Roby Smith

Floor-Managed the Law That Cut Iowans' Voting Time

As a Davenport state senator, Roby Smith was the lead floor manager of Senate File 413 in 2021 — the law that cut early voting from 29 days to 20, moved poll-closing an hour earlier, tightened absentee-ballot rules, and added new criminal penalties for election officials. He led it to passage.[1]

Pushed Iowa's Voter ID Law and Killed Straight-Ticket Voting

Four years earlier, Smith floor-managed House File 516 (2017) — Iowa's voter-ID law, which required an approved ID at the polls and eliminated straight-ticket voting.[2]

The Senate's Point Man on Restricting the Vote

As chair of the Senate committee with authority over election law, Smith led one voting crackdown after another — including a second 2021 election bill, SF 568.[3][4] In 2022 he was elected State Treasurer, unseating a 40-year Democratic incumbent.[5]

Voted for One of the Country's Strictest Abortion Bans

In 2018, Davenport state senator Roby Smith voted for Senate File 359, then one of the strictest abortion bans in the country, which barred most abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected — roughly six weeks, before many women know they are pregnant. A court struck it down in 2019,[20] but it was the direct precursor to the six-week ban Iowa enforces today.[6]

Voted to Gut Collective Bargaining for Public Workers

In 2017, Smith voted for House File 291, which gutted collective bargaining for most of Iowa's public employees — teachers in the Davenport, Bettendorf, Pleasant Valley and North Scott districts, plus county and city workers — narrowing most negotiations down to base wages alone.[7]

Voted for the Flat Tax That Favors the Top

In 2022, Smith voted for House File 2317, the law phasing Iowa to a single 3.9% flat income-tax rate — a change critics say delivers the largest cuts to the highest earners while eroding the revenue that funds schools and local services.[8]

Voted for “Stand Your Ground” — and to Lock Gun Rights Into the Constitution

Smith backed a sweeping loosening of Iowa's gun laws, then voted to make those laws nearly impossible for any future legislature to tighten.

• Voted for House File 517 (2017), the omnibus firearms law that enacted “stand your ground,” loosened permit and carry rules, and let children handle handguns under adult supervision; it passed the Senate 33-17.[9]
• Voted to adopt Senate Joint Resolution 18 (2019), the gun-rights amendment written with a “strict scrutiny” standard — the highest legal hurdle for any future gun-safety law — which Iowa voters ratified in 2022;[21] it was adopted 33-16.[12]

Also Voted for a 20-Week Ban and a 72-Hour Waiting Period

A year before the heartbeat ban, Smith voted for Senate File 471 (2017), which banned most abortions after 20 weeks and forced a 72-hour waiting period, with no exception for rape or incest. The Iowa Supreme Court struck down the waiting period in 2018.[22] It passed the Senate 30-20 on final passage, after an earlier 32-17 vote on the bill as introduced.[19][10]

Voted to Ban Transgender Girls From Girls' Sports

In 2022, Smith voted for House File 2416, which barred transgender girls and women from female sports teams in Iowa's K-12 schools and colleges. It passed 31-17.[16]

Voted the 2021 Culture-War Agenda Down the Line

Across 2021, Smith backed a slate of bills restricting how race is taught, redirecting public-school dollars, and cracking down on protest.

• Voted for House File 802 (2021), which barred government agencies, schools and universities from mandatory training on so-called “divisive concepts” about race and sex; it passed 30-18.[13]
• Voted for House File 813 (2021), which rewrote Iowa law to make it easier to open charter schools outside local elected school-board control; it passed 30-18.[14]
• Voted for Senate File 342 (2021), the “Back the Blue” Act, which raised penalties for protest-related offenses like riot and unlawful assembly and penalized local governments that cut police budgets; it passed 27-18.[15]

Voted for the 2018 Tax Cut Tilted Toward the Top

Four years before the flat tax, Smith voted for Senate File 2417 (2018), then the largest tax cut in Iowa history — a package critics said mainly benefited the highest earners while eroding revenue for schools and local services. It passed 28-20.[11]

Moved to Strip the Emergency Powers That Expanded Voting in 2020

In June 2020, as the pandemic raged, Smith championed a bill to curb the Secretary of State's emergency authority — the same power Iowa's Republican Secretary of State had used to mail absentee-request forms to every registered voter — and to bar county auditors from filling in a missing ID number on an absentee ballot.[18]

• “This bill is about security. Right now, there’s no voter ID when it comes to absentee ballots. All you’ve got to do is put your name on it, sign it, send it in.” — Smith, Iowa Senate floor debate, June 10, 2020[18]

Said Iowans’ Absentee Ballots Were “Treated Like a Kleenex”

Debating the final 2021 election bill he floor-managed — Senate File 568, the law that criminalized most third-party delivery of a voter's absentee ballot, a burden that falls hardest on disabled and homebound Iowans — Smith dismissed the system that came before it.[17]