Legislative session starts
Monday, Jan. 12, marks the first day of the second session of the 91st Iowa General Assembly. Legislative leaders will speak to both chambers about their goals for the upcoming term.
Tuesday night, Gov. Reynolds will present the Condition of the State address, which will also give us a pretty good idea of her priorities. The speech will be covered live by Iowa PBS.
Two special elections for state legislative seats were held last month. Renee Hardman (D-West Des Moines) has won a special election for Senate District 16, and Wendy Larson (R-Odebolt) won a special for House District 7. We’re looking forward to meeting them. The partisan makeup of the Iowa House is 67-33 in favor of the Republicans, and the Senate is held by the Republicans 33-17.
Making a difference
The Iowa Catholic Conference (ICC) is offering a Zoom webinar previewing the session, “Advocating for Justice 2026,” to help you find ways to contribute to the discussion on our top issues of concern. We’ll also be hearing from Deacon Brian Zeman, member of the ICC Human Life and Dignity Committee and director of Catholic Social Teaching for the Archdiocese of Dubuque, on how your parish can get involved with the “Walking with Moms in Need” project. It’s a way to help pregnant women and parents of young children who are facing difficult circumstances.
Our webinar is scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 22 at 6:30 p.m. You can sign up here. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn and engage!
The Iowa Catholic Conference testified on more than 40 bills last year and your contacts with legislators helped secure several successes, including stopping a “human smuggling” bill which could have criminalized providing basic charity to immigrants, providing that middle and high students will see a video about the development of life in the womb, and guaranteeing that adoptive parents are treated by employers the same as biological parents.
Enrollment in Iowa Catholic schools increases
Enrollment in Iowa’s Catholic schools increased in the 2025-26 school year. As of October 2025, there were 26,095 students enrolled in Catholic schools, up a little more than 3% compared to the previous year. About 98% of those students – 25,519 – received an Education Savings Account.
ESAs are being used increasingly by lower-income families. The number of students eligible for a free or reduced-price lunch swelled by 10% to 5,702. In addition:
- the number of non-white students was 6,182, a 6% increase
- there were 1,731 English Language Learner students, nearly a 10% increase
- the number of students with an Individualized Education Program or 504 plans increased by 5% to 1,817.
As the session begins, we encourage you to sign an online petition from our partners at Iowa Alliance for Choice in Education. The petition encourages legislators to keep parental choice in education front and center. State legislators need to know that their constituents support policies that give parents more options when it comes to educating their children. Go to www.iowaace.org/take-action to read and sign the petition.
In an unsurprising piece of good news, Gov. Reynolds has “opted-in” to the new federal tax credit for donations to means-tested scholarships for K-12 students. This is in addition to the current Iowa School Tuition Organization tax credit. The federal tax credit starts in 2027 and you’ll be hearing more about how to contribute and receive the tax credit later this year. We thank Gov. Reynolds for opting-in.
Iowa to participate in SUN Bucks
The state has announced that the state will participate in the federal “SUN Bucks” program (Summer EBT) later this year. SUN Bucks eligible families will receive $40 per child per month in grocery benefits over the summer to help ensure children have access to nutritious food while school is out.
This federally funded program will help approximately 244,000 children in Iowa gain access to additional grocery benefits during the summer months when they lose access to free- and reduced-price school meals. Last year, the ICC was one of many groups that signed on to the letter calling on the governor to approve Summer EBT.
Keep the Hyde Amendment
In response to discussions in Congress regarding healthcare affordability, Bishop Daniel Thomas of the Diocese of Toledo, Chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, affirmed the importance of the Hyde Amendment: “Authentic health care upholds the dignity of all human life, and health care policy must not violate this dignity. In upholding this core principle, the U.S. bishops have long opposed any proposals to expand taxpayer funding of abortion and will continue to do so, including, if necessary, in the current debates in Congress over health care affordability plans. We urge Congress to work creatively to enact legislation that does not compromise the dignity of the human person and that ensures access to authentic, life-affirming care.”
The ICC encourages you to save the date of Thursday, Feb. 5 for the annual “Prayer for Life” event at the State Capitol. We’ll have more information soon.
January is Poverty Awareness Month
In addition to the March for Life and the “9 Days for Life” Respect Life novena, January also is Poverty Awareness Month. You can join the USCCB Secretariat of Justice and Peace, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, and the Catholic community in the United States in taking up Pope Leo’s challenge to live in solidarity with the poor. Sign up here.
As the Holy Father says in his apostolic exhortation, Dilexi Te, we are called to address the injustice of poverty today: “The dignity of every human person must be respected today, not tomorrow, and the extreme poverty of all those to whom this dignity is denied should constantly weigh upon our consciences” (no. 92).
And finally,
We encourage you to take some time to pray for legislators. It’s not easy for those come to Des Moines from across the state to be away several days a week from family, home and work.
