Iowa House of Representatives

So Iowa radio host Steve Deace, who's pretty thoroughly MAGA now, dropped this bombshell on X.

He said this, quote, "Iowa House Republicans were informed by their own pollsters that if you are in a plus 15 district, you're within the margin of error, and if you're in a plus 10 district, you're underwater." Chair, if Trump or GOP plus 15 districts are within the margin and plus 10 districts are underwater, that means a double-digit swing toward Democrats, maybe a 15-point swing toward Democrats in Iowa, and this is a place Trump carried by 14 points.

Do you think that's where things are right now?

I think it's quite remarkable [laughs] that Steve thinks it's l- it's that, um, dramatic.

And it was quite interesting how it played out because our Senate had always been our issue, getting good PBM reforms to the governor's desk.

Well, the Senate went first and they passed a super great bill over to the House.

And so then the house members face the pressure from the industry that they had never faced before because everybody just put their pressure on the Senate, assuming that was their firewall and the house is gonna pass what the house is gonna pass.

So then my colleagues in the house started getting the pressure and their eyes were like, what is happening? What is going on? Here's what they're telling me.

And so I was very thankful to be in the house at that point.

Because before that, I was going, it may have been better for me to be in the Senate because maybe that's where the PBM battle is gonna be fought.

Well, it actually ended up being the House this time.

And so some of the things it does, obviously, the patients seem to be the focus.

Cotter brings both policy expertise and lived experience of parenting his son, Ryan, who had spinal muscular atrophy and died at the age of 17 and a half years old.

He co-founded Ryan House and Memoriam, the Arizona-based pediatric respite end-of-life and palliative care facility was one of the first of its kind nationwide.

And with that introduction, we'll begin our journey to today's topic.

All right, well, thanks for having this discussion with me, Jonathan.

And those systems have also been around for decades, especially globally in the United Kingdom and other places in the world.

Even as many as four decades ago, the first kind of community based programs really started up here in the United States.

Those started to emerge about 20 plus years ago with the, you know, with the launch of George Mark Children's House.

in Oakland, California.

I want to know a take on culture.

Even when I ran for the Iowa House of Representatives, he was very foundational in helping me establish a lot of the understanding of the policies that I follow.

needed to have, and also my views and positions on those to make sure that it was at a biblical foundation.

And so we're really talking with someone here who is deep in the weeds on this stuff.

In reality, Turek's missed votes don't matter.

In the world of politics, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Josh Turek's missed votes in the Iowa House are the stuff of darkened photos, endless TV ads, and enough mailers to fill recycling bins to overflowing.

It's nothing short of a crime against humanity.

In reality, the missed votes of one Democratic state representative in a chamber where Republicans hold a 67-33 majority don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world at the edge of the abyss.

Having a local guy in Congress' upper chamber could provide a voice of reason against the executive branch's trampling of the Constitution.

And is the message here that Turek, who began his run in a contentious primary against a better-known Democrat, should have tanked his Senate campaign to earn a gold star on his House attendance record? What's worse, missing votes or showing up to vote on a controversial issue while hiding out from having to take part in a debate that might make you look bad.

That's what State Representative Hinson did in 2020 as the Iowa House debated in the final hours of the session a bill requiring a 24-hour waiting period before a woman can have an abortion.

Voting law changes and other issues were also up for votes.

It used to be people in the middle, the most conservative Democrats and the most liberal Republicans, who could agree on something, Buckton said.

These days, it's become an unwritten rule that the Iowa House won't vote on a bill unless Republican leadership already has locked in a yes majority in their own caucus, Buckton said.

That leaves a lot less room for the kind of bipartisan dealmaking school funding fixes tend to need.

When we have that chaos of politics or policy, we've got to keep students in mind first, she said.

Republican Senate candidate Ashley Hinson and her associates are making a big deal about Democrat Josh Turek's missed votes in the most recent legislative session.

Given that there were 67 Republicans and 33 Democrats in the Iowa House, I wondered how many of his missed votes would have made a difference.

I looked here, and the following gives an address of Iowa.gov slash legislation slash find legislation floor votes for the spring of the 2026 session.

As best as I can tell, exactly zero of his missed votes would have mattered.