Iowa Democrats vow to fight Republican ‘radical ideas’

DES MOINES — Iowa Democrats said they would push back against what they called the “radical ideas” of the Republican majority when the Iowa Legislature convenes Monday for the 2023 session.

Iowa Senate Minority Leader Zach Wahls, of Coralville, and House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst, of Windsor Heights, laid out concerns they had about Republicans’ goals in the upcoming session in a news conference Friday. They talked to reporters after the Iowa Capitol Press Association's legislative preview forum was canceled because Republican legislative leaders and Gov. Kim Reynolds declined to attend.

Wahls criticized the decision by Reynolds, House Speaker Pat Grassley, and Republican Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver to not attend the forum on public policy.

“It is the violation of these lowercase-D democratic norms that show Iowa Republicans are in lockstep with the national Republicans in Washington,” he said.

A spokesperson for Whitver said in an email the Senate leader already spent time with reporters in interviews before the legislative session.

"Stories previewing the upcoming session with his comments appear in multiple outlets on a daily basis," Caleb Hunter, Whitver's spokesperson said. "Democrats’ hyperbole is demonstrably unfounded and wildly irresponsible."

Democrats remain in the minority in the upcoming session, having lost seats in both the House and Senate in the 2022 election, with Republicans gaining a two-thirds supermajority in the Senate.

Wahls decried the renewed push from Republican leaders for a law that would give some parents the option to use a portion of their student’s per-pupil state education funding to subsidize a private school education — in the form of scholarships commonly called vouchers.

He said the plan would “defund our public schools and send public money to unaccountable private institutions.”

Last year’s proposal made 10,000 taxpayer-funded scholarships available to families making up to 400 percent of the federal poverty line or children on an Individualized Education Program. This year, Konfrst said Reynolds may propose a plan without an income cap.

“If there are no income limits on these school vouchers, which take public money and put it in private schools, that means that a millionaire family from Des Moines can send their kid to private school on the taxpayer dime, while schools in rural Iowa are crumbling because money has been taken away,” she said.

Reynolds has not unveiled her proposal for a private school tuition assistance program, but she campaigned heavily on the issue in 2022 and said it would be a top issue in the new session. Reynolds and Republicans say the measure would give parents more choices in education and provide opportunities for students who don’t succeed in public schools.

"Over the last six years, Senate Republicans, along with the House and Governor Reynolds, have increased K-12 funding by half a billion dollars," Hunter said.

Democratic leaders also raised alarms about Republican attempts to restrict abortion, although Republicans have said they do not plan to do pending a state Supreme Court case. Reynolds has asked the Iowa Supreme Court to reinstate a law that would effectively ban most abortions once cardiac activity is detected, usually around the sixth week of pregnancy. That law, which was struck down by the courts, allowed exceptions for rape, incest and medical emergencies.

Republicans have not made clear their end goal now that states have far more freedom to restrict abortion, up to a complete ban, but Wahls and Konfrst argued they are aiming for a total ban in Iowa.

“I think we’re going to see legislation sooner than later that does ban abortion in the state of Iowa, and then we’re going to have to have a real conversation on the floor of the House about who they’re answering to and who they work for,” Konfrst said.

Both Wahls and Konfrst said they hope to find areas of bipartisanship with the majority, and they would like to be involved in early conversations and drafting bills. Wahls said he hopes Republicans and Democrats can find bipartisan solutions when it comes to workforce training and recruitment, protections for residents in mobile homes and expanding housing and changing marijuana laws.

“The problem is this majority has chosen to work exclusively within the Republican caucus and to shut Democrats out completely,” he said.