GOP waging war on logic

State plan could undermine their own victories in Iowa

Iowa Republicans notched a slam dunk in 2020.

Donald Trump carried the state by more than eight percentage points, winning 93 of Iowa’s 99 counties. The state’s voters also re-elected Republican U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst comfortably. 

Going into the election, the GOP held only one of Iowa’s four U.S. House seats; they reversed those figures by flipping two districts to remake the Iowa margin 3-1 Republican. (The jury is still out on the extremely close Second District results, but as of now Republican Marianne Miller-Meeks is provisionally seated in the U.S. House).

At the state level, the picture was the same.

Republicans went into the election with control of both the Iowa House, 53-47, and the Iowa Senate, 32-18. They increased their margin in the House to 59-41, flipping a net of six seats, and retained their 32-18 dominance of the Senate. Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds was a holdover in 2020.

Greene County’s results closely followed those of the entire state, with the county’s voters favoring Republican candidates at all levels.

The 2020 Iowa Republican victories, essentially a sweep, were accomplished with a record-setting voter turnout in the state. The previous high vote total was 1,589,951 in 2012; the 2020 general election erased that record by more than 100,000 votes, totaling some 1,697,000 in 2020. 

The number of active registered voters on the rolls in 2020 also scored a record high. Around 76 percent of Iowa’s registered voters filled out a general election ballot in 2020, another record. And more than a million Iowans voted absentee, still another record.

It all happened during the worst pandemic in American history in more than a century.

And this week Republicans in the Iowa Legislature fast-tracked a bill to make major changes to Iowa’s voting laws.

Huh?

Republican supporters of the rewrite claim it would uphold the integrity of Iowa’s elections.

The Iowa Secretary of State’s office reports only three Iowans, out of the nearly 1.7 million who voted, have been charged with misconduct related to the 2020 election. Two of those gave incorrect home addresses when they registered to vote. The third cast a vote while he was on parole from a felony conviction; he misunderstood what a question on his absentee ballot request form was asking.

One of the changes in the bill cuts the state’s early voting period from 29 days to 18. 

It’s the second reduction of the early voting period in the past four years. Until 2017, you had 40 days before the election to cast an early vote. So in four years, your early voting option goes from 5½ weeks to 2½ weeks.

The sponsor of the bill, Republican Sen. Roby Smith from Davenport, said the bill would both shorten the length of time campaigning in Iowa and allow more time for informed voting. He made both claims in the same sentence. I don’t see how it can do both.

But if shorter campaigns are one of the stated goals for the bill, I hope someone analyzes the accuracy of that hypothesis after the next election.

In 2020, many of Iowa’s county auditors sent absentee ballot request forms to voters. The Greene County Auditor’s Office was among them. The new bill outlaws that option, unless there’s a public health emergency and the Iowa Legislature or Legislative Council grants permission.

Another change affects the return of absentee ballots. 

The bill says only the voter, and immediate family member, household member or caregiver is allowed to do so. Up until now you could designate whoever you wanted to return the ballot to the auditor’s office for you. Violation is a serious misdemeanor.

To me, maybe the most restrictive part of the new bill is the requirement for your county auditor to remove your name from the voter list if you didn’t vote in the most recent general election. You might be an active voter for nearly your whole life, but if for some reason you sat out the last election you’re no longer an Iowa voter. You would need to re-register. 

Up until now you were given a mulligan — you would have to have missed the most recent two general elections before you were scrubbed from the list.

For the county auditor, failure to properly maintain the county’s voter list constitutes election misconduct in the second degree, an aggravated misdemeanor with a possible two-year jail sentence.

One of the hallmarks of Republican philosophy is a strong dislike for restrictive regulations. That tenet doesn’t square with the new Iowa voting procedures.

The bills to drastically change election laws in the state were introduced in both legislative houses on Tuesday of last week. They cleared both chambers’ state government committees two days later, and were probably headed for floor action in both the House and the Senate this week. 

Now that’s fast. Most bills in the Iowa Legislature take several weeks or longer to ripen before they’re voted up or down.

I’m writing this column on Monday of this week in order to make my Tuesday morning deadline. By the time you’re reading it the final bill may already be adopted.

The absence of a logical rationale for the bill, and the fact that its legislative progress rivals that of the Daytona International Speedway, suggest undeniably that politics is being committed at the state capitol.

That’s OK. That’s the way the world, and Iowa, are these days. 

But generally there’s at least some good reason, some benefit to the general public, that can be argued for changing a law. 

In this case the existing election structure benefited Iowa Republicans in 2020. You’d think they’d remember that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

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