Rep. Eddie Andrews is not the moderate he claims to be

While many people throughout Iowa State Rep. Eddie Andrews’ suburban district say they’ve heard the legislator present himself as more of a moderate Republican, his voting record tells a different story.

Andrews represents Johnston and parts of Urbandale and nearby communities, a swing district that overall has split their votes or leaned slightly to the left in recent years. The two-term incumbent Andrews, however, often votes like a far-right firebrand.

The most obvious issue is when it comes to abortion. When he first campaigned for office in 2020, an interviewer asked him if he supports abortion exceptions for rape, incest, fetal abnormalities, or the life of the mother.

“I am 100% pro-life,” he said. Andrews doubled down when the interviewer prompted him for more. “100% pro-life.”

“So you don’t believe in exceptions to pro-life,” the interviewer asked.

“No,” Andrews replied.

Since he was elected, Andrews has voted for several far-right bills. In March 2024, he voted for the fetal personhood law that would have declared that life begins at fertilization and declared embryos and fetuses are people with rights.

Fetal personhood laws act as total abortion bans without explicitly banning abortion and endanger IVF procedures for people looking to start a family.

In 2023, Andrews voted for Iowa’s near-total abortion ban, which bans abortions so early in pregnancy most people don’t know they’re pregnant yet.

In his first term in office, Andrews voted for an anti-abortion amendment to Iowa’s Constitution. The amendment declared there was no right to abortion in Iowa’s Constitution.

The amendment has since been dropped after the Iowa Supreme Court ruled in 2022 that there’s no right to abortion in the Iowa Constitution, and since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

That ruling also paved the way for the near-total abortion ban Andrews voted for.

Birth Control

In 2023, there were a few bills to allow people who are 18-years-old and older to get birth control over-the-counter. In the House, Andrews supported it, but he also signed on to several amendments that would require pharmacists to:

• tell people about alternatives to abortion such as adoption
• list the “risks” of abortion (abortion is incredibly safe),
• ask if the person getting the birth control has some connection to a pimp

One of the “pimp” amendments requires a person accompanying someone to get birth control to fill out a “pimp form” and pay a $10 tax. 

The wording of those amendments is part of an anti-abortion strategy for attacking birth control. The goal is to make people think contraceptives and abortion are the same thing, and to claim birth control is dangerous to people’s health, as well as to imply that women who take birth control may be doing it as part of a prostitution ring

Andrews didn’t sign on to those amendments when they were introduced again in 2024.

Education, LGBTQ rights, guns, and more

Like many Republicans, Andrews voted for the school voucher bill in 2023. However, he joined Democrats and some other Republicans to vote against the 2024 bill to overhaul the structure of Area Education Agencies (AEAs), which help children with disabilities to get the accommodations and care they need in order to get an education.

Andrews has also voted for banning books in schools. The same law also bans mentioning LGBTQ identities in elementary or middle school and forcibly outs transgender students to parents, even if there are concerns parents will react badly.

He also voted for a law denying gender-affirming health care to transgender children. 

Andrews has also supported Moms for Liberty and, in 2023, backed Moms For Liberty candidates on several school boards, including Ankeny, Johnston, and Urbandale.

In 2024, Andrews has also supported arming teachers.  In 2021, Andrews also voted for a bill allowing people to buy and carry handguns without a permit. He also voted for a bill to restrict the ability of Iowans to sue gun manufacturers. 

Both bills became law.

He also voted to advance the amendment to Iowa’s Constitution that makes it harder to regulate guns. Iowans voted to add that amendment to the constitution in 2022.

In 2022, while misinformation about COVID vaccines was rampant, Andrews sponsored a bill to add political beliefs and immunization status as protected classes in the Iowa Civil Rights Code. Existing categories include race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, and disability, and others.