This is week #7 of this year’s Iowa legislative session. There are many issues being handled by your House of Representatives, but one of the things that may surprise you is what a huge percentage of bills pass through the House without serious controversy. Both parties and most representatives agree on “good government” actions.
This last week the House passed 48 bills to send to the Senate. How representatives voted was consistent with prior sessions:
• 20 bills – Unanimous, meaning all representatives present voted “yea” (yes)
• 24 bills – Bipartisan, meaning most representatives vote “yea” regardless of party affiliation
• 4 bills – Party line, meaning that most Republicans voted “yea” while most Democrats voted “nay” (no). In general, Democrats are most likely to vote as a block, while Republicans tend to be more independent of party line.
Many citizens want to follow and advocate for certain legislation and for certain bills; however, trying to follow a bill through the House process, then through the Senate process can be very frustrating.
Here are a couple of examples:
• My bill on the DNR water permitting process was assigned the number HSB713; however, HSB713 was modified in the committee process and given the new number HF2642. So HF2642 is coming to the floor for debate, but representatives have put 3 pending amendments to change the bill and those amendments will be voted on by all representatives on the House floor. What that means is that the bill eventually voted on (after amendments) may be very different from the bill I wrote. I might even vote against it if the amendments create other problems.
• Another example is HF2104 (the eminent domain/CO2 pipeline bill). This bill passed the House – restricting the use of eminent domain for CO2 pipelines. When the bill landed in the Senate, Senate leadership kept the bill number but used a “strike after” amendment that completely changed the language and intent of bill, but it is still HF2104. As a result, if you are a property rights advocate, you would now oppose the new HF2104 as it was amended in the Senate.
This can be very confusing and frustrating to follow if you want to advocate for certain issues. You can’t just look at a bill number and the name of the bill and assume that the bill addresses issues in the way you would like. In all likelihood, the bill will have been changed through the process. In some cases, the bill may retain the same number and name, but have been changed to be opposite of what was originally proposed (for example, the eminent domain/CO2 pipeline bill).
If you are interested in following a specific piece of legislation the Legis.Iowa. Gov website is the best place to go. Type the number under “Bills” and it will show all the information. Be sure to use the designation “HSB” and “HF” for House bills or “SSB” and “SF” for Senate bills. Even companion bills (identical House & Senate bills) will have different numbers.
If you are contacting me or other legislators about a particular bill number, please mention the nature of the legislation and your opinions. I receive many emails with numbers that don’t match a House bill. They may be Senate bills, study bills, or even from a prior year.
One of the hottest topics this last week was the report of the Government Oversight Committee on misallocation of funds by the Iowa Judicial Branch.
In 2025, the Oversight Committee conducted a thorough investigation into the nearly $25 million misallocated by the Iowa Judicial Branch. The findings in the Majority Report were approved by the committee. The conclusions were summarized by Chairman Thomson:
“Deliberate Pattern of Concealment:” The Judicial Branch was aware of issues in 2021. Auditor Sand was alerted to the issue in the fall of 2022. The Legislature was not informed of the problem until September 2024; instead, the parties were choosing to “quietly fix the problem itself” by hiring consultants who were not certified public accountants.
The report is particularly critical of the State Auditor’s lack of action. It states, “State Auditor Rob Sand’s office was notified of the issue on October 7, 2022. His Chief of Staff responded that they would ‘take it from here.’ They did nothing of the sort.” Thomson stated the committee found a “Stunning Abdication” by State Auditor Rob Sand.
To date, “no one can state with credible certainty… whether any funds were improperly diverted to private hands. The victims who were shorted deserve answers. The taxpayers deserve accountability. And the people of Iowa deserve a government that tells the truth – not one that hides problems, blames others, and hopes nobody notices.”
The entire report is available at this link: https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/publications/HMD/1601640.pdf
As your representative, I appreciate your input and opinions. Write to me at Cindy. [email protected] Make sure to include your address; I always reply to my constituents and tend to ignore the hundreds of emails from distant states and foreign countries.