Iowa lawmakers completed a marathon 21-hour final day of their 2025 session with a litany of bills.
The Iowa legislature faced a busy final day on Thursday, with the state Senate taking 20 hours and the state House taking 22 hours. The session ended at 6:31 a.m. on Thursday after carrying on throughout the night. Gov. Kim Reynolds (R-IA) received some wins and losses in her legislative agenda, but she portrayed the session as a triumph overall.
“I’m proud of the work we did this session to expand on the strong foundation we’ve built over the last several years in health care, education, and tax reform,” she said in a statement obtained by the Gazette. “To keep taxes low and ensure Iowans keep more of what they earn, we passed a responsible, balanced budget that puts taxpayers first and keeps Iowa on a strong, fiscally sustainable path. Some have claimed Iowa is facing a deficit. Let’s be clear: this isn’t a deficit — it’s the result of the state collecting more from taxpayers than it needed.”
Specifically, Reynolds racked up wins on limiting cellphone use in schools and while driving, reducing unemployment insurance on businesses, and paid parental leave for state government workers. Her proposals on childcare and energy policy failed to pass.
The legislature, dominated by Republicans, experienced a significant victory in removing legal protections for transgender people by removing gender identity from the state’s Civil Rights Act.
Republican Rep. Bobby Kaufmann spearheaded property tax reform, which, by the end, he said was “80% there.”
“The fact that it’s going to take us two years, two sessions, one general Assembly, to achieve what is the single biggest cut in property taxes in the history of Iowa, $2 billion over the course of five years, puts us well ahead of the pace of previous major pieces of legislation, when you’re redoing a system that has been in place since the mid ‘70s,” he told reporters.
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Democrats were left unsatisfied.
“Working Iowans lost and special interests won,” Democratic House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst told reporters Wednesday. “When we look at this session, we’ve seen so many bills that have been introduced and passed because leadership or special interests want these bills. But when it comes to lowering costs, not a single bill was passed, and I mean not a single bill that will lower costs for Iowa families.”