Thank you, Madam President.
As we conclude the 2025 legislative session, I want to first express my heartfelt thanks to the men and women whose efforts are crucial to the operation of this chamber and the General Assembly as a whole.
To our clerks, pages, caucus staffs, and interns; to the Secretary of the Senate’s office, the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms, the legislative services agency, the lobby, and members of the press – thank you. We’re grateful for your expertise, your tireless commitment, your time, and your hard work.
After 18 weeks, where have we ended up? What have we accomplished?
Four months ago, I began the legislative session by talking about our responsibilities as public servants, our duty to Iowans. In 2024, I spent months on the road listening to Iowans share their worries about the cost of putting food on the table, the rising cost of healthcare and housing, and the lack of affordable, reliable childcare. They shared concerns about their kids’ schools, the next round of layoffs, and an uncertain future.
I look back on this session and see wasted opportunities to make a difference. I see Republican leadership ignoring the warning signs for Iowa’s economy. I see a majority party content with leaving working Iowans behind.
Our state is beset by crises of legislative Republicans’ own making. Just look at this session’s budget proposal. We’re staring down a $917 million budget hole and the beginning of a deficit spending road that will last for at least the next five years, according to their own plan.
Our public schools remain underfunded, forcing school districts to raise property taxes, tighten budgets, or limit resources for our kids, all while the floodgates open on private school vouchers to subsidize private school education for Iowa’s wealthiest families to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in an uncapped appropriation.
Iowa ranks 48th in personal income growth and is one of just two states whose GDP contracted in 2024. What did the Iowa Senate, led by this Republican majority, do to expand our workforce, attract new businesses, or increase worker wages this session? What did this Legislature, with its Republican supermajorities, do to decrease financial burdens for working families?
What we got was another year of pushing Iowans away, compounding the brain drain started by previous sessions’ culture wars as the majority party legalized discrimination against our trans neighbors, inserted unscientific ideology into school curriculum, and pursued a statewide policy of uniformity, inequity, and exclusion.
It’s our job to stand up for Iowans’ interests, but Republicans squandered countless opportunities to truly represent those interests and show up for working Iowans this session in favor of petty politics and infighting. We could have had cross-cutting coalitions and balance, but no.
This body must reckon with the very real possibility that our state could look quite different come next session. We don’t know the full impact that tariffs, trade wars, and earned benefit cuts will have on Iowa’s economy – on our workers, on our kids, on agriculture, on small businesses, on tourism – but we do know our state’s economy was already in negative growth even before any federal changes hit. We know that mass layoffs have become commonplace, and that our unemployment system does not provide the necessary safety net it once did.
We know that our cancer rates are rising, our maternal healthcare options are shrinking, childcare remains unaffordable and inaccessible to many families, our elder care is in crisis, and the federal government grows more unpredictable and unreliable by the week, including on funding programs essential for every Iowan.
Save for a few bright moments, this session was a disappointment on nearly every front. And still, despite everything, I remain hopeful – thanks to Iowans. Time and again, Iowans stepped up and showed up. They advocated, protested, and demanded that legislators listen.
The Iowans whom we were sent here to serve – whose interests should guide our decision making – are staying in the fight. I assure you, we will, too. That’s my pledge. Senate Democrats will continue to listen to and fight for ALL Iowans, day in and day out, because their concerns deserve our attention. We’ll fight for their ability not just to get by, but to get ahead. We’ll work for an Iowa that actually is a field where dreams can come true – wherever in the state you choose to live, and that welcomes and embraces all.
Thank you, Madam President.