Iowans will determine the layout of the Statehouse for the next legislative session with their choices in the November election. Republicans are looking to defend majorities in both the Iowa House and Senate while Democrats hope to regain seats in both chambers.
Voters in Waukee, Adel, Van Meter and parts of West Des Moines and Clive will either reelect Democratic Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott or elect her Republican challenger Mark Hanson to represent Senate District 14 in the Iowa Legislature.
Trone Garriott, 46, is an ELCA Lutheran pastor and is coordinator of Interfaith Engagement at the Des Moines Area Religious Council. She was first elected to the Iowa Senate in 2020, and while state senators typically serve four-year terms, Trone Garriott ran again in 2022 because of redistricting and won. She lives in West Des Moines.
Hanson, 67, has served on the Dallas County Board of Supervisors for the past 20 years. He lives in Waukee. Hanson also serves on several local boards and has previously held leadership positions in business and human services organizations.
IPR News has been reaching out to candidates in some key Statehouse races to ask them about their positions on important issues. Here is what Trone Garriott and Hanson had to say. Their answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.
Jump to a specific topic:
- Top legislative priority
- Eliminating the income tax
- Abortion rights
- Fertility treatments and contraception
- Education Savings Accounts (ESAs)
- Growing the state's workforce
What is the most important thing the Legislature should do in the next session?
Trone Garriott: I think the most important thing the Iowa Legislature could do is listen to Iowans. Unfortunately, we’ve been seeing a lot of legislation that’s coming from these out-of-state interests being pushed through despite lots of opposition from the people who live in this state. And it’s not serving the people of our state well. So things like this extreme abortion ban — very unpopular with the people who live here, strongly opposed by the people of our state — the private school vouchers, the attacks on the AEAs... a number of our policies just seem to be coming from this national agenda, and really aren’t things that the people of Iowa are asking for. The number one job of a legislator is to show up and listen to the people in our state, and I want to see a lot more of that. The top two things I hear about from voters is really supporting and funding our public schools. And then I also hear a lot of concerns about reproductive rights. There’s a lot of folks who are very scared and feel like they’re losing their ability to make decisions about their own body, and it’s really frightening for them and the people they care about.
Hanson: My top issue is to help Iowa families and to strengthen schools and the economy. Obviously, tax burdens should be reduced, particularly looking at how to address property tax relief. I am also passionate about improving access to mental health services and stepping up support for Iowa seniors.
Gov. Kim Reynolds has said it is her goal to eliminate the income tax in Iowa by the end of her current term. Do you support eliminating the income tax?
Hanson: I think that I can support the current path that they’re on to go to the 3.8% flat income tax. But I think we should look at reforms in county and city property taxes before moving further on income taxes. Tax reduction can help to bring more people to Iowa and our state who are attracted to our quality of life, our schools and our affordability. But I think we need to look at total tax burden — income, property tax, sales tax, fees to the government — and really do an analysis of the overall tax circumstances in Iowa before I’d go as far as eliminating the income tax.
Trone Garriott: I think that taxation needs to be fair, and income tax is one of the fairest ways to tax folks in the state. What happens when we start cutting tax at that level is it ends up getting pushed down to property taxes, which are less fair, and sales tax. And so we need to support our vital services, our infrastructure. The people in my community want to have a safe place to live. They want police and fire services and roads and bridges that are safe, and those things are responsibilities that we need to pay for, and we need to work together to do that. And what folks are seeing is more and more pressure on property taxes, which is really hard on a lot of the folks who live in my district. I do not support cutting without really thinking about the big picture implications.
In a 2023 special session, the Legislature passed — and the Iowa Supreme Court later upheld — new abortion restrictions. The law prohibits an abortion once the presence of cardiac activity is detected by ultrasound. That can happen as early as six weeks, when some people are still unaware of their pregnancy.
What action if any should the Legislature take to change Iowa’s abortion restrictions?
Trone Garriott: We need to repeal this extreme ban. It is harming reproductive care in our state. Physicians do not want to practice in a state where they have to be worrying about who’s going to prosecute them for providing standard of care. And what we see in other states is it threatens lives. Women die because they cannot get the care they need, and it also reduces access to care for anyone who’s pregnant, and increases maternal mortality and infant mortality. It’s not a good policy, and it’s really taking our state in the wrong direction. I think that previously, we were in a pretty good place, but we need to make sure that physicians have the ability to provide care when it’s needed, and that the people who are in those situations get to make those determinations with physicians, and so my priority is making sure that people are at the center of the legislation and not politicians.
Hanson: The fetal heartbeat bill was passed and is current law, and I think that the Legislature needs to evaluate the impact of that new law on the lives of women and health care providers. I do support exceptions for the situations of rape, incest and to protect the life of the mother. But I do want to be very clear that I will protect and expand access to IVF treatments and contraception, and expand access to women’s health care services. I’ve been accused of being against those things, and that is just fundamentally not true.
What, if anything, does the Legislature need to do to ensure access to fertility treatments or contraception?
Hanson: I will be supportive of those policies. I think the Legislature needs to evaluate the impact of the fetal heartbeat bill, especially with the health care providers. Those are tough circumstances, and it’s a sensitive and a personal issue for many. I think that does need to be evaluated stronger. But I will support IVF treatments and the ability to get over-the-counter contraceptives in Iowa. I’m not against either of those concepts at all.
Trone Garriott: We need to pass a law saying that we really do support and protect these rights. I have spoken to lots of families who have undergone IVF, and they have moved their embryos to Minnesota because they’re terrified that they won’t have the ability to use those embryos to have more children, or that if something goes wrong during the process, they’re not going to get the lifesaving or fertility-saving care they need. And then when it comes to contraception, there have been attacks in other states. There have been policies that have been pushed in this state that threaten access to contraception. And we need to really make it clear to Iowans that we value their access and their ability to plan their families.
Next year, the state’s education savings accounts that families can use to send students to private schools will be available to anyone, regardless of income. Should there be a cap on what the state is willing to spend on ESAs?
Trone Garriott: Yes, this is the only thing in our budget that has an unlimited standing appropriation. It’s just a blank check, and we’re not reflecting on and reviewing this program to see, is it actually helping anyone? Is it improving the quality of education? Who is benefiting from it? We’re getting no information about it. It’s just money going out the door with no oversight for the public’s interest. And so there need to be restrictions, of course. I don’t think it’s a good use of our taxpayer dollars. We need to fund the public resources that are available for everyone. That needs to be our priority.
Hanson: I think that the ESAs have helped some families to make it possible to find the right fit for their students. However, I don’t think we have all of the answers right now. I do have questions about the impact on our public schools, the cost of administering the program, as well as the overall transparency and oversight of ESAs. I’m interested in learning more and considering the options moving forward. I think consideration of income restriction should be reviewed and debated.
Should the Legislature have a role in making sure private schools that get this state funding don’t rapidly raise tuition rates?
Hanson: I’d like to learn more about that. I don’t know what the state can do or can’t do as it relates to tuition at private schools. I do think that there needs to be overall transparency and oversight — that if they do receive ESA money, that they should have similar reporting requirements as public schools do.
Trone Garriott: If an institution is receiving state dollars, they should be subject to state oversight and state accountability. And so unfortunately, what we’ve seen is this blank check to provide private schools funds without any expectations about who they serve, how they serve and whether or not they raise tuition. And so the argument initially was, 'oh, it’s going to help low income families access this education.' Well, they immediately raised tuition rates. So it’s out of reach for so many of those folks. It wasn’t a good faith effort.
What more should the Legislature be doing to grow and improve the state’s workforce?
Trone Garriott: We need a welcoming environment for all people. There are so many folks who feel like they can’t stay in Iowa, or they don’t want to come to Iowa because it’s not a place where their families will be safe, where they feel that they can get the education they need, where they can get the health care they need. There’s a lot of wonderful things about our state, and it’s so frustrating to have the Legislature putting out this very negative perception of what our state is. I hear it all the time from employers that workforce recruitment is the number one challenge facing them, and we need our majority party to listen to businesses. This is a real crisis for us.
Hanson: I’d say one of the most important bills that was passed recently was the elimination of the retirement income tax, because that will attract new families to the state to live and raise their families and eventually retire here. So that reduction in tax burden can bring more people to our state. I’ve lived in high tax states, and there are a lot of people interested in coming to Iowa to invest. We’ve got a good quality of life. It’s safe. We’ve got a good cost of living. So it’s important to encourage people to come and grow Iowa, because it’ll help in our workforce areas as well. I do also think it’s important to consider new trade and apprenticeship programs, technology education and to invest in future educators.
