CPAC Releases 2025 Iowa State Ratings

The latest edition of the Iowa CPAC Scorecard assesses 19 votes in the State House and 17 votes in the State Senate from the 2025 session. Iowa Republicans earned an impressive average score of 93%, a strong increase from 84% in 2024. Iowa Democrats averaged just 13%, which is down from 17% in the previous year.

The 2025 Iowa legislative session advanced some of the country's most comprehensive conservative reforms, delivering a sweeping set of policy wins focused on parental rights, institutional accountability, and individual liberty. Lawmakers secured major achievements in protecting biological reality in law, rolling back divisive DEI programming, strengthening election integrity, and ensuring public benefits are tied to meaningful work requirements. The 2025 legislative session clearly positioned Iowa for long-term growth by prioritizing family control, academic freedom, and constitutional rights.

Reaffirming Biological Reality and Institutional Integrity

Iowa took a major step to align its laws with objective, biological categories through SF 418, which removes "gender identity" as a protected class in the Iowa Civil Rights Act and prohibits changing the sex designation on a birth certificate after transition. This ensures legal clarity and safeguards single-sex spaces and programs. Further strengthening institutional integrity, the state launched one of the nation's most comprehensive efforts to roll back ideological mandates, passing bills to defund DEI offices (HF 856) and protect state colleges from accrediting bodies that try to punish them for complying with Iowa law (HF 295).

Strengthening Parental Rights and the Culture of Life

The legislature strongly affirmed that parents are the primary decision-makers for their children. Key measures included HF 299, which requires schools to publicize information on how families can obtain vaccine exemptions, and HF 870, which protects "released time" for religious instruction during the school day. Additionally, the state advanced a culture of life in education through SF 175, which mandates that health classes include imagery and instruction that humanize fetal development and bars the use of materials created by abortion-industry advocates.

Bolstering Election Security and Constitutional Rights

Iowa implemented significant reforms to increase public trust and transparency in elections. HF 928 overhauls the recount process, ensuring close races are reviewed using a thorough, standardized procedure overseen by both major parties. HF 954 equips the Secretary of State with improved tools to verify the citizenship of registered voters, preventing illegal voting without burdening lawful citizens. Separately, the legislature expanded Second Amendment rights for young adults with HF 924, lowering the minimum age to purchase or carry a handgun from 21 to 18, affirming that constitutional rights apply to all adults.

The Iowa 2025 legislative session established Iowa as a leading example in state-level conservative governing. By achieving near-unanimous legislative support for measures that strengthen the family, defend constitutional freedoms, and dismantle ideological bureaucracies, Iowa's lawmakers delivered on their commitment to liberty and accountability. The sweeping nature of the reforms, from reasserting biological reality in law to strengthening the dignity of work through welfare requirements, ensures that the state is firmly positioned on a path of economic and social prosperity.

Read the full brief here.