By O. Kay Henderson (Radio Iowa)

A bill that’s cleared the Iowa House would mandate that Iowa’s public school districts let local private school students join the district’s sports teams if the private school isn’t offering the sport.

Representative Henry Stone, a Republican from Forest City, said kids should be allowed to compete in sports, whether they’re enrolled in a public or a private school.

“The impetus of this bill is not to show favoritism or to elevate non-public schools,” he said. “It’s being brought about because school districts started severing longstanding athletic agreement with non-public schools once non-public schools entered their accredidation process or after we passed ESAs.”

ESAs are state-funded Education Savings Accounts to cover private school expenses. Stone said the Clear Lake and Garner School Districts are not allowing students from the private Clear Lake Classical school to play sports.

“We have got to quit looking at every issue as a public versus a non-public school issue,” Stone said. “…What we’re talking about today are issues that are affecting our kids and affecting our grandkids. My two grandsons live in the Garner School District. In my opinion, we need to push past our differences and squabbles as adults and not take those differences out on our kids.”

The bill passed with the support of 63 House Republicans. The 33 Democrats in the House opposed it. Representative Heather Matson, a Democrat from Ankeny, said public school officials should be able to make local decisions based on serving students from families who’ve chosen to send their child to the public school.

“Our schools are in survival mode. Iowa also has a teacher shortage,” she said. “We cannot assume this requirement won’t be a problem.”

Matson said the bill applies to middle school as well as high school students. “Public schools will be required to have agreements on every sport they offer to those private school students who don’t have the sport at their school, regardless of capacity,” Matson said. “…If the team is full, would new sections be required? What about finding additional spaces to practice? The cost of adding staff members? The fact that it is already difficult to find volunteers to coach?”

The mandate in the bill also applies to other extracurricular activities. If the bill becomes law, private school students would have to be allowed to join competitive groups like show choirs or marching bands if their private school doesn’t offer it.

DES MOINES—Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate announced today that his office has completed additional audits of Iowa’s voter registration lists and identified 277 confirmed noncitizens who have voted or are registered to vote. After gaining access to the federal SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements) program, the agency compared its data with the self-reported noncitizen data received from the Iowa Department of Transportation last fall. Access to the SAVE program has allowed the Iowa Secretary of State’s office to significantly reduce the former estimate of 2,186 potential noncitizens to 277 confirmed noncitizens. That is approximately 12% of the 2,186 individuals.

Further review found that 35 noncitizens cast ballots that were ultimately counted in the 2024 General Election and 5 noncitizens attempted to cast ballots that were rejected.

• 18 noncitizens cast normal ballots at the polls on Election Day; these votes were counted.
• 15 noncitizens returned absentee ballots; these votes were counted.
• 2 noncitizens cast provisional ballots at the polls on Election Day; these votes were counted.
• 2 noncitizens returned absentee ballots that were rejected by the Absentee and Special Voters Precinct (ASVP) boards.
• 3 noncitizens voted provisional ballots on Election Day that were rejected by the ASVP boards.
• 22 noncitizens registered to vote in 2024 but did not vote.

All of these noncitizens will be turned over to the Iowa Attorney General’s Office and Iowa Department of Public Safety for investigation and next steps.

The Iowa Legislature is currently considering proposals from the Secretary of State’s office on voter list maintenance. This legislation allows the office to verify citizenship at the point of registration.

“The federal government reviewed our data and verified the citizenship status but refused to share who the noncitizens were,” said Secretary Pate. “Only eligible Iowa voters should participate in Iowa elections. We are working with the Iowa legislature on solutions to verify citizenship at registration rather than as ballots are cast, and we’re confident both chambers will recognize the importance of this legislation. Our proposed solutions will be crucial next steps in confidently balancing voter participation with election integrity.”

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) field office in Des Moines reviewed the set of 2,186 self-reported noncitizens last fall and confirmed with the Iowa Secretary of State’s office that approximately 12% of those individuals were noncitizens. The Washington, D.C. office later denied the Iowa Secretary of State’s office access to that clarifying data. Secretary Pate issued directives to affected counties to require potential noncitizens to cast provisional ballots and later provide documentary proof of citizenship for the ballots to be accepted.

In addition to legislative proposals, Secretary Pate is pursuing legal action against USCIS. The lawsuit asks the federal government to provide valuable information that would streamline citizenship verification and allow election officials to compare voter registration lists with the SAVE program data using social security numbers.

“Maintaining election integrity is a team sport, and we need cooperation from multiple agencies, including the federal government,” said Secretary Pate. “We are hopeful that between our legislative proposals and this lawsuit, we will have the tools we need to verify voter eligibility during the voter registration processes, allowing us to ensure in the future, only eligible Iowa voters are participating in Iowa elections.”