2025 Legislative Session
Happy New Year and cheers to a productive and prosperous 2025! We hope you enjoyed a safe and healthy holiday season. It is once again time for us to represent you before the Iowa Legislature. This is the first year of (a 2-year cycle) the 91st General Assembly, and it has arrived with many known changes and some expected challenges. Republicans continue to enjoy the benefits of the Trifecta and now supermajorities in both chambers.
Pat Grassley continues to serve as the Speaker of the House and Matt Windschitl as Majority Leader, while Jennifer Konfrst serves as the leader of the House Democrats. Senate Republicans continue to be led by Jack Whitver as the Senate Majority Leader and Amy Sinclair as the President of the Senate. Senate Republicans elected a new President Pro Tempore, Ken Rozenboom, as longtime Republican Senator Brad Zaun who was serving as the President Pro Tempore was unseated. Senate Democrats elected their new leader, Janice Weiner, after former Minority Leader and longtime legislator Pam Jochum retired.
House Republicans now hold a 67-seat supermajority, while Senate Republicans also hold a 34-seat supermajority. This is the largest number of seats the Republicans have held since the 1960s and 70s. On December 16, 2024, Governor Kim Reynolds named a new Lt. Governor to replace Adam Gregg, who resigned in September to lead the Iowa Bankers Association. His replacement is State Senator Chris Cournoyer. With that vacancy in the Senate, a special election for her seat will occur on January 28.
Below please find an update on the House and Senate composition along with their caucus leaders and key staff in the Governor’s office.
Session Schedule
Session begins on Monday, January 13th, when the legislature gavels in to start their 110-day sprint. Individual bill draft requests are due by February 14th. The 110th legislative day of the session is May 2nd when legislator per diems expire. The Session Timetable contains those dates referenced above and all-important deadlines for the session.
- March 7, 2025 – 1st Legislative Funnel Deadline
- April 4, 2025 – 2nd Legislative Funnel Deadline
- May 2, 2025 – 110th Calendar Day of the Session.
- TBD, 2025 – Adjournment
Each week the leaders issue a calendar outlining the proposed schedule for the week in each chamber. So, if you would like to follow what’s going on you can follow this link to the chambers. to catch a glimpse of the first week, you can find the calendars here: Senate Calendar House Calendar
Governors Address
A note of interest, Governor Kim Reynolds announced she will again deliver her annual Condition of the State Address during prime time, on Tuesday January 14, 2025, at 6:00 p.m. Iowa PBS will be providing a livestream online, and it can be watched on the Governor’s YouTube and Facebook pages.
Key Issues
The first week of session is generally marked with speeches from leadership and the Governor outlining their agendas and promises for the session. The first week is also always busy with procedural activities and many welcome-back receptions. The Governor continues to drive much of the agenda in both chambers.
What we do know… Iowa will have less money to create its state budget this year because of last session’s income tax changes statewide. The Iowa Revenue Estimating Conference (REC) estimated that the state revenues for FY 2026 will come in at $8.726 billion, slightly up over the October estimate, but less than the last state budget which was $8.9 billion. By law, the state is limited to spending no more than 99% of the lower estimate. Kraig Paulsen, REC chair, said the state economy is strong and that reductions in revenues are being driven by the tax cuts approved by legislators.
According to Speaker Grassley, Republicans in the House will continue to focus on property taxes this session as one of their biggest issues from a recent caucus member survey. Senate Majority Leader Whitver has also stated his caucus will focus on property taxes. House Republicans have also discussed their priorities on the economy, tackling inflation, the creation of a new Higher Education Committee, and immigration. Senate Republicans are expected to introduce legislation this session requiring Iowans who are on Medicaid to be working, training for a job, or applying for jobs to receive those benefits. Specifics on work requirements have yet to be introduced by Senator Mike Bousselot, who is leading this effort.
Democrats in the House are focused on their “People over Politics” agenda, covering public education, legalizing recreational marijuana, raising wages, reproductive health care, and lowering costs for child care and housing. Democrats in the Senate expressed a desire to work with their Republican counterparts to pass good legislation while ensuring oversight. Senate Minority Leader Janice Weiner mentioned the importance of holding the Republican supermajorities accountable as a top responsibility. However, the Democrats ceded even more ground in the 2024 elections, losing seats in the Des Moines metro, Dubuque, Mason City, & Marshalltown.
Gov. Reynolds’ budget is expected the first week of the session, which will provide insight as to how Republicans will approach the appropriations process. She has also alluded to focusing on curbing student cellphone use in schools, limiting property tax growth, and cutting taxes further.
Communication & Bill Tracking
You all know we transitioned to a cloud-based Bill Tracking System, Advokit. We hope you love it as much as we do! Our team will be using Advokit daily to review all introduced legislation and sending you bills of interest should there be any. Please be on the lookout for emails from the system with your daily bill tracking and the link to the portal where you will make your bill positions once session begins. If they have gone to junk or spam, please save the sending email address as a safe sender or contact so they make it to your inbox going forward.
In early December we sent a link to the Advokit training so you could have a refresh of the 30-minute training. If you need additional assistance, please contact us and we will walk you through it.
Advocacy Strategies continues to ensure that every bill pertaining to you will be tracked. From your weekly report, use the (Click Here to View Your Weekly Bill Tracker) button which links to your live, real-time bill tracker chart in a word document developed by Advokit. Here you will find your position and any updates as they occurred in the past 10 days. You can also link to the bill by clicking on the number even though it doesn’t look like a hyperlink. You can also create this report at any time by logging into your Advokit portal by clicking the “Client Report” link at the top of the screen.
To assist you with bill declarations, please find attached our Policy Filter document that may be helpful when deciding if it’s worthwhile to register on a specific piece of legislation.
We will again provide our weekly updates electronically no later than noon on Monday for the previous week’s action. We encourage you to share this with your board, advocates, volunteers, members, and others who may benefit from the information. Thank you for updating your daily bill and weekly update distribution contact lists in December. Please let us know if you have any additional updates to those distribution lists.
Staffing Updates
We are excited to welcome Noah Hackbart to the team, replacing Chelsea Hoye, who departed for the Iowa League of Cities in November. Noah is a graduate of UNI and former District Representative for Congresswoman Ashley Hinson, Director of Government Relations for the UNI student government, and DC Legislative Intern to Senator Chuck Grassley. He is excited to be a part of the AS team and get back to the statehouse! Jessica Meyer (AS Executive Admin) and Summer Fields, our phenomenal Drake intern, will be helping out with many things as well. We appreciate the work they do!
Threase, Nick, & Noah will otherwise be representing you at that Statehouse daily with lots of support from the rest of the team!
As always, please feel free to contact the team with any questions, comments, or concerns. We are pleased to be representing your interests during the 2025 Legislative Session and throughout the year. Contact information for your team is below. We look forward to a successful session and working with you in the days ahead.
Threase Harms Nick Laning Jessica Meyer
515.975.5299 (cell) 515.985.9054 (cell) 641.417.887 (cell)
threase@advocacyiowa.com Nick@advocacyiowa.com Jessica@advocacyiowa.com
Noah Hackbart Bob Rafferty
515.612.4450 (cell) 515.314.9462 (cell)
Noah@advocaciowa.com rafferty@raffertygroup.com
Summer Fields
Iowa House Composition
House Republican Leadership (Town, County)
Speaker of the House Pat Grassley (New Hartford, Butler)
Majority Leader Matt Windschitl (Missouri Valley, Harrison)
Majority Whip Henry Stone (Forest City, Winnebago)
House Speaker Pro Tempore John Wills (Spirit Lake, Dickinson)
Assistant Majority Leader Jon Dunwell (Newton, Jasper)
Assistant Majority Leader Craig Johnson (Independence, Buchanan)
Assistant Majority Leader Brent Siegrist (Council Bluffs, Pottawattamie)
Assistant Majority Leader Heather Hora (Washington, Washington)
House Democratic Leadership (Town, County)
Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst (Windsor Heights, Polk)
Minority Whip Brian Meyer (Des Moines, Polk)
Assistant Minority Leader Heather Matson (Ankeny, Polk)
Assistant Minority Leader Sean Bagniewski (Des Moines, Polk)
Assistant Minority Leader Elizabeth Wilson (Marion, Linn)
Iowa Senate Composition
Senate Republican Leadership (Town, County)
Majority Leader Jack Whitver (Grimes, Polk)
Senate President Amy Sinclair (Allerton, Wayne)
Majority Whip Mike Klimesh (Spillville, Winneshiek)
Senate President Pro Tempore Ken Rozenboom (Pella, Marion)
Assistant Majority Leader Adrian Dickey (Packwood, Jefferson)
Assistant Majority Leader Carrie Koelker (Dyersville, Delaware)
Assistant Majority Leader Tim Kraayenbrink (Fort Dodge, Webster)
Assistant Majority Leader Lynn Evans (Aurelia, Cherokee)
Senate Democratic Leadership (Town, County)
Minority Leader Janice Weiner (Iowa City, Johnson)
Minority Whip Bill Dotzler Jr. (Waterloo, Black Hawk)
Assistant Minority Leader Claire Celsi (West Des Moines, Polk)
Assistant Minority Leader Molly Donahue (Cedar Rapids, Linn)
Assistant Minority Leader Izaah Knox (Des Moines, Polk)
Assistant Minority Leader Cindy Winckler (Davenport, Scott)
Governor’s Office
Governor Kim Reynolds & Lieutenant Governor Chris Cournoyer
Governor’s Staff
Taryn Frideres, Chief of Staff
Jacob Nicholson, Chief Operating Officer
Molly Severn, Deputy Chief of Staff and Legislative Liaison
Stan Thompson, Senior Legal Counsel
Jen Green, Communications Director
Mason Mauro, Deputy Communications Director
Damian Bell, Communications Advisor and Chief Speechwriter
Steven Blankinship, General Counsel & Admin. Rules Coordinator
Emily Russel, Deputy Legal Counsel
Townsand Ayers, Boards & Commissions Director
Patrick Tomka, Senior Tax and Economic Policy Advisor
Dax Oberreuter, Healthcare and Veterans Affairs Policy Advisor
Jane Dufoe, Education Policy Advisor
Laura Book, Workforce and Public Safety Policy Advisor
Lillie Brady, Agriculture and Energy Policy Advisor
Eric Baker, Director of Strategic Operations and State-Federal Relations
Nick Tansey, Executive Assistant to the Governor
Anna Hartzog, Constituent Services Director
Kate Schreier, Constituent Services Liaison