Mike Vondran

Voted to Strip Civil-Rights Protections From Transgender Iowans

Vondran voted Yes on SF 418 (2025), which removed gender identity as a protected class from the Iowa Civil Rights Act — opening the door to legal discrimination against transgender Iowans in jobs, housing, and services.[1]

Voted to Ban Gender-Affirming Care for Minors

He voted Yes on SF 538 (2023), banning doctors from providing gender-affirming care to transgender minors — overriding the judgment of families and physicians.[2]

Voted to Ban Diversity Programs Across Iowa

Vondran voted Yes on HF 856 (2025), banning diversity, equity, and inclusion offices at Iowa's public universities and government entities.[3]

Voted to Punish Local Police Over Immigration

He voted Yes on HF 946 (2025), creating penalties for local law-enforcement agencies that don't fall in line with federal immigration enforcement.[4]

Voted for Iowa's Six-Week Abortion Ban

Vondran voted Yes on HF 732 (2023), Iowa's abortion ban that prohibits most abortions once fetal cardiac activity is detected — about six weeks into pregnancy, before many people know they are pregnant. It passed the House 56-34 in a one-day special session on July 11, 2023, with narrow exceptions for medical emergency, fetal abnormality, and reported rape or incest.[6]

Voted to Route Public-School Dollars to Private Tuition

Vondran voted Yes on HF 68 (2023), the “Students First Act,” creating Education Savings Accounts that route public education dollars to private-school tuition. It passed the House 55-45 on Jan. 23, 2023 — a pocketbook-and-schools vote that touches every public-school family and rural district in Scott County.[7]

Voted to Censor Classrooms and Gut Special-Education Services

Beyond routing tax dollars to private tuition, Vondran backed two more bills that hit Scott County's public schools — restricting what teachers can say and restructuring the agency that serves special-needs students.

• Voted Yes on SF 496 (2023), which barred instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation in grades K-6, required school libraries to remove books not deemed “age-appropriate,” and forced schools to notify parents of a student's gender-identity requests. It passed the House 57-38.[9]
• Voted Yes — twice — on HF 2612 (2024), which overhauled Iowa's Area Education Agencies, including Scott County's own Mississippi Bend AEA that provides special-education, speech, and related services, shifting control of that funding to the state and districts. Several Republicans broke ranks and voted no; Vondran did not.[11]

Loosened Child-Labor Limits and Added Hurdles to Health Care

On kitchen-table votes, Vondran sided with rolling back protections for the youngest workers and adding red tape between working Iowans and their health coverage.

• Voted Yes on SF 542 (2023), a nationally controversial rollback of Iowa's child-labor law that expanded the hours and types of jobs 14-to-17-year-olds may work and created waivers letting minors into some previously prohibited work settings. It passed the House 60-34.[10]
• Voted Yes — on initial passage and again on concurrence — on SF 615 (2025), which imposed work requirements on Iowans covered by Medicaid expansion, forcing them to document 80 hours of work or activity a month or lose their health coverage.[13]
• Voted Yes on SF 2442 (2024), which accelerated Iowa's move to a 3.8% flat income tax and changed property taxes — a tax-cut vote that, unlike most on this page, passed 68-24 with bipartisan support.[14]

Voted for an Immigration Law the Courts Blocked

Vondran didn't stop at penalizing local police. He also backed a state immigration law modeled on Texas's SB4 that a federal court blocked before it could take effect.

• Voted Yes on SF 2340 (2024), which made it a state crime for a noncitizen previously deported or denied U.S. entry to be present in Iowa and let state judges order their removal. It passed the House 64-30 and was halted by a federal court injunction.[12]

Co-Sponsored a Measure to Keep Trans Protections — Then Voted to Strip Them

Vondran was one of ten House Republicans who co-sponsored amendment H-1031 to preserve gender identity as a protected class in the Iowa Civil Rights Act. He then reversed course — saying he had been “mislead” and would speak against his own amendment — and voted Yes on SF 418 after the amendment was withdrawn without debate.[15]