Amendments to the Iowa Constitution

In 1838, the Wisconsin Territory was split into two, with the slightly more populated part of the territory to the west of the Mississippi River becoming the new Iowa Territory. Over the next six years, the territory’s population continued to grow, and, in 1844, the territorial legislature called a convention to draft a constitution for the aspiring state. However, when the territory presented its proposed constitution to Congress, Congress responded by proposing that, in exchange for its admission as a state, the proposed state give up a third of its land. Although the state boundaries outlined in the proposed constitution already represented just a portion of the larger Iowa Territory, an even smaller Iowa would leave more land for the admission of additional “free states” west of the Mississippi, bolstering northern interests in the escalating national conflict over slavery. In April 1845, Iowa voters rejected admission with Congress’s newly proposed borders, briefly ending the territory’s bid for statehood.

Later that year, Iowans called a second constitutional convention. Meeting over the course of just 15 days in May 1846, the convention drafted a new constitution. Although “[b]oth [draft constitutions] were drawn up according to the same general plan, and were composed of the same number of articles, dealing substantially with the same subjects,” the new document made several changes, including revising the state’s proposed boundaries to strike a compromise between the territory’s original proposal and Congress’s preferred boundaries. On August 3, 1846 the citizens of the territory cast their votes once more, ultimately ratifying the new document by a razor-thin margin (9,492 to 9,036). Several months later, having fulfilled the requirements for admission, President James K. Polk signed legislation making Iowa the 29th state in the Union. 

Iowa’s first constitution lasted just ten years before being replaced in 1857. The 1857 Constitution remains in effect today. Despite a requirement that a constitutional convention question be referred to voters every ten years, no convention has been successfully convened since the 1857 Constitutional Convention. If voters were to approve a convention call, the convention would have the ability to propose constitutional amendments or a new constitution, both of which would need to be submitted to voters for approval by a majority vote. The only other way to amend the constitution is by legislative referral. The legislature must approve proposed amendments in two successive legislative sessions and then submit them to voters for ratification by a majority vote.

Right to Bear Arms

In 2022, Iowans voted to add a right to bear arms to the Iowa Constitution. At the time, Iowa was one of just six states without a 2nd Amendment analog in its constitution. The provision also required that any laws restricting the right be subject to strict scrutiny review, which requires that a law be narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling government interest by the least restrictive means possible. Iowa was the fourth state to adopt such a requirement.

In 2024, the Iowa Supreme Court decided a challenge brought under the new right. The court observed that although the state constitutional provision “differs from its counterpart in the Federal Constitution,” interpretation of the 2nd Amendment is instructive. However, because federal courts do not use a tiers-of-scrutiny framework to evaluate 2nd Amendment claims, the outcome of cases brought under the state constitutional provision might be different from those brought under the 2nd Amendment.

Equal Rights Amendment

Iowans approved an equal rights amendment to the state constitution in 1998, which added “and women” to the document’s “Rights of Persons” provision. Previously reading “[a]ll men are, by nature, free and equal, and have certain inalienable rights . . . ,” the provision now explicitly protected women.

This amendment was the work of nearly two decades of advocacy. Following Iowa’s ratification of the federal Equal Rights Amendment in 1972, the legislature made a first attempt at passing a state-level corollary in 1978. Although the legislature successfully put the amendment on the ballot in 1980, voters rejected the amendment. The amendment appeared on the ballot again in 1992, but this amendment was also rejected. By 1998, most Iowa laws had been changed to provide equality for the sexes, independent of the failed constitutional amendments; however, proponents argued that the amendment was nonetheless important in affirming the state’s fundamental commitment to gender equality and ensuring that “future legislation remains consistent with [that] principle.”

Legislative Veto

In 1984, Iowans ratified an amendment granting the legislature the unilateral power to reject administrative rules promulgated by the state’s administrative agencies, known as a “legislative veto.” Proponents of the amendment argued that the legislative veto was “necessary to ensure that agency rules reflect the intent of the statute and have public support.” Opponents, on the other hand, contended that “adequate tools already exist for curtailing the power of the executive branch.”

To learn more about state legislative vetoes, see Unpacking State Legislative Vetoes.

Home Rule

In 1968, Iowa granted municipalities home rule powers, which allowed municipalities to act without an explicit grant of power from the legislature in all areas except for taxation. Supporters of this amendment saw it as crucial to empower municipalities to proactively address local issues while still limiting their ability to increase taxes on their residents. In 1978, a parallel amendment was passed to grant counties home rule authority, similar to that enjoyed by municipalities. The amendment also addressed how conflicts between county and municipal authority are to be resolved—namely, “the power and authority exercised by a municipal corporation shall prevail within its jurisdiction.”

Judicial Retirement and Discipline

In 1972, Iowans approved an amendment creating the Judicial Qualifications Commission, which is tasked with investigating allegations of judicial misconduct. The amendment also gave the state supreme court the ability to retire, reprimand, suspend, or remove judges upon recommendation of the commission. Prior to this amendment, impeachment was the only recourse for judicial misconduct.

The Judicial Qualifications Commission has seven members: four lay persons (with no more than two affiliated with the same political party) appointed by the governor and confirmed by the senate, one district court judge appointed by the chief justice of the Iowa Supreme Court, and two practicing lawyers (of different political parties) also appointed by the chief justice. Although the commission investigates and holds hearings on disciplinary complaints, “[t]he supreme court ultimately determines the appropriate discipline and will substitute its judgment for that of the commission when appropriate.”

Single Member Districts

While the U.S. Supreme Court’s Reynolds v. Sims decision established the requirement of equally populated legislative districts, it left unresolved questions about the constitutional status of multi-member districts—that is, districts that elect two or more representatives to a legislative body.

Iowa legislators argued that the Iowa Constitution required multi-member districts because it stated that “no county shall be divided in forming a congressional, senatorial, or representative district.” The Iowa Supreme Court disagreed, holding that multi-member districts with at-large elections violated the U.S. Supreme Court’s one-person, one-vote principle by effectively giving individuals living in multi-member districts more representation and, thereby, more weight to their votes. The court prescribed an interim procedure for redistricting but recognized that a permanent solution would require a constitutional amendment. Lawmakers were unable to incorporate a single-member district requirement into their proposed 1968 redistricting amendment because that measure had already passed through the legislature once. But by 1970, the legislature successfully proposed and voters approved an amendment requiring all districts to be single-member districts.

Iowa voters approved all five proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot in 1968. The amendments, pushed by a bipartisan organization called Iowans for Better Government, were aimed at modernizing Iowa politics and strengthening state and local government. In addition to amendments providing for annual legislative sessions, establishing municipal home rule, and allowing legislators to set their own compensation and allowances for expenses, voters also approved the following two amendments.

Line-Item Veto Power for Governor

This modernization effort included giving the governor the power to veto “any item of an appropriation bill,” also known as the line-item veto power. Before this amendment, the governor could only sign or veto the bill in its entirety. Supporters of this amendment argued a line-item veto power would help to “trim the fat out of spending bills.” Opponents, on the other hand, highlighted concerns with giving the governor the sweeping authority to “single-handedly eliminate the funds of an institution.” Despite these fears, Iowans approved the amendment, making Iowa the 43rd state to give the governor the partial veto power.

New Apportionment Procedure

Prior to this amendment, the Iowa Constitution apportioned state legislative seats by county. Each county elected a member to the Iowa House of Representatives, while various counties were grouped together to elect a senator. In 1904, the constitution was amended to expand the size of the House of Representatives to 108 members to give the nine most populous counties a second representative.

Legal challenges to Iowa’s state legislative maps were brought as part of a wave of cases across the country asserting that, because they resulted in districts with substantially unequal populations, county-based apportionment plans violated the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1962 decision in Baker v. Carr, which authorized courts to hear such claims, the federal district court in Des Moines held that the Iowa state legislative maps were indeed unconstitutional. But the court determined that, before imposing a judicial remedy, Iowa voters should have a chance to amend their constitution.

A 1963 amendment proposal, however, did not pass. In response, under supervision from the court, the legislature enacted an interim redistricting plan that made “substantial progress in correcting malapportionment in the General Assembly.” The district court signed off on this effort, but the U.S. Supreme Court then established the one-person, one-vote principle in Reynolds v. Sims. It required states to go further than Iowa’s interim redistricting plan had gone to equalize district populations. 

In response, the legislature proposed, and voters approved, an amendment that required districts for both chambers to be apportioned based on population and to be as compact and contiguous as possible. This 1968 amendment also allowed the legislature to impose additional redistricting factors, directed the legislature to complete redistricting by September 1 of the year following a census, and provided that the state supreme court would step in to draw the maps if the legislature missed its deadline or the maps failed to become law. Finally, the state supreme court was given original jurisdiction over any challenges to the state legislative maps.

Voter Approval of Convention Proposals

Approval of the ballot question calling a constitutional convention in 1920 raised the question whether proposals adopted by a convention—either for a new constitution or discrete amendments—had to be approved by voters in order to take effect. This question remained unresolved after the legislature refused to carry out the 1920 convention call. Forty years later, in 1960, the idea of holding a convention had gained momentum. But the ballot question was narrowly defeated, with some voters rejecting it due to concerns that convention proposals might become law without voter approval. While some opined that “[c]ourts probably would hold that political power is inherent in the people,” and therefore that voters would have the opportunity to vote on any changes to the constitution even in the absence of an explicit constitutional provision guaranteeing this procedure, others thought it “desirable to remove the doubt.” Accordingly, in 1964, voters approved an amendment clarifying that any proposal agreed upon at a convention must be submitted to the electorate for their approval. The amendment also specified that each amendment proposed by a convention must be voted on separately to assure voters they would not be called upon to accept a “package deal.”

Judicial Selection

The Judicial Selection Amendment of 1962, which drew bipartisan support, did away with partisan judicial elections. Instead, in a move designed to “promote professional qualifications and remove judicial selection from partisan politics,” nominating commissions, one at the state level and one for each judicial district, were to select nominees for judgeships.

The commissions were composed of an equal number of members appointed by the governor and elected by members of the state or district bar. Members appointed by the governor to the State Judicial Nominating Commission were subject to senate confirmation. Under the amendment, the governor was required to appoint judges and justices from the commission’s list of approved nominees (and if the governor failed to make the appointment within 30 days, the authority devolve to the chief justice of the Iowa Supreme Court). Once appointed, the judge or justice would serve out a first term before standing in a retention election, giving voters a chance to weigh in. This system remains in place today and is commonly referred to as the Missouri Plan. 

The shift to a merit-based selection system was popular among Iowa judges and lawyers. Writing about the amendment and his desire for a new system, Chief Justice Theodore Garfield of the Iowa Supreme Court remarked, “Party issues involve policy matters which have nothing to do with our fitness and ability to perform our jobs. Many voters are unfamiliar with our individual qualifications and identify judges with a party label. The result is that experienced, able judges are defeated for reelection because of unpopular stands their party takes on issues entirely unrelated to their own fitness for re-election.” Many Iowans seemed to share these sentiments, with a number of editorial comments arguing in favor of the amendment appearing in newspapers throughout the state. Opponents, however, responded that the amendment would “take an elective right away from the people” and “remove judges from partisan politics only to put them into bar association politics.” In the end, the amendment was ratified with more than 57% of the vote. 

Abolishing the State Census

Throughout the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, Iowa, like many other states, conducted its own state census to supplement the national census. After the first six censuses, which took place in specific years listed in the 1857 Iowa Constitution (1859, 1863, 1865, 1867, 1869, and 1875), the census was conducted every year ending in five. This practice was abolished in 1936 by constitutional amendment. Proponents of the amendment argued that the state’s own surveys were no longer necessary because of the federal census and that they should be scrapped to relieve “the burden of taxation from the shoulders of its citizens.” At the time, Iowa was one of only seven states still conducting their own census. Voters overwhelmingly approved the measure, which was perhaps not surprising as “there was no special effort made to defeat the amendment and its success was taken as a matter of course.” 

For a more detailed discussion of Iowa’s historical statewide censuses, see this State Historical Society Pamphlet.

Striking “Male” From Qualifications for State Legislative Office

Although ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gave women in Iowa the right to vote, the state constitution still barred them from holding state legislative office. A separate amendment was required to allow women to hold state legislative office. Suffragists had heralded Iowa as having “the most liberal laws relating to women of any State in the Union” because Iowa led midwestern states in permitting women to take on roles like county superintendent of schools and notaries public. Women were allowed to hold non-legislative offices (except for superior court judge) because the qualifications for those offices made no reference to gender or eligibility to vote. When women gained the right to vote, they also became eligible to run for superior court judgeships since state law required candidates be qualified electors but had no separate gender requirement. 

In 1926, voters ratified an amendment allowing women to hold state legislative office. Two years later, Carolyn Campbell Pendray became Iowa’s first female legislator. She would also go on to be the first woman to preside over the Iowa Senate.

Uncalled Constitutional Convention

In 1920, Iowans voted to hold a constitutional convention to amend or revise the constitution by a margin of almost 60,000 votes (279,652 to 221,763). This was “too large a margin for convention opponents to close the gap via found votes,” as they did in 1900, when a selective recount changed the outcome on the constitutional convention question, overcoming the roughly 500 vote margin initially reported in favor of the convention. Commentators began to speculate that the convention would address issues concerning eminent domain, strike “male” from the definition of electors (bringing the state constitution in line with the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution), and modify the pardon power. 

However, this convention was never held. The following year, after the two chambers introduced conflicting legislation to set the terms for the convention, the legislature adjourned the legislative session before reconciling the two bills. Lawyers reasoned that, because the constitution specified that the legislature was to “provide by law for the election of delegates” “at its next session,” the legislature’s failure to act “nullified the vote . . . in favor of such a convention.” Legislators attempted to justified their inaction by asserting that, despite the vote, “the people do not wish the convention.”

Women’s Suffrage

In 1916, Iowans voted on a proposed amendment to expand the suffrage to women. Had the amendment passed, Iowa would have been the 14th state to grant suffrage to women. Beginning in 1870, a women’s suffrage amendment was introduced in almost every legislative session, but it took until 1916 for the measure to pass in two successive legislative sessions and reach the state’s voters. Ultimately, the amendment was narrowly defeated by a narrow margin of just 3% of the vote.

Following the election, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union raised doubts about the result. Noting that the women’s suffrage referendum received nearly 30,000 more votes than the next most popular contest (the state gubernatorial race), the group conducted an investigation that found evidence of voter fraud. But no mechanism was available for challenging the election, and the legislature refused to call a second vote, “charg[ing] that the women were ‘poor sports’ who should know when they were beaten.”

After significant lobbying, in 1917, legislators agreed to a compromise to put the amendment back on the ballot after passing in two successive legislative sessions. The secretary of state, however, failed to publish notice of the proposed amendment after the resolution’s first passage, which was a prerequisite to taking a second vote. This error forced the legislature to restart the process. Before the Iowa women’s suffrage amendment could make it onto the ballot a second time, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1920, granting women the right to vote nationwide. Although no longer operative, the gender requirement for suffrage was not removed from the Iowa Constitution until 1970.

Biennial Elections

The legislature first proposed the biennial election amendment in 1898. This amendment was designed to shift general elections for all state and local offices to even years. The resolution to put the amendment before voters passed in two consecutive legislative sessions, and voters approved the amendment in 1900. However, three months later, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that the measure had not been properly put on the ballot because the first passage hadn’t been entered in full in the house journal. Instead, the journal referred to the resolution by name and title only, which the court held to be insufficient to fulfill the constitutional requirement that amendments be “entered on [the legislature’s] journals.”

In 1904, the legislature again successfully placed the amendment on the ballot and voters once again approved the amendment. Although both chambers were careful in their recordkeeping this time around, a different legal challenge to the amendment made its way up to the state supreme court. A township in central Iowa decided to test the amendment’s validity by posting a notice for an off-year election for township board trustee, which prompted a lawsuit by the officeholder who, under the amendment, would not have faced reelection until the following year. The township alleged that the amendment violated the constitution’s separate-vote requirement which requires that proposed amendments be placed on the ballot as separate questions, allowing voters to approve or reject individual amendments. The switch to biennial elections had the effect of lengthening some terms of office for incumbents who would have faced reelection in an odd year. These changes, the township argued, amounted to more than one amendment and, therefore, could not be presented to voters as a single ballot question. The Supreme Court of Iowa disagreed, holding that the changes all pertained to the general subject of elections and that their presentation as a single amendment was proper.

Removing Racial Barrier to State Legislative Office

Although Iowa expanded suffrage to non-white men in 1868, the constitution still restricted holding office in the state legislature to “free white males.” Likewise, while the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution removed racial barriers to voting, it did not nullify racial barriers to officeholding in states where the definition of permissible office holders wasn’t “bootstrapped” to the definition of an elector. Iowa fell within the minority of states that did not link eligibility to hold office with eligibility to vote. Therefore, an additional constitutional amendment was required to allow Black men to hold office in the state. The legislature initially sought to amend the constitution along these lines in 1870; however, the resolution failed to pass in the next legislative session. The measure was successfully resurrected later in the decade, passing the legislature in successive sessions. Voters went on to approve the amendment in 1880 by a two-to-one margin. Despite strong support for the amendment, it would be another 80 years before Iowa elected its first Black state legislator.

African American Suffrage

Following the end of the Civil War, the federal government pursued civil rights reforms, including passage of the 13th and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. However, while Congress could use the Reconstruction Acts to set qualifications for voting in the former Confederate states, Northern and Western states were left to their own devices. What emerged was an odd dynamic in which some politicians advocated for Black suffrage in the South while opposing it in their own states because they feared a political backlash. “This paradox bedeviled Republicans throughout the North.”

This same dynamic existed in Iowa. At the 1865 Republican State Convention, delegates were reluctant to face the issue head on, fearing that the issue would divide the party and result in electoral losses in the fall. However, Delegate Edward Russell forced a vote on the issue by using an otherwise “innocuous” resolution to propose the addition of language to support Black suffrage. The convention couldn’t consider any other resolutions without first voting on the amendment. “Not wish[ing] to go on the record appearing to oppose” African American suffrage, the convention approved the amendment by a two-to-one margin.

Later that year, Iowans re-elected Governor W. M. Stone, a Republican who, at his second inaugural address, endorsed the idea of African American suffrage and urged lawmakers to launch the state constitutional amendment process. Two months after Iowa ratified the 13th Amendment, the general assembly adopted a resolution to amend the state’s constitution by removing the word “white” not only from the provision concerning voter eligibility, but also from the provisions concerning membership in the militia and counting inhabitants for purposes of legislative apportionment. This launched a yearlong publicity campaign by Republicans and suffragists to secure the resolution’s passage in the next legislative session. By 1868, the national and state Republican Party platform had declared it a “cardinal principal” that the “rights of the ballot, the protection of the law and equal justice should be given to all men, irrespective of color, race, or religion.” The campaign was successful and, after the legislature passed proposed amendments for a second time, Iowans voted to adopt them. The victories in Iowa (and in Minnesota) were thought to be a “major boost” to the national movement for the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1870, which prohibited the denial of the right to vote on the basis of race.

1857 Constitutional Convention and Iowa’s Current Constitution

“[T]he Constitution of 1846 had scarcely been ratified at the polls before an agitation looking toward its amendment or revision was begun.” One of the most pressing concerns was the constitution’s anti-banking provision; mere weeks after the constitution was ratified, an Iowa newspaper was already claiming that “three fourths of the people of Iowa have determined that, cost what it may, the [anti-banking provision] shall not remain unaltered in the Constitution.” In the decade following its admission to the Union, Iowa’s population quintupled and, along with it, the state’s agricultural production. Despite the state’s economic success, the 1846 Constitution’s anti-banking provision meant that Iowans relied on currencies issued by other states or territories and business and municipal “scrip,” an alternative legal tender, which created a perilous financial position for many Iowans. After failed attempts to amend the constitution by legislative referral, voters determined that it “had become imperative” that the constitution be revised and approved the call for a constitutional convention.

Beyond the issue of banking, the delegates to the 1857 convention faced other important decisions, including whether certain rights should be conferred upon people of color, where to locate the state capital and university, and how to fix the process of amending the state constitution. Delegates worked to resolve these matters over the course of six and half weeks (triple the amount of time delegates took to craft the 1846 Constitution). The resulting document authorized the general assembly to adopt legislation permitting banks and their regulation, permanently established Des Moines as the state capital and Iowa City as the home of the State University of Iowa, and outlined the process for amending the constitution. But rather than resolve the issue of Black suffrage themselves, the delegates decided to put that question to a separate vote. The delegates did agree to a provision permitting non-white Iowans to testify in judicial proceedings and a requirement that the state provide an education to “all the youths of the state.”

At the election held on August 3, 1857, the new constitution was ratified by the close vote of 40,311 to 38,681, a margin of just 1,630 votes. However, the special amendment on Black suffrage was defeated six to one, forcing African Americans in the state to wait ten more years before the constitution extended them the right to vote.