From today’s email newsletter (you can subscribe here or simply email me your email address to get signed up!):
Good morning! One week from today the Iowa Legislature will convene! What will Republicans do with historic majorities in the Iowa House and Iowa Senate? Well, that remains to be seen.
We know it will be interesting. Last year the Iowa Senate had a lot of days where it did little to nothing. And the Senate made no major changes to its leadership, so who knows what 2025 will hold.
Often I am asked if there is one thing that could be changed to “fix” how the system works, what would it be. The simple answer? Money.
This may shock many of you, but money in politics is largely responsible for much of the corruption. This scenario is absolutely ridiculous, but true.
In Iowa, let’s say Jacob and Joe are both running for the Iowa House. Jacob is running without a Democrat opponent. Joe is running against a Democrat in a swing district. Jacob and Joe share the same positions on all the key issues. But it is ILLEGAL for Jacob to take any of his campaign money and donate it to Joe’s campaign. It’s illegal.
Yet it is totally fine for Jacob to take his campaign funds and donate it to the House Majority Fund, which is essentially directed by Pat, the Speaker of the House. And once Jacob’s money is mixed into the majority fund, it’s pretty much impossible to track. So most of the donations Jacob received end up going to help some other candidate and Jacob cannot dictate which candidates receive the help.
In fact, sometimes that money may end up going to someone like Michael, who is a Republican that has voted against pro-life bills, voted against protecting women’s sports and voted against strengthening parental rights in education.
The Speaker decides which candidates get financial help and how much they get. The Speaker eventually decides which representatives get a committee chair. The Speaker decides which committees representatives will sit on.
And the “caucus” (which is all Republicans in the House or all Republicans in the Senate) is provided information on how much money each representative or senator gave to the majority fund at the first meeting after the election.
So, yes, leadership keeps a list and checks it twice.
Then, there is typically a correlation between who gets a committee chair and who gives the most to the majority fund.
I’m not saying it’s pay-to-play. But I’m not not saying it’s pay to play either.
That’s only half the problem. Here is the other half of it.
Where does this money come from? Not average, everyday Iowans. I mean, just for example, if you look at campaign records, there is a $15,000 donation to Speaker Pat Grassley from the CEO of POET LLC who lives in South Dakota. There’s thousands of dollars from PACs recorded. The same can be said of Majority Leader Matt Windschitl’s fundraising. And the same can be said of Senate leadership donations.
And really, much of the donations raised by most senators and representatives. Very, very little of the money raised comes from average Iowans.
That’s how the system works. I thought about asking if that is how a government of the people, by the people, for the people is supposed to work, but I respect you as readers too much to ask such an ignorant question.
The good news? The system doesn’t have to work this way. The bad news? The people who can change the system are those benefitting and in power of the system under the way it operates now.
And this isn’t unique to Iowa. It isn’t unique to Republicans. I get that. But anyone who spends five minutes understanding this is how the system works would agree it needs to change.
Even Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Jeff Kaufmann has concerns about how much money it costs to run for office.
“Things have gotten way too expensive,” he said on Iowa Press. “Things have gotten almost prohibitive in terms of the expense of these campaigns.”
State legislative seats that pay just $25,000 a year can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to win. That money comes from somewhere and that money expects something in return. Don’t be fooled.
Average Iowans will never be able to compete with special interest donors. But they shouldn’t have to. That’s now how our government is supposed to work.
Yet one of the first things discussed on Day One is how much money each legislator raised and how much money each legislator contributed to the majority fund.
As if that should matter.
But it does. And it matters a lot.
I don’t know how we can convince legislators to fix these issues, but I know they need to be fixed. These campaigns are expensive.
Unfortunately average Iowans have been priced out of being able to make a difference. And yes, this does have consequences at the legislative level.
It pits special interests, PACs, lobbyists, donors against the people. And the people should never be second fiddle in this form of government, but we are.
Need proof? OK. I’ll give you proof in three words:
Carbon capture pipelines.
If legislators truly put people first, eminent domain wouldn’t be able to be used for carbon capture pipelines. But the Iowa Senate has killed bills to provide protections for property owners in Iowa each of the last two years.
Beginning next week we’ll find out who is going to be top priority in 2025 — the people or the donors.
I have a feeling I know who it is going to be, but I’m not going to stop fighting for the people.
Legislators will tell you that you just don’t understand the complexities of it and that these majority funds are necessary to “help the team.” That’s what legislators will say.
And yeah, I’m sure this set up makes things much easier for them. But that shouldn’t be the goal.
The goal should be making government more transparent and better for you — the people. And this set up doesn’t do that. In fact, I would argue it makes it much worse.
Later this week I’ll have an email newsletter about the top-secret “caucus” meetings and discussions held throughout the legislative session.
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