Capitol Fights
This is the second week of the 2025 Iowa legislative session, and you can sense elbows are already being thrown under the golden dome in Des Moines.
Tomorrow, the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission meets as Cedar Rapids works to land a casino license. At the same time, there’s a renewed effort for a legislative moratorium on new casinos, which would take away the commission’s licensing power. Folks in Cedar Rapids have seen this movie play out before, and they don’t like how it ends. Behind the scenes, regions which already have casinos are quietly exerting pressure in favor of the legislative block, because a new casino would take dollars away from nearby existing casinos. It’s not popular for a city to stand up and take such a stand publicly, but you can bet the calls and emails are coming quietly.
At the same time, cities are concerned about the legislature’s talk about property tax reform, specifically proposals that would limit the amount of tax growth a local government could impose in a given tax cycle. They are already warning the public that a cap on property taxes might mean loss of services, and they’re not shy about pushing a narrative that police and fire departments would see cuts right away.
But citizens are feeling emboldened lately, particularly when it comes to getting value for the tax dollars they pay, and they are pressuring their elected representatives to do something to alleviate the property tax burden. When there is a tug-of-war between voters and cities…which do you think elected representatives might favor?
The aggressiveness on these topics in this first month will set the table for how things go this session. If the legislature pre-empts the gaming commission again, that will have some early impact and bad feelings. And since it will have to happen early on, in light of when the commission is reviewing the Cedar Rapids license, that means there will be plenty of time for local governments to urge lawmakers to abandon any cap on their ability to raise revenue.
Obviously, there’s plenty of time for voters to weigh in, but who has the advantage in terms of organization and staying power? Usually, the local governments. But we’ll see if 2025 is the year when voters continue speaking loudly and often.
