 votes to 1. It’s not clear whether the Senate will take it up.

House passes new restrictions to open records law

We were running out of time on last week’s show, so I wanted to explain the situation with House File 706. This bill was inspired by transparency problems in Davenport after the May 2023 apartment building collapse. The original bill increased penalties for open records and open meetings violations, and required more training for local government officials on Iowa’s sunshine laws.

Last year, a poorly-worded late Senate amendment prompted Reynolds to veto the bill. State Senator Scott Webster offered another late amendment when the Senate took this up earlier this month. The new language defines video footage from security cameras in the state capitol and keycard data for state employees as “confidential” records not subject to disclosure.

Last year, I unsuccessfully requested keycard data on State Treasurer Roby Smith, hoping to find out how often he had been coming to work at the state capitol. Smith is a former Republican member of the Iowa Senate. Like Webster, he’s from the Quad Cities area.

House members approved the amended bill last week by 83 votes to 10, with six Democrats and four Republicans voting no. It awaits the governor’s signature.

Anti-SLAPP bill finally heading to governor

Iowa may become the 37th state to adopt an anti-SLAPP law, which makes it easier to defend against frivolous lawsuits that retaliate against someone for using their First Amendment rights. “Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation” are not designed to win in court. Rather, they are filed to force defendants to spend a lot of time and money on attorney’s fees.

House Judiciary Committee chair Steven Holt has been committed to passing an anti-SLAPP law because of a defamation suit that almost bankrupted the Carroll Times Herald. The newspaper’s investigative reporting was accurate, but it took years and around $140,000 in legal fees to defend against the case.

The House has passed versions of this bill at least four times. Until this year, anti-SLAPP bills always died in the Senate Judiciary Committee. But this year, a Senate companion bill got through committee in February. Earlier this month, senators passed House File 472 unanimously with a small amendment. Last week, the House approved the amended version, also with no opposition.

Republican State Senator Julian Garrett, a longtime member of the Judiciary Committee, has been the main roadblock to anti-SLAPP bills in the past. He was absent the day the Senate debated this year’s bill.

A couple of factors may have pulled this bill over the line. Last fall, Summit Carbon Solutions sent cease and desist letters to at least six Iowans who had criticized the company’s proposed CO2 pipeline. That angered Senate Republicans who oppose the project.

I believe it also helped that former Senate Judiciary chair Brad Zaun lost his re-election bid in November. The new committee chair, Jason Schultz, represents the Carroll area. He’s well aware of what happened to the Carroll Times Herald, and Holt represents half of his Senate district.

If Reynolds signs House File 472, the law will apply only to future litigation—not to previously filed cases, such as President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the Des Moines Register and Ann Selzer.

We had just a few seconds to talk about House File 956, a bill on its way to the governor after a unanimous Iowa Senate vote last week. This bill would raise the mandatory retirement age for state judges from 72 to 78, and codifies that courts can hold proceedings remotely (that was a temporary policy change during the COVID-19 pandemic). It also makes some changes to the counties where judges and magistrates can live.

Thanks for reading or listening! We’ll be back with more news from the legislature (and probably more 2026 campaign announcements) next week.

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