The Iowa Legislature is officially in overtime, and we break down where things stand. A broad budget agreement is in place at roughly a 1.43% spending increase, but property taxes remain the real sticking point — the House and Senate are far apart on a hard 2% revenue cap for local governments, and a dispute over multi-residential property taxes that critics warn would drive up rents.

We also dig into the quiet death of joint House-Senate budget subcommittee meetings, a decades-old practice abandoned after COVID that’s made the process slower and less transparent. And Republicans are pushing to ban Polk County’s warrant resolution clinics statewide following a high-profile murder case — despite the victim’s own father saying the clinic had nothing to do with his daughter’s death.

On the campaign trail, Cook Political Report now calls the GOP governor’s race a toss-up. Frontrunner Randy Feenstra keeps skipping debates, which we think is a real gamble with 30% of voters still undecided. The first Republican primary debate is Tuesday on Iowa PBS — and whether Zach Lahn shows up is the question heading into the week.

AI generated transcript below:

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Dave Price: Hey everybody, welcome back to the new edition of the Iowa Down Ballot podcast. I’m Dave Price, joined, as always, by our regular collaborators, Laura Bellin, who’s dialing in long distance today, and Kathie Obradovich. Hello, both of you.

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Kathie Obradovich: I’m dialing in short distance today. Yeah, I’m in…

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Laura Belin: I’m in Storm Lake, which is beautiful.

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Dave Price: Would you like to tell everyone why?

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Laura Belin: The Iowa Writers Collaborative is having a gathering, and Buena Vista University is letting us use some of their facilities, and tonight we’re going to be at the legendary Byron’s in Pomeroy. That’s going to be my first visit there to hear some live music, so…

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Laura Belin: Really enjoyed the short getaway.

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Dave Price: And this is your first time on campus, right?

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Laura Belin: Yes, I’ve been to Storm Lake before, but I’ve never been on the BV campus, and they really have nice facilities.

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Dave Price: May I point out that Kathie and I, if we did not have pending deadlines, would have also been part of this two-day confab up in Storm Lake. So, we both send our regrets. That’s what you do when you can’t go to a wedding, right?

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Laura Belin: No regrets. That’s right.

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Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, yeah, we’re wearing blue, but we’re really green. We’re jealous that we’re out there.

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Dave Price: As we are… are those BV color… is that one of the BV colors behind you?

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Dave Price: that…

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Laura Belin: I don’t know, it’s… I’m in one of the library study rooms. I think this is one of their schools.

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Dave Price: That’s what I was thinking, and I’m sorry to… I shouldn’t have… I just probably embarrassed myself on the spot, and then put you on the spot, but I think that’s… I think that’s one of the colors. All of you folks who are listening audio only could really care less that we’re…

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Dave Price: Talking about the color right now, so, forgive me for the distraction. Okay, ladies, so let’s catch up of what we have going on in the Iowa State House. First of all, we’re officially on overtime, much as the three of us have predicted for quite some time that they were not going to finish on time, so 100 days, not enough for the Republican trifecta. They are still pushing forward.

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Dave Price: There is apparently an overall budget agreement. House and Senate came together. I presume that the gov is cool with

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Dave Price: with their final number, if my… I believe it’s 1.43% increase.

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Dave Price: From the current level of spending, so you’re up at, like, $9.5 billion or so, something like that. So now they have the… they’ve got the big number, and they just gotta…

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Dave Price: fill in who gets what and where. So that… I mean, not a lot of drama there, but in theory, if you’re an optimist, that means that helps them move closer to adjournment,

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Kathie Obradovich: every little bit helps. Senator Clemish, the Senate Republican Majority Leader, indicated that they had a deal, except that they were still $3 million apart.

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Kathie Obradovich: On the total, which, you know, in the… you know, we’re talking about

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Kathie Obradovich: over $9 billion, so $3 million is not… not a big deal, in terms of the… the percentage that they don’t agree on. But yeah, I was a little surprised when they say they have a deal, but oh, we still have to figure out all the line items. I’m like, well…

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Kathie Obradovich: Okay, but this doesn’t seem like it’s gonna be done quickly.

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Dave Price: It’s a deal with us.

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Laura Belin: They used to have…

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Dave Price: Add a capital D.

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Laura Belin: Yeah, they used to have these budget targets for the 7 different areas, or whatever it is. They used to have those agreed in March. I mean, we’re really late to be just coming to an agreement in overtime, but I think that they’ll… they will… would be able to get the budget figured out next week. I would feel pretty optimistic about it. I feel like…

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Laura Belin: The property taxes are what makes me think.

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Dave Price: Don’t skip ahead, I’m not too bad yet. Quit skipping ahead.

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Laura Belin: I just think, I think the budget, they could get wrapped up next week, in theory.

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Dave Price: And, you were… you were talking to Senator Clemish during his avail on Thursday, kind of about how this process used to be done, which he had said, you know, was kind of pre his arrival there.

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Laura Belin: Yes, so for decades, since at least the 1970s, the House and Senate had joint budget subcommittee meetings, and in fact, they used to meet 3 times a week for a long time. And when I’ve talked to past legislators.

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Laura Belin: from both parties, they’ve always told me that those meetings… the joint meetings were so helpful, they would bring in people from the different agencies, they were very educational for the legislators to understand how the different state agencies work, and…

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Laura Belin: lately, ever since COVID, I mean, COVID was the pretext for the Senate to stop participating in these joint budget subcommittee meetings. Oh, well, it was a social distancing thing. And then they never went back to meeting them. And so the House members have continued to have these meetings, but because none of the Senators are participating in them, they don’t… I feel that it’s harder for them to get on the same page. When I talk to people

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Laura Belin: Who used to be part of the process.

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Laura Belin: They felt like it was very helpful for legislators in both chambers to be hearing the same presentations and hearing the questions and answers that were given, and in general, the process went more smoothly.

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Kathie Obradovich: I’ve heard Republicans complain, even before they stop doing joint budget meetings, that it… that when the agencies come in, it’s just them coming in begging for money, and they didn’t… for some reason, didn’t like that. And yet, you know, now we have complaints that these agencies are not responsive, and in fact, we’ve seen

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Kathie Obradovich: you know, lack of transparency from one agency as being the reason why its director was not confirmed again. That was Larry Johnson, who failed by 7 votes to be reconfirmed as director of the Department of Health and Human Services, and one of the major issues was we can’t get information from this department, including for fiscal notes, for budget bills.

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Kathie Obradovich: So…

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Kathie Obradovich: So I think that, you know, I totally agree that overall, I think the process went more smoothly, not only because the senators and representatives were hearing the same information from the agencies, but also they could get some sense of what each other

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Kathie Obradovich: You know, what their fellow lawmakers from across the aisle are thinking. And right now, with just the leaders negotiating, and maybe the committee chairs negotiating, the rank and file have no idea.

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Laura Belin: And I think that the rank and file have much less knowledge, period, about how the state agencies work and what they do on the Senate side when they don’t have the budget subcommittees even meeting. Maybe the Admin and Regulation Subcommittee, Dennis Guth, who’s the chair of that, he did convene a couple of meetings, but most of the Senate budget subcommittees haven’t met for years, and most of the senators

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Laura Belin: were elected on the Republican side. Most of them were elected for the first time in 2020 or later, and that includes the Majority Leader Klimish. So they have no experience of how this process used to work.

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Kathie Obradovich: And one of… one of Goose’s meetings, I mean, I give him credit for trying, but he was the only senator there. He had… I think he had the lottery or some, some… it might have been Racing and Gaming Commission in to talk, and yeah, I give him credit, but it was… it was so awkward, because he’s trying to, you know, sort of justify having brought him in, and he’s the only one asking any questions.

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Dave Price: And it makes you… when they start talking about the budget, it just makes me wonder how, as one of the members, you know what the heck you’re voting on, when you’re talking about more than $9 billion, pushing $9.5 billion. You’re just gonna trust

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Dave Price: you’re gonna trust leadership on it to do what they worked out, right? Like, if you’re not part of these individual presentations with the different agencies.

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Dave Price: I don’t understand how you can know what’s going on.

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Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, unless, of course, you’re, putting up a protest vote, like against inaction on eminent domain, which I think we still are waiting to see if something like that happens this year.

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Laura Belin: But the meetings that the House Budget Subcommittees have are very educational. I’ve attended a number of those that the Justice Systems Budget Subcommittee held this year, and so they’ll bring in the Attorney General, the State Public Defender, different people, and the legislators have an opportunity to ask a lot of questions. I mean, it’s also better for the public. It’s an opportunity for the public to hear that Q&A, which normally we wouldn’t hear if they

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Laura Belin: They were just…

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Laura Belin: if lawmakers were meeting privately with state agency officials, but I just think that it’s a big loss for the Senate not to be holding those Budget Subcommittee meetings jointly with the House anymore, and not to be holding them at all in the Senate.

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Kathie Obradovich: One other consequence, by the way, that we’re seeing, that we saw this week, was that the Board of Regents, gave final approval to their, tuition increases for state university students, and more than one of them complained

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Kathie Obradovich: That they’re having to do this kind of in the dark, because the legislature has yet to set their level of state aid, for, for the state universities. And of course.

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Kathie Obradovich: The universities, you know, they only have a limited ability to complain because they came in asking for flat funding.

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Kathie Obradovich: And it was the… the governor actually offered, you know, it’s less than 2% increase, but it was a little bit of an increase. We don’t know yet where they’re going to land on that, but, you know, it’s… they had to approve this 3% tuition increase.

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Kathie Obradovich: when it’s possible that if they got a little bit more than flat, state aid increase, that they wouldn’t have to, raise tuition quite so much. So it’s…

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Kathie Obradovich: You know, these kinds of things do have consequences on… on Iowans. It’s not just state house pencil dust.

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Dave Price: Okay, so as Laura already mentioned, property taxes, which I feel like we have talked about each week, because each week there is some kind of development of some sort.

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Dave Price: So, the House decided to take up, technically, what the Senate had passed in a very bipartisan way.

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Dave Price: but then did their own spin on it, and sent her on back. So, clearly, the two sides, and we can go through and list, each side still has a handful of differences as you compare the two sides.

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Dave Price: That’s… that’s one of those biggies to me that I’m curious. I’d love to know what those private talks are like, and where the… where the compromise is on this. If you have the… if House Republicans are insistent on this 2% cap.

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Dave Price: in the increase in revenue that local communities can bring in through property taxes. And the Senate thinks that there needs to be some kind of flexibility, with inflation built in.

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Dave Price: That’s kind of a biggie. I mean, now maybe there’s…

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Dave Price: maybe it’s higher than 2, and you put a hard cap, I don’t know, but it seemed, talking to Speaker Grassley, that that hard 2, though, that hard cap… and I really need to think, Laura, did he say…

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Dave Price: when he kept talking about the hard cap, was he insistent that it was a hard 2 cap, hard 2% cap? That’s where I’m wondering if we can, you know.

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Laura Belin: I don’t know, I think he… I think he just said certainty for the taxpayer and hard cap, so I don’t think that he said that it has to be…

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Dave Price: too.

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Laura Belin: But remember that the Majority Leader, Senate Majority Leader Klemish, was a mayor for many years.

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Laura Belin: of Spillville, so he really, I think, understands what the impact of a hard cap would be in an inflationary environment, how that would affect local governments. It sounded like, from what he told us on Thursday morning, that having some flexibility is very important to the Senate. And we haven’t even gotten into the gas tax, which I sense that there’s no interest in that in the House, but that seems to be very important to the Ways and Means Chair

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Laura Belin: in the Senate, Dan Dawson.

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Dave Price: I talked to a few…

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Dave Price: I would be inclined to agree with you.

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Dave Price: Except I had conversations with a handful of House Republicans this week.

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Dave Price: who said the door is still open for that gas tax. They want it on a totally separate bill. They don’t want it part of the property tax bill.

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Dave Price: But…

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Dave Price: And Clemish, as we saw in the Avail with him on Thursday, you know, he came right back to, look, roads and bridges, they’re, you know, they need a lot of work, blah blah blah, we gotta figure something out.

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Dave Price: I was surprised talking to people. I by no means… I didn’t sample every single member, but I had a handful of them, and there was one who said… who told me, yes, we need it, no, there’s no way we’re doing that, I’m not gonna do that in an election year, and I’m not big on doing it, period, but

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Dave Price: I think I was surprised a little bit with some of the people I talked to, and they’re not…

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Kathie Obradovich: American.

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Dave Price: They’re kind of from a variety on the spectrum of, you know, on the conservative spectrum.

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Kathie Obradovich: Well, I thought that, that Speaker Grassley also had some wiggle room when he did his gaggle last week about this, that, you know, it wasn’t quite as adamant about… about that aspect of the Senate bill as the… as the hard

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Kathie Obradovich: cap was, you know, it seems to me like that’s where they’re drawing the line in the sand, is that hard cap. Other things may be…

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Kathie Obradovich: negotiable, but I… I thought it was so interesting.

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Kathie Obradovich: how the Democrats are responding to this legislation. So, the… as we’ve said, the Senate bill was bipartisan. You know, I think, felt like the soft cap and, you know, some of the other aspects were a little less punitive on local governments, compared to the House bill, and so Democrats

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Kathie Obradovich: You know, there was quite a big bipartisan vote for that coming out of the Senate. Completely the opposite in the House, where Democrats were

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Kathie Obradovich: were voting for the House bill to be replaced with the Senate bill, or the Senate bill to be, you know, essentially the Senate bill to be rewritten with all the House language, because they didn’t like the gas tax, and they didn’t like the fact that it looked like multi-residential housing would be paying more in property taxes, which then would raise people’s rent.

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Kathie Obradovich: So, so that… those were the things that the Democrats in the House picked out for actually supporting the House language instead of the Senate, so I thought that was kind of an interesting dynamic.

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Laura Belin: Yeah, and then, so the House Democrats were all supportive of replacing the Senate bill with a House bill, but then on final passage in the House, only 3 Democrats actually voted for the Republican property tax bill. That was Bagnewski, Gosa, and Judge. I believe that those were the only 3.

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Laura Belin: And so this multi-residential thing, that we haven’t talked as much about it, but that seems like an enormous philosophical difference still between the House and the Senate, because the Senate Ways and Means Chair, Dan Dawson, he’s been very clear that he feels that the residents that you live in should be taxed at a lower rate than the residents you own as an investment.

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Laura Belin: And he has been really critical of the 2013 property tax bill, which lowered property taxes for this multi-residential class.

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Laura Belin: And he talked… he called that cronyism. So it was really quite striking. And then Senator Jason Schultz, another Republican who was serving in the House at the time, said that that was his biggest regret, or his biggest policy mistake as a member of the Iowa House, was voting for that 2013 bill. Well, in the Iowa House, both Democrats and Republicans were really critical of that, for the reason Kathie just mentioned, that it would raise rents, and I was talking with a

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Laura Belin: Republican member this week in the hallway who said, I’d rather go home without getting anything done than raise rents on 40% of Iowans. So, that’s a big…

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Laura Belin: issue. I don’t know how you meet in the middle on that.

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Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, and one of the regrets, actually, for that 2013 bill was the fact

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Kathie Obradovich: that, even though they lowered property taxes on these landlords, rent did not go down. And I think, I think, you know, anybody who’s ever rented could have predicted that, right? I mean, when does the rent ever go down? It never, never goes down. But it’s also, you know, obvious that when property taxes go up, the rent goes up. So I…

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Kathie Obradovich: You know, I find it hard to believe that lawmakers were surprised and shocked by that, you know, that news about the 2013 tax cut.

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Dave Price: And, Speaker Grassley mentioned that

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Dave Price: If things could go this way, they could try to power through and finish next week.

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Dave Price: Laura, correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t remember Senator Clemish

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Dave Price: saying anything kind of connecting to a timeline, and Speaker Grassley by no means said, you know, we’re getting done or anything, but it sounded like that’s what he was communicating with the members, that this was the hope. I guess I’m still…

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Dave Price: I…

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Dave Price: I have struggled… I struggle hard enough on eminent domain finding out if there can be some kind of compromise there, but property taxes, it just feels like…

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Dave Price: They seem far apart, where you’d almost need a timeout in the middle to…

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Dave Price: I don’t know, let people go home and think about it, and then you… while the leaders try to work it out, I don’t know, what do you… what do you make of it?

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Kathie Obradovich: The Senate did not work, on Thursday. There were no committee meetings and no debate for the Senate, and I don’t know if anybody’s checked, but I see no debate list for the Senate for Monday either, so…

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Laura Belin: I thought that Leader Klimish said they were going to come back on Monday, but I agree, I haven’t seen a debate list yet. So I tend to think…

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Kathie Obradovich: Okay.

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Laura Belin: that it may be one of those situations where they… next week, they try to do a lot of work on the budget, and then people go home and the leaders still talk about property taxes, and then they come back sometime in May to wrap up. I… I can’t see how they have a deal on property taxes next week. That’s just hard for me to see.

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Kathie Obradovich: Part of the problem they run into, though, is when they let people go home.

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Kathie Obradovich: That their opinions on bills change.

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Kathie Obradovich: But they think they have the votes on something, and then they let people go home, and then everybody’s all, oh, I don’t know, you know? It’s just… as much as I hate the, you know, suspend the rules and vote overnight.

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Kathie Obradovich: Sometimes that’s the only way to get people to just knuckle down and do it.

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Dave Price: Knuckle down, give in, wear them out, break them.

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Kathie Obradovich: Yeah.

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Dave Price: Whatever it, whatever.

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Kathie Obradovich: And that used to be the…

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Dave Price: Defeated.

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Kathie Obradovich: to be… in the battle days, that used to be the way they always did it. I mean, it was so rare. When you talk about a journey in daylight, you’re talking about a journey the next morning.

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Dave Price: This morning, Anne.

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Kathie Obradovich: Yeah.

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Dave Price: Now, I will say, some of us may have selfish interest as we look ahead to next week, knowing that next Tuesday night is the first gubernatorial primary. At last check, only 3 of the 5 Republicans that I’m aware of have

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Dave Price: have committed to that. Unless Zach Lahn has changed his mind, I’d presume that Randy Feenster will not change his, but… so that’s the Iowa PBS debate, that’s Tuesday night. Then the Vice President, J.D. Vance, is here on Thursday, going to Iowa State.

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Dave Price: to do an event with Turning Point USA. I believe that is Thursday evening. He also has a campaign fundraiser for Congressman Zach Nunn. And then Friday night, there is the big Iowa Faith and Freedom

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Dave Price: spring event where you have the Republican candidates for governor. I… I don’t know if

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Dave Price: all five are officially confirmed. That was one thing I wanted to check today. I don’t know if Feenstra has confirmed for that, but there’d be a bunch of people that I would think, as a Republican candidate, you’d want to get in front of. Ted Cruz is coming into town, too, so we can stoke all of the 2028

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Dave Price: To see if Ted Cruz wants to give it another shot, to try to…

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Dave Price: play off his 2016 win in our state. But anyway, so selfishly, as a journalist here, next week’s already pretty full, right?

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Dave Price: So, if we’re gonna have a little downtime, and they’re gonna do their private leadership things that we can’t cover anyway, then, you know, maybe it’s a little chill next week, and they come back the following week?

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Kathie Obradovich: I would think some lawmakers would also want to go see J.D. Vance.

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Dave Price: I asked Clemish about that.

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Dave Price: that they had work, because I said, are you going to have to take a break, or whatever? And maybe it helps that it’s Thursday night in Iowa State. I mean, you gotta give them time to get there, but, he said, we have work to do.

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Kathie Obradovich: Okay.

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Dave Price: I thought, and Kay Henderson from Radio Iowa said, well, maybe you get the Vice President to come by.

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Dave Price: come by the statehouse, you can just take care of it that way, and he just kind of smiled, so… I don’t know if that’s a priority to get people out of there to go see the Veep, but maybe it is. Maybe they won’t be meeting Thursday anyway.

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Kathie Obradovich: The longer they go, the harder and harder it gets to get people into the State House, and it’s been already hard this year, because they, you know, they’ve got so many members who are sick.

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Kathie Obradovich: Or running for higher office. And so, it’s been, you know, I think it has been a challenge to make sure you’ve got enough people on the ground to get your bills passed, and that is only going to get worse the longer we go.

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Dave Price: I would wonder how many people have ever heard of warrant resolution clinics.

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Dave Price: before this week. I will say that I was not familiar with it at all. I know Polk County, I believe, is the only one in the state that has these things. My colleague for TV, Isabella Warren, went to the government oversight meeting

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Dave Price: about this on whatever the heck day that was, Wednesday or Thursday, I forget. Thursday. Thursday.

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Dave Price: And,

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Dave Price: I was… I just honestly was not familiar with this thing, so the way I understand it, they set this up, and if you have some low-level

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Dave Price: If you have a warrant out for you on some low-level thing.

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Dave Price: You can go in there, sort of turn yourself in, they figure it all out, you know, if you have to pay a fine or whatever you have to do.

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Dave Price: and then kind of clear it off, and I believe Polk County believes that it kind of speeds things up, gets it off the books, kind of a cheaper way to do it, and you can kind of move on. But there was a case

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Dave Price: that House Republicans found out about, where there was a woman who used that clinic, and I believe was included in a story, that the CBS…

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Kathie Obradovich: It’s interface.

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Laura Belin: KCCI, I saw that story, yeah.

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Dave Price: And then a week later, she was arrested for, charged with killing somebody. So, Steve Holt…

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Dave Price: the Republican, had alleged that, essentially, this clinic is to blame had they not let her go through this process. Now, I…

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Dave Price: The way I understand it, and you both may know better here, but she had not been… I’m not downplaying the murder thing. Before, though, it was a low-level charge, or she would not have been eligible to go to this clinic to begin with, so…

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Dave Price: I don’t know a scenario where she would have gone to the clinic and they would have locked her up.

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Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, so Polk County officials, are very adamant that the clinic really had nothing to do with the crime, you know, that, that if, if the clinic had not existed, the chances that she would have been

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Kathie Obradovich: Arrested, you know, in the 7 days between the clinic

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Kathie Obradovich: And when this woman was shot and killed, you know, it had been more than 800 days that this warrant had been out without any contact with police. And so they’re saying it wouldn’t have made any difference, you know, whether she had this,

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Kathie Obradovich: you know, whether she had this warrant out for her, or whether she had had it resolved. So, interestingly, the father of the woman who was shot and killed

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Kathie Obradovich: came to the Capitol, and told lawmakers that he also did not believe that that warrant clinic had anything to do with his daughter’s death, and that he, you know, was upset that he hadn’t been… that nobody had reached out to the family before they started moving this legislation, which, by the way, we didn’t really say, but the legislation would just ban these clinics,

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Laura Belin: Statewide.

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Kathie Obradovich: forward, yeah, statewide, and that you couldn’t, you could not have any way to resolve a warrant against somebody unless they turned themselves into police and are arrested, have a judge, lift a warrant or petition the court. So, so essentially, you’re taking that tool away, from everyone. So I was really interested, you know, normally, you know, you would hear families of victims

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Kathie Obradovich: you know, wanting to change something about what happened, and that’s… that was just not the message on Thursday.

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Laura Belin: I spoke… I wasn’t able to attend the committee meeting on this yesterday, but I did speak with the Polk County Attorney’s Office officials, and they confirmed that they knew nothing about this bill. This bill dropped on Wednesday afternoon. A committee meeting was scheduled for Thursday morning, but nobody consulted with them to find out what is the deal with this Warren Clinic, and to even research whether it was connected to the killing that this woman allegedly

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Laura Belin: allegedly committed. And so, again, it just seems like sometimes when something happens in Polk County or Johnson County, and legislators just don’t like it.

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Laura Belin: They just…

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Laura Belin: run a bill to ban it everywhere, instead of really looking into the problem. And we do have a backlog of cases in the court, and there are some benefits to clearing things off the books, but it just seems like there was no outreach of any kind to talk about the pros and cons of these warrant clinics. It’s just like, they must all be banned.

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Kathie Obradovich: Well, the other message, from, Steve Holt and Republicans, it relates to a different bill, which is their Three Strikes legislation. So, they’re tough on crime package of legislation. The Three Strikes Bill has not passed, and that would basically say if you’re convicted of three

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Kathie Obradovich: you know, violent crimes or serious felonies that, you know, you’re… you’ve got a mandatory minimum sentence of at least 20 years. And… and so, Holt was saying, well, looking at this, this woman’s criminal history.

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Kathie Obradovich: that, you know, had this bill been in place, that she wouldn’t have been out shooting people, allegedly. She would have been in jail. And so, I think that the two purposes, one, skewer Polk County, who’s county attorney, is up for re-election, this year, and secondly, that it’s messaging for that other bill, which is so far this

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Kathie Obradovich: Senate has not, really been interested in moving.

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Dave Price: And Senator Clemish…

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Dave Price: expressed some reservations about that House bill when he had his avail on Thursday when we were there.

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Kathie Obradovich: Three strikes, Bill.

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Dave Price: The three strikes bill, and he talked about that they were concerned about somebody who may have…

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Dave Price: you know, had two serious issues in his or her life, and it’s kind of turned your life around, and then that can… and that can punish you later. So, I don’t know that he…

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Dave Price: I don’t think he characterized it that this has no chance at all and can’t be… can’t be altered in some way, but that they seem to have some serious reservations about the way it’s written right now.

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Laura Belin: I attended the Senate Judiciary Committee meeting before the second funnel when they advanced that bill, and the Judiciary Committee Chair, Senator Schultz, and Senator Mike Busillo, who is floor managing the bill, both made very clear that if this comes to the Senate floor, it would be with a significant amendment. I think the words Senator Buscello used were that they don’t think this bill strikes the right balance. And Senator Schultz confirmed that the fiscal note on it was astronomical, and they would be very

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Laura Belin: concerned about the extra cost to corrections. So, it sounded to me, Leader Clemish didn’t exactly rule it out, but if it does come to the Senate floor, it would be radically different from what the House Republicans approved already.

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Dave Price: Last week, we kind of teased ahead, because we started to talk about some of the campaign ads.

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Dave Price: As we are… as we are talking late Friday afternoon as we record this, there was a new one that Adam Steen’s campaign released today. That is his first one, and he is… I think I’ve been a little surprised, maybe, on the Republican gubernatorial campaign.

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Dave Price: his inability to raise more money, unless that’s changed recently. The… the Bob Vanderpla’s network, has not…

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Dave Price: has not turned out big money, at least… at least that I’m aware of so far for Steen, which has probably hampered his ability to get up on the air and compete with…

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Dave Price: all the money that Feenster has spent, and now Zach Lahn is spending. Laura, we checked out this ad right before we started our conversation this week. Thematically, I think it does kind of reinforce a lot of the things that he’s talking about when he’s out campaigning, that kind of good versus evil.

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Dave Price: The theme that he, that he talks about.

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Laura Belin: Yeah, good versus evil. He leads by saying he’s a Christian conservative, and he wants the faith, people’s faith, to be respected.

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Laura Belin: I mean, as someone who’s not Christian myself, I wonder if all faiths would be respected in that vision, but in any case, it’s… this is very clear who he’s appealing to, and I think he already has a lot of support in the Christian conservative wing of the GOP, so my question is, is that enough?

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Laura Belin: to overtake Granny Feenstra and get to a plurality, I’m not sure it is.

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Dave Price: We also talked about the U.S. Senate race. We kind of teed it up and then didn’t really get into it. But Josh Turek and Zach Walz, the one-on-one matchup for the Democrats.

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Laura Belin: So far, Josh Turek is the only one who has a TV ad up. I think it’s a… the feeling of it is very similar to his campaign launch video from last August, which many people may have seen. It features him talking about pushing for change, and pushing his wheelchair uphill, and how working families are struggling, and he understands, because his whole life, you know, he’s understood what it’s like to

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Laura Belin: have an uphill push like that. So I thought it was a well-produced ad. I don’t know when Zach Walls… I’m sure Zach Walls is going to be running TV ads before early voting starts, but I haven’t heard when those are going to hit the air.

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Kathie Obradovich: And that race continues to be really competitive in terms of fundraising. You know, I think that…

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Kathie Obradovich: Both candidates have, the resources to… to be on TV, so it’ll be interesting to see. Walsh has been had… he’s at least had internet, ads, right?

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Dave Price: And he had the big launch video, too. I just… I’m not aware that he’s gone up on TV.

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Laura Belin: I don’t… yes, they both had digital ads going this whole.

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Kathie Obradovich: Yeah.

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Laura Belin: No, I don’t think Walls has a TV ad up yet.

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Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, so it’s… yeah, that race, yeah, I hate to bring up polling, because it’s… the polling can be…

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Kathie Obradovich: really awkward and hard to… hard to know what’s… what’s even in the ballpark, but the polling has also shown… most of the polling has been, like, hypothetical races, or… or pairing each, Democrat candidate against Ashley Henson.

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Kathie Obradovich: And the ones that I’ve seen have basically shown a really tight

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Kathie Obradovich: race. Like, you know, neither candidate against Ashley Henson is way ahead of the other one.

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Dave Price: Which, let’s be honest, if any of these polls are correct, and you have a competitive gubernatorial race and a competitive Senate race.

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Dave Price: That’s a pretty seismic shift about what we have seen in recent elections in this state. That would be… that would really be quite a striking change, even if Democrats fell short in both those races.

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Kathie Obradovich: Yes, yeah, I think so. I mean, it just… who would have thought that the Cook Political Report would say that the Iowa gubernatorial race is a toss-up? I would not have predicted that, even

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Kathie Obradovich: You know, 3 months ago, let alone, let alone now.

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Laura Belin: I think it speaks to the weakness of the Republican field of candidates for governor, though, because I think that all of those ratings

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Laura Belin: outfits still have the Senate race as likely Republican, and I think that if any of the candidates for governor were perceived to be as strong as Ashley Hinson is in the Senate race, you would not see that toss-up rating on the governor’s side.

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Dave Price: Everyone else?

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Kathie Obradovich: The fact that they’re infighting as well. I think that that’s about the timing of the change, is when we started seeing, you know, a lot of sort of negative campaigning within the Republican field there.

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Dave Price: Hey, to close this week, let me put you both on the spot.

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Dave Price: Because we’re live. We’re not really live, but, you know, live.

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Kathie Obradovich: The tape, like.

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Dave Price: video, whatever the heck you call it. So, as I mentioned, it’s late Friday afternoon as we’re yakking here, so this gets dropped on Saturday. I already teased ahead to next Tuesday night, where we have

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Dave Price: The last I heard, a three-person Republican

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Dave Price: debate for the Iowa PBS debate. First question, ladies.

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Dave Price: Will Zach Lahn come in late? And when we turn on our television sets, or log in online, or in our case, sit in the media room and watch the debate, will we see 3 Republicans on that Iowa PBS stage, or will we see 4?

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Kathie Obradovich: So you’re saying, well, he… he hasn’t… he hasn’t confirmed, but he’ll join late?

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Dave Price: I don’t… I do not know what discussions, if any, there were on Friday as we record this.

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Dave Price: I don’t know if he’s jumped into this.

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Laura Belin: I think he should. If I were advising him, I would say he should participate.

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Dave Price: That’s not what I asked, Laura.

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Laura Belin: I’m gonna guess, I’m gonna guess that he won’t then.

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Dave Price: Okay, fair enough, fair enough.

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Laura Belin: But I think that it would be wise for someone who’s not very well known.

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Laura Belin: You might as well take chance, take every opportunity to be in a debate or a forum like that, generate clips that your team can throw out there on social media. I think there’s only upside to participating.

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Kathie Obradovich: Yeah.

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Dave Price: And I have said the same thing about that with him, that he waited kind of long to…

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Dave Price: to jump in, and he’s really gonna have to surge incredibly fast if he thinks he’s gonna beat Feenstra. I’m sorry to cut you off, Kathie.

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Kathie Obradovich: No, I was just gonna say, I think you… I think you will show up, so I’ll just… I’ll just… Alright. I’ll be optimistic and… and say, say that he’ll show up. I… I do think, that regardless of where… whether Randy Feenstra is there, these are… this is statewide, you know, these are…

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Kathie Obradovich: too good of opportunities to pass up to try to make an impression on… on primary voters. So, so, yeah, I don’t advise them, and they don’t take my advice, even if I tried, so… but I think it’s… I’ll just be optimistic and say, yeah, he’ll show up.

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Dave Price: I… I am part of one with my company.

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Dave Price: We will have… we are… we have a statewide debate that…

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Dave Price: Can’t release all the details yet. But…

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Dave Price: I know, I know, I’m trying to pause, like, what am I allowed to say? Because we just had a meeting today again. But it’s a similar situation where we’re waiting to find out

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Dave Price: How many of the five will be participating in this?

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Dave Price: And, you know, will Congressman Feenstra decide not to do any debates?

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Dave Price: This entire cycle, this entire, at least, primary campaign cycle, and hope that he has the strength to just win it outright and doesn’t need to do this.

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Dave Price: And then secondarily, Laura, you and I are totally on the same page about Zach Lahn for…

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Dave Price: I appreciate that he’s got a bunch of money in this, and he did Tucker Carlson’s show, which got a lot of eyeballs on it, you know, tough to know how many Iowans saw that, but a lot of eyeballs and a lot of attention on social with it. But…

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Dave Price: you know, now you gotta translate that into getting a lot of people to show up for you, and you somehow have to give, you know, you have to beat Feenster unless you’re gonna try to just hold him down under 35% and hope you’re gonna catch him and pass him at convention or something, but I would think these are opportunities, don’t look at it like you’re sitting at the kids’ table.

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Dave Price: And, you know, the adult’s not there. I mean, you would think in a five-person race, you want to establish yourself as the alternative, so if somebody doesn’t want Feenstra, and they want somebody who can win.

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Dave Price: You’ve… you have an hour, hour and a half, depending on the format of the debate, in a statewide audience to make that point.

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Kathie Obradovich: Well, and honestly, you know, I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again, Feenstra is not a household name in Iowa. You know, yeah, he, is the best known of this group.

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Kathie Obradovich: But he… I think he still has name recognition issues as well, that, I mean, one of the polls that I saw, which I now can’t say whose poll it is, because I have no idea, but there was a 30% undecided.

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Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, he was… he was in the.

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Dave Price: That was his, right?

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Kathie Obradovich: That was his.

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Laura Belin: own pole.

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Kathie Obradovich: Yeah. His own…

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Laura Belin: He was only at 41%.

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Kathie Obradovich: And you need…

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Laura Belin: 35% to win the primary outright, so he’s really rolling the dice on this by skipping all the debates and forums.

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Laura Belin: he better be really sure that he can win that primary outright, because he’s… I feel that he’s creating a damaging narrative about his campaign, and if it does go to convention, I think he’s not the favorite.

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Kathie Obradovich: Well, and again, these primary debates, especially for somebody who’s favored.

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Kathie Obradovich: are a really good dry run for the general election. I mean, assuming that he can’t dodge all possibility of debates in the general election, maybe he’ll try. But this is where you get better at debating, is when you’re debating your primary opponents, and without that, I mean, I have a feeling that one of the reasons Feenster’s not doing this is because he… somebody.

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Kathie Obradovich: whether he or some of his people don’t feel like he’s very good at that, and there’s no way he’s going to get better before the general election without, you know, without actually trying it.

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Dave Price: And if your fear, if they’re fear…

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Kathie Obradovich: Hold on.

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Dave Price: is that it is essentially 4v1,

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Dave Price: That they’re all gonna gang up on him, and they don’t see the upside to that.

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Dave Price: And instead, they’re hoping that, you know, if he is well-known enough.

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Dave Price: That he gets and wins the primary without having to go through this, where he’s gotta stand there and watch the other four beat him up, or perhaps try to drag him publicly into some positions that they don’t wanna… they don’t wanna have to do.

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Laura Belin: And he may be hoping… Kim Reynolds only agreed to one debate against Deidre DeGeres.

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Dave Price: So…

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Laura Belin: He may be hoping that if he’s the nominee, he can get away with having only one or maybe no debates with Rob Sand. I asked Rob Sand about this, how many times would you like to debate your Republican opponent, and he said more than three.

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Dave Price: I would… I bet he’d… I guess we’ll know, but I think he would agree to debate him at least once.

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Dave Price: I mean, I guess time will tell here, and he’s gotta get the nomination first, but… I know way back in the day when he was…

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Dave Price: up against J.D. Scholten, we did a debate with him that aired in Des Moines and Sioux City. I was the shortest one in the room that way, at 6’1”, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so short, but with Schulten and Feenster out there. But… and I think… I do think that was probably the only debate they did, though, if memory serves.

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Laura Belin: I believe that they only did that one debate, although it’s possible they did a radio debate as well.

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Dave Price: I know, that’s what I was wondering, if they did one of those and I forgot. I think that was the only TV debate, but…

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Laura Belin: I’m pretty sure it was the only TV debate. And then he did not agree to debate Ryan Melton, his Democratic opponent, in 2022 or 2024.

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Dave Price: And that’s, you know, I mean, it stinks if you’re a Democrat, and it’s hard to…

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Dave Price: it’s hard to climb there, but they’re looking at the numbers, and that’s such an uphill climb, there’s probably not a lot of upside for a Republican to do that there. Having said that, I hope that since my… my company has stations that represent the 4th Congressional District, I hope that…

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Dave Price: Mike McGowan will debate whoever the Democratic nominee is.

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Kathie Obradovich: That’s McGowan.

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Laura Belin: Chris McGowing, yeah.

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Dave Price: Chris, I’m sorry. Thank you for that. I hope he agrees to do that before the November election, but, you know, as we know, that’s a lopsided one, barring some

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Dave Price: some big change of things. Of course, J.D. Scholten would probably argue otherwise that it is…

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Laura Belin: That was a very special set of circumstances.

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Dave Price: Yeah, that probably was. Kathie, I know you’re on deadline as we talked to you, and I even promised you I’d try not to ramble, so I need to shut up and end this and say goodbye to the good people so that you can do your Friday… late Friday afternoon mastery. We need, like, a live camera on you.

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Dave Price: Editing like a madwoman, trying.

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Kathie Obradovich: That would be really exciting for everyone.

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Dave Price: I’m sure it would. Laura, safe travels, tell everybody hello up there. Sorry that we cannot be there in person with the rest of the good folk at the…

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Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, tell everybody hi.

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Laura Belin: Will do.

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Dave Price: Thank you all for checking us out and for tuning in every week, week after week. We very much appreciate your support. Thanks especially to all of you who have joined recently as new financial contributors. That helps pay the bills, get this thing produced and sent out every week, so we very much appreciate you.

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Dave Price: We’ll see what happens next week. I’m sure next week at this time, we will have very much to talk about. Thanks for being with us, and have a great week ahead.

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