Merging Iowa counties is a very heavy lift

Gov. Kim Reynolds’ Iowa DOGE Task Force is not using chain saws. So, we can be thankful for that.

But the task force, an homage to Donald Trump and largely made up of business leaders, is talking about consolidating Iowa counties. The state’s current 99 counties is too many, members say. They’re a throwback to the days when it mattered if you could guide your horse-drawn conveyance to the county seat and back home in a single day.

Terry Lutz, board chairman at McClure Engineering in Ankeny, and head of the task force’s return on taxpayer investment team, calls our 99 counties “the elephant in the room” as Republicans who run state government seek to cut property taxes.

Elephant? This is more like trying to raise the Titanic.

Previous proposals to consolidate counties or functions have hit multiple ice bergs. Rural residents resisted the idea of having to travel further to do their courthouse business. Counties, of course, lobbied hard against the proposals.

Iowa did consolidate a county, but that was in 1855 when the Legislature erased Bancroft County and made it part of Kossuth County. There would be efforts to form a new county in northern Kossuth County in 1870 and in 1914, when a referendum on the creation of Larabee County, named for a former governor, was shellacked in a public vote.

Since then, we’ve held at 99.

Years ago, Len Hadley, the retired CEO of Maytag, sparked a public debate when he floated the idea of consolidation. He argued consolidated counties would be drawn so no resident had to drive more than 45 minutes to the county seat.

Hadley was appointed by Gov. Tom Vilsack to the Iowa 2010 Commission, a group charged with charting a path for Iowa in the next decade. In its November 2000 final report, the group recommended counties be allowed to merge or establish new forms of government.

Lawmakers gave the green light to city-county mergers creating countywide government. Polk County gave it a try, but the idea was soundly defeated at the polls.

In 1994, Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice Arthur McGiverin advocated for the consolidation of county courts. It met stiff opposition and died. In 2001, Chief Justice Louis Lavorato unveiled a plan to consolidate clerk of court offices. It met stiff opposition and was shelved.

You might be sensing a trend.

Consolidating counties is a great idea on paper. It would create efficiencies and save money. It makes a lot of sense. But the disruptions such a massive undertaking creates feeds opposition among change-wary Iowans, county officials, small town leaders, lawyers etc.

The pull of the status quo is strong. Besides, doing nothing means rural Republicans won’t have to answer to angry constituents and jeopardize their re-election hopes. The Republican Statehouse majority is built on the votes of rural Iowans.

But the governor, who won’t be on the ballot in 2026, is open to the idea.

“I’ve said this 100 times. … We have to take a look at everything,” Reynolds said last week.

Maybe Iowa will have a Reynolds County.

Perhaps the task force will recommend consolidation, perhaps not.

But if Iowa consolidates counties in my lifetime, I’ll die of shock.

(319) 398-8262; todd.dorman@thegazette.com