‘Moon shot’ on eliminating income taxes may be just the start for Iowa legislative Republicans

With lopsided majorities in the House and Senate, Iowa Republicans gathering today in Des Moines for the launch of the 2022 legislative session are likely to launch more than one “moon shot.”

GOP legislative leaders are planning what they call a “moon shot” tax-cut plan that eventually would eliminate the state’s personal income tax. But their appetites may not stop there.

“I think there's going to be an effort to push for everything that's on the agenda,” University of Northern Iowa political scientist Chris Larimer said about the session. “I think they're going to push on tax cuts, maybe more easing of gun restrictions and kind of waiting and seeing what they're going to do on abortion” in anticipation of a U.S. Supreme Court decision later this spring on a Mississippi abortion law.

“I can’t fathom there’s a world in which the majority party doesn’t use this election-year session to attack women’s rights more,” House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst, D-Windsor Heights, predicted. “They just can’t help themselves.”

Still, Larimer said, even with majorities of 60-40 in the House and 32-18 in the Senate, Republicans may not get everything they want because of differences within their own party.

At this point, a lot ideas are being floated. A proposal such as cutting or eliminating income taxes has broad but not unanimous support among Republicans. Proposals to further restrict access to abortion, to prohibit employers from mandating employees practice health measures such as vaccinations and to bring criminal charges against teachers and librarians who make available books that the some legislators deem to be obscene face longer odds.

Without commenting on any specific proposal, House Speaker Pat Grassley, R-New Hartford, told reporters that “just because one bill gets filed doesn't mean that it always is going to make it all the way through the Legislature.”

In addition to lawmakers’ personal agendas and the priorities already outlined by leaders, the 2022 session will be influenced by election-year politics. All 100 House seats are up for grabs this year. Due to redistricting, it’s likely more than half the 50 Senate seats will be on the ballot. The exact number won’t be known until the filing deadline March 18.

Republican leaders downplay the impact of November elections, saying it will be business as usual for them.

“I think it's going to be largely what you've seen the last five years,” said Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver, R-Ankeny. “We started a vision for Iowa to implement pro-growth policies and put us on a direction that we thought was the right direction for this state.”

Like previous sessions when Republicans were in control, Whitver said 2022 will be about “passing laws and bills and initiatives that Iowans want.” That’s why Republicans have their large majorities, Grassley added.

Democrats believe the GOP is confusing what their corporate donors are telling them with what the public wants.

“My job is to remind Iowans every chance I get that Republicans campaign in moderation and govern in the extreme,” Konfrst said. “They come out saying ‘I care about child care, I care about mental health,’ and then they get to the floor and it’s a completely different ballgame. Whenever they don’t involve us, whenever they do legislation that doesn’t have bipartisan support, we’re going to point out why and we’re going to spend time letting Iowans know what’s really happening up here.”

Senate Minority Leader Zach Wahls, D-Coralville, thinks GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds and legislative Republicans will give his party plenty to talk about. He’s calling on legislators to focus on the state's number one problem — “the Kim Reynolds workforce crisis.”

“Small businesses are having trouble staying open, maintaining hours and struggling to hire new employees,” Wahls said. “Schools are having larger class sizes or canceling classes altogether because of teacher shortages and the inability to operate buses. Hospitals are desperate for more staff. All of these problems are a direct result of the Kim Reynolds workforce crisis.

“Unfortunately, the Republican response to the Reynolds workforce crisis is to try and distract Iowans by focusing their rhetoric on banning books, putting teachers and librarians behind bars, lying about the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 attack and taking away Iowans freedoms, liberties and civil rights,” he said.

If the first thing a person sees when they Google “Iowa” is a “story about book banning, about the constitutional amendment for abortion, for guns … I think that makes the Kim Reynolds workforce crisis worse, not better,” Wahls said.

He may have a point, Larimer said.

“They could, potentially, go too far. There could be damage, perhaps to the reputation of the state,” Larimer said. “If there's a sense that Iowa’s really out of touch on certain things and it affects businesses or business investments, then I think there's potential that the maybe go too far.

“They're always concerned about elections, but there are larger concerns about how Iowa is perceived by others,” Larimer said. “That could that have long-term effects.”

It’s hard to measure the impact of the election on the session, but it’s heightened this year because of redistricting that redrew legislative election boundaries to reflect population changes over the past decade. Many lawmakers will running for re-election in unfamiliar districts. Some will face fellow party members in primaries. And some will be facing another incumbent in the general election.

In addition to dealing with tax cuts and budget decisions, and issues ranging from broadband and child care to workforce housing and confronting coronavirus issues, many lawmakers “will be trying to figure out how's my district changed? How do I campaign in this in this new district?” said Tim Storey, executive director of the National Conference of State Legislatures.

“There's potential for a great deal of change,” Storey said, because in the election after redistricting, turnover spikes from around 18 to about 25 percent.

There’s an old maxim that the party in power legislates cautiously in an election year. But “I don't know how much that rule applies anymore, that you don't want to do anything super-controversial in an election year,” Larimer said.

Republicans may stop short of doing anything that will harm the state’s reputation or make it harder to attract investments, he said.

“But in terms of pushing their party platform, I would expect them to continue to push and to push pretty hard,” Larimer said.

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