Iowa Senate Democrats hold up Reynolds’ appointees

Now that Iowa Democrats have broken Republicans’ supermajority in the Senate, they’re using it to trip up Gov. Kim Reynolds’ choice for a key department lead.

Starting in 2022, Republicans enjoyed a supermajority in the Iowa Senate. This meant that Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds’ state agency appointees, which require a two-thirds majority in the Senate for confirmation, could sail through without a single vote from the opposition party. But that came to an end last August with the election of Iowa Sen. Catelin Drey, D-Sioux City. Democrats are back in the conversation now that the governor’s picks need the entire Republican caucus plus one Democrat to be confirmed. 

Sen. Catelin Drey, D-Sioux City, broke Senate Republicans’ supermajority when she won her special election. (Photo courtesy of the campaign)

This week, Reynolds sought confirmation for Larry Johnson to direct the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). HHS is a $14 billion state agency, which is the state’s largest agency. It administers the safety net for the most vulnerable people in the state through child welfare and foster care, public health programs, behavioral health services, and assistance programs like Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps, and disability benefits.

Senate Democratic Leader Janice Weiner said Johnson and his staff failed to answer legislators’ questions about the agency’s finances. 

“HHS is a behemoth of a department that impacts the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iowans every year if not every day,” Weiner said. “HHS needs to be responsive.”

“In breaking the Senate supermajority, Iowans entrusted us with the responsibility of providing additional scrutiny to the governor’s appointees,” Weiner said in a statement. “This is a responsibility we take seriously, and we extended thoughtful and deliberate due diligence to every nominee.”

The governor needed 34 votes but failed to do so. And she was not happy.

“Today, Senate Democrats chose to break with decades of custom. Rather than informing my office of concerns about the nomination, they made a politically motivated choice to disrupt an agency responsible for the well-being of the most vulnerable Iowans,” Reynolds said in a statement after Democrats blocked his confirmation. “It’s disappointing and their decision puts Iowa HHS and the people they serve at great risk.”

While Reynolds characterized the move as just partisan politics, there is a documented history of concern about financial transparency from state agencies under the Reynolds Administration—concerns that House Republicans raised earlier this month. 

“Literally, I’ve waited for one answer for three years, one question I’ve asked of a department,” Iowa Rep. Hans Wilz, R-Ottumwa, told Radio Iowa. “Still waiting for it.”

Johnson has led state agencies since 2019 and has been party to a pattern of oversight complaints that preceded his arrival at HHS. According to his bio, Johnson has been in state government for 15 years and has worked as a public defender and legal counsel to then Gov. Terry Branstad, a Republican. In March 2019, Reynolds elevated him to direct the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals, which was later collapsed into the Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing (DIAL) during Reynolds’ restructuring of state government. 

In 2022, during his tenure at the agency, Iowa Capital Dispatch reported that DIAL had been violating state law requiring biennial hotel inspections for eight consecutive years—a lapse Johnson acknowledged in writing while attributing it to his predecessors. 

In 2023, a federal Senate Special Committee on Aging report ranked Iowa 49th in the nation in its ratio of nursing home inspectors to facilities. The late state Sen. Claire Celsi said Johnson had been “stonewalling” her questions about inspection backlogs. 

In 2024, Capital Dispatch reported that DIAL was withholding the factual basis for professional licensing board disciplinary actions even after cases were fully closed, a transparency rollback that shielded physicians, nurses, and nursing home administrators. 

Most recently, Reynolds appointed him as an interim director of HHS after former director Kelly Garcia resigned.

During this week’s confirmation debate, Sen. Mike Bousselot, R-Ankeny, argued that Johnson inherited these problems in the agencies he led. 

“Larry Johnson is exactly the type of public servant we should be confirming in this state,” Bousselot said, urging his colleagues not to punish Johnson for “the transgressions of others.” 

The Senate also did not confirm Todd Abrahamson to the State Board of Education. The Gazette reported that Sen. Molly Donahue, D-Marion, opposed his nomination because he supported the 2024 legislation that changed the funding and scope of Iowa’s Area Education Agencies.