Brad Zaun has long history of votes out of sync with his district

Brad Zaun has been in office for almost two decades, but while his district has moved to the center and the left, Zaun has become one of Iowa’s most far-right representatives.

State Sen. Brad Zaun has served in the Iowa Senate dating all the way back to 2005, representing in general the Des Moines metro’s northwest suburbs. Once a conservative area of town, in recent years, the voters of his district, which covers most of Johnston and Urbandale, have moved much closer to the middle politically, if not outright leaned to the left in recent elections.

But Zaun himself has moved in the opposite direction, establishing himself as one of Iowa’s most far-right legislators. He’s served as one of Donald Trump’s most prominent Iowa defenders, and has taken the right’s culture war directly and personally to Johnston’s school district, even threatening local teachers that he’d pass legislation that would get them locked up for books in their classrooms.

While he’s remained in office in part thanks to an outgoing personality, his voting record has racked up a lot of votes often seen as unpopular in his suburban district. Here’s just a few.

On education

In 2023, Zaun voted for the private school voucher bill, but his support for giving public money to private schools goes back further than that.

He also supported similar legislation in 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2022.

In 2024, Zaun also voted for the bill that changes the structure and funding for Area Education Agencies (AEAs), which help children with disabilities to get the accommodations and care they need in order to get an education.

Zaun has also supported book bans in schools and attacked teachers, threatening them with felonies and misdemeanors.

The books commonly targeted for banning are about LGBTQ+ identities.  

“My warning to all the teachers and the administrators is you’re going to be in jail,” he said. “Because this is distributing pornography. And I will work my tail end off and it will become law.”

The 2022 bill didn’t go anywhere but it foreshadowed SF 496, the 2023 law that bans books in schools, which Zaun also voted for.

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.

Multiple teachers have resigned because of years of attacks from Republicans.

On reproductive rights

Zaun has supported every abortion restriction that has come up in the Iowa Legislature.

He voted for the near-total abortion ban in a 2023 special session. He also voted for an almost-identical 2018 ban—introduced before the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. 

The ban prohibits abortion so early in pregnancy most people don’t know they’re pregnant yet.

Before those bans were on the table, Zaun voted for several measures that would make abortion harder to access.

One of those was an amendment to the Iowa Constitution declaring the constitution doesn’t protect the right to abortion. 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.

In 2017, he voted for the 20-week abortion ban, which was signed into law.

Zaun was absent for the 2017 vote to defund Planned Parenthood, but he did support the idea. Ultimately, the defunding led to clinic closures across the state and worsened Iowans’ access to maternal health care.

Zaun also voted for a requirement that patients who need abortions wait 72 hours to get the procedure—this would have required patients to make two appointments and delay the abortion longer than 72 hours. 

That law was blocked by the Iowa Supreme Court, but Zaun pursued and voted for a 24-hour waiting period which was allowed to stand.

In 2013, 2017, and 2019, Zaun voted for fetal personhood bills which would have declared that life begins at conception and completely banned abortion while threatening infertility treatments like IVF.

In 2016, Zaun voted against a bill that would have made birth control available over the counter for people 18 and older. He changed his mind in 2023, when he voted for a similar bill. That bill didn’t pass the House.

This year Zaun voted for legislation that loosened requirements for a state program that uses taxpayer money to support anti-abortion centers, also known as crisis pregnancy centers. These are non-medical clinics that mislead and threaten patients out of getting abortions. 

He voted for the initial program, too. 

On guns

Zaun has a 100% rating from the NRA, and for years he has worked to chip away at regulations on where guns are allowed and the requirements for owning guns.

He missed the 2024 vote on arming teachers but Zaun did vote for a bill in 2021 that allows 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.

That bill about permits had come up before in 2018, but Zaun pulled it from the debate schedule because he learned it lacked support in the Iowa House. The bill was being considered in the wake of the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, where 17 people were killed.

According to the Des Moines Register, Zaun said his heart hurt for the people of Parkland, but he was disappointed the bill wouldn’t go forward.

“I just think it is very unfortunate that we always jump to the conclusion in a tragedy like this that guns are a problem. But in almost every case what was involved was mental health,” Zaun said. “Obviously we need to have a conversation about mental health in the state of Iowa rather than guns. We do a poor job in the state of Iowa with mental health.” 

In 2010, Zaun voted against a bill that banned domestic abusers—either convicted or subject to a protective or no-contact order—from having guns. The bill ultimately passed and was signed by then-Gov. Chet Culver. 

In 2019 and 2021, Zaun managed and voted for the amendment to the Iowa Constitution that makes it harder to regulate guns in Iowa. Because it passed the legislature twice, the language was on the ballot in 2022, and Iowans voted to add the amendment to the constitution.

Anti-LGBTQ laws

In 2023, Zaun voted to ban trans and nonbinary children from using the bathroom that matches their gender, and to deny gender affirming health care for trans children.

In 2015, Zaun voted against a bill that would have outlawed conversion therapy on minors in Iowa, a pseudoscientific type of therapy that tries to change people’s gender or sexuality, and has caused long-term psychological harm.

In 2011, Zaun sponsored an amendment to the Iowa Constitution that would declare “marriage between one man and one woman shall be the only legal union valid or recognized in this state.”

Opponent

Running against Zaun is Matt Blake, an attorney and former member of the Urbandale City Council, who wants to fight for public schools, against restrictions on reproductive freedom, and for policies the majority of Iowans support.