Kim Reynolds signs law repealing gender balance requirement for Iowa boards and commissions

Gov. Kim Reynolds has signed a law repealing Iowa's requirement that state and local boards and commissions have a balance of men and women serving on them.

Reynolds, a Republican, signed Senate File 2096 Wednesday afternoon in a ceremony in the governor's office in the Iowa State Capitol building in Des Moines.

The requirement was put into law in the 1980s as a way to increase the number of women serving on state boards and commissions. The Iowa Legislature added the requirement for local bodies in 2009.

At the time, Reynolds was a state senator and voted against the legislation.

"I believed then as I still do now that our focus should always be on appointing the most qualified people," she said at the bill signing. "And that includes engaged citizens with a genuine interest in serving their state or local government, as well as individuals with valuable experience that directly relate to that position."

More: Iowa lawmakers vote to repeal gender balance requirement for boards and commissions

While Republicans have cast the requirement as outdated and a hindrance to finding qualified applicants for boards and commissions, Democrats say removing the gender balance rule will take the state backwards and result in fewer women serving.

"To attain equality, those who have the power must share it," Rep. Beth Wessel-Kroeschell, D-Ames, said during House debate in February. "However, those who have the power struggle to give it up. Without mandating gender balanced boards we do not make progress in creating them."

Sen. Chris Cournoyer, R-Le Claire, spoke at Wednesday's bill signing. She said there are more women serving in a range of careers than ever before.

"Our foremothers who fought hard over many, many years to get us a seat at the table, whether it was the right to vote, Title IX or countless other ways, are smiling today," she said. "They got us to the table and it has been up to us to show that we belong there. And we have."

According to the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics, about 50% of Iowa county boards and commissions had achieved gender balance between 2013 and 2014. Between 2021 and 2022, it was about 61%.

Women make up about 48% of the membership of Iowa's state boards and commissions, the center reported.

Iowa's law already allowed the gender balance requirement to be waived if the state could not find a qualified person to serve within 90 days.

In her remarks, Cournoyer encouraged more women to apply for positions in state government.

"The women of Iowa, I am asking you to find a board and commission that you’re interested in and get your application in," she said.

The law will take effect July 1.

In January, a federal judge struck down the gender balance requirement for Iowa's statewide judicial nominating commission, finding that the law may have been appropriate when it was created, but no longer passes constitutional muster. The ruling did not apply to other boards or commissions.

Reynolds invited the plaintiff in that case, lobbyist and former Republican lawmaker Chuck Hurley, as well as lawyers from the Kirkwood Institute and Pacific Legal Foundation, to join her at the bill signing.

More: Kim Reynolds wants to cut Iowa boards and commissions. Lawmakers disagree about how much

Reynolds proposed ending the gender balance requirement in January as part of a bill that would eliminate more than 100 state boards and commissions. Lawmakers have yet to pass that measure as House and Senate Republicans work to find agreement between two different versions of the bill.

Reynolds said she believes lawmakers are making progress on that bill and will pass it soon.

"We’re having really good conversations with it," she said.

Stephen Gruber-Miller covers the Iowa Statehouse and politics for the Register. He can be reached by email at [email protected] or by phone at 515-284-8169. Follow him on Twitter at @sgrubermiller.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Kim Reynolds signs law repealing gender balance rule for Iowa boards