LGBTQ “Ally” Wells Fargo Quiet As Iowa GOP Passes Homophobic Bills

Halfway through the Iowa Legislative Session, Iowa Republicans—who hold large majorities in the House and Senate—have introduced more than 30 bills that target Iowa’s LGBTQ community with a specific focus on trans children. Some of the students who would be affected by the various bills have shown up at the Capitol and pleaded with Iowa lawmakers to leave them alone. 

These anti-LGBTQ bills include blocking trans children from receiving medically necessary health care while also taking away the rights of their parents, forcibly outing LGBTQ children in schools, banning drag shows, and even trying to ban gay marriage, which has been legal in Iowa since 2009.

“Someone from out of state watching the Iowa Legislature today and the Iowa House would think that the only problem we have in this state are LGBTQ kids. That’s not true but those are the bills we did today,” said Iowa House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst (D-Windsor Heights) after a March 9 floor debate.

Small business collectives in Ames, Ankeny, Des Moines’ East Village, West Des Moines’ Valley Junction, and elsewhere in Iowa have spoken out against these proposals, but some of Iowa’s largest employers—with one notable exception in gas station chain Kum & Go—have been silent as people’s rights are legislated away.

The silence of Wells Fargo, which employs more than 12,000 people in the Des Moines metro alone, in particular, is perplexing.

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Wells Fargo has not registered against—or for—any of the anti-LGBTQ bills in Iowa; however, it boasts heavily about its support of the LGBTQ community on its website. 

Under a section titled “Standing with the LGBTQ community,” Wells Fargo states that its “commitment and service to the LGBTQ community dates back more than 30 years, and continues to grow year after year. Through workplace support, financial health empowerment, and investment in philanthropic organizations, we embrace and value LGBTQ colleagues, customers, and communities.”

https://stories.wf.com/series/standing-with-the-lgbtq-community/

Another section of the site called the “LGBTQ Resource Center” offers customers a chance to receive credit and debit cards that “celebrate the LGBTQ community’s legacy, diversity, and history.” Those designs even feature the Gay Pride flag, the Trans Pride flag, and a rainbow gradient with “PROUD” in all capital letters at the top.

https://www.wellsfargo.com/lgbtq/

In that same section of the site, Wells Fargo boasts about its 15-year streak of scoring 100% on the Human Rights Campaign Equality Index. The annual report considers itself “the national benchmarking tool on corporate policies, practices and benefits pertinent to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer employees.” The company also notes that Diversity Magazine has ranked it in the top 50 companies for diversity every year since 2001.

In Iowa, Wells Fargo has been a consistent sponsor of Capital City Pride, the state’s largest pride festival.

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Even as recently as last year, Wells Fargo partnered with Capital City Pride for a new pride mural to be painted in downtown Des Moines. 

So why has Wells Fargo been so quiet about what’s happening in Iowa this year?  The banking giant employs four lobbyists at the Capitol this legislative session, according to the state. 

Wells Fargo Lobbyists

The only bills Wells Fargo’s lobbyists have registered against are related to bills that limit the investment of public funds into companies with “woke” policies, although the lobbyists later switched to undecided.

As one of Iowa’s largest employers, Wells Fargo’s decision on which bills to support and which bills to oppose holds weight. In fact, the company has used that power in the recent past when previous anti-LGBTQ bills arose.

Wells Fargo registered against a 2021 “bathroom bill” to prevent trans students from using the restroom of the gender they identify with and the bill died in its tracks. This year, a similar measure passed the Iowa House and Senate and awaits Gov. Kim Reynolds’ signature to become law. Wells Fargo made no declarations on the bill.

Also in 2021, Wells Fargo registered against the “Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act” bill, a long-winded title for a bill that basically would have allowed discrimination against gay and trans people based on religious and moral grounds. 

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While Wells Fargo heavily touts its support of the LGBTQ community, a 2021 Popular Information article noted the company donated “$124,500 to 48 anti-LGBTQ federal lawmakers” from 2019 to the article’s 2021 publication.

Wells Fargo hedged its bets politically in Iowa, donating almost evenly to both Republican and Democratic candidates at the state and federal level in the 2022 cycle.

Although the bank showed love on both sides of the aisle in Iowa, some of its Republican recipients, like Rep. Brooke Boden, have been on the frontlines of this year’s attacks on LGBTQ Iowans.

The two-term Indianola legislator has led the charge on book bans, spoken out (and voted) against gender-affirming care, helped advance a forced outing bill and another to limit teaching about sexually-transmitted diseases, and shared the stage at a Moms for Liberty event where a Republican colleague called LGBTQ kids “mentally ill.” 

Again, why is a company that says it “stands with the LGBTQ community” silent as the most anti-LGBTQ legislative session in Iowa’s history continues? The Des Moines Register asked Wells Fargo and other large Iowa employers this question last week and it received no comment.

Starting Line also reached out to Wells Fargo last week for comment, and just like Iowa’s LGBTQ community, we too were met with silence.

by Ty Rushing
03/20/23

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