It’s the Friday before First Funnel. This week has seen a flurry of activity on bills in Des Moines related to food insecurity, SNAP, WIC, and Summer EBT. Some bad. Some good. Next week will be extremely consequential at the statehouse, and contacting your State Representative and Senator is crucial right now. We encourage you to keep reading to learn more, but here’s the most important action you can take:
Contact members of the House and Senate Health and Human Services Committees (especially if you’re a constituent) and ask them to:
- Don’t take food away from pregnant women, babies, and young children by imposing additional eligibility restrictions for WIC.
- Oppose efforts to codify food restrictions for SNAP and Summer EBT.
- Support a $1 million appropriation for Double Up Food Bucks.
Keep it short, respectful, and let them know why this matters to you and your community.
Wait, hold up a second. First funnel? If you’re not familiar with the phrase, don’t worry. Iowa’s state legislative process isn’t always the easiest to understand. But we’ll guide you through what it means, and what meaningful actions you can take in the next few days to help prevent children from losing access to critical nutrition programs.
House Nutrition Restriction Bills Advance Out of Subcommittees
On Monday, HSB 694 and HSB 696 were introduced, as we wrote about here. Subcommittee meetings for the bills were held on Wednesday (HSB 696) and Thursday (HSB 694). Both bills passed out of subcommittee on 2-1 party-line votes.
HSB 694 is the Governor’s public health bill, and Section 16 seeks to create a continuous food restriction waiver for SNAP and Summer EBT. It would give authority to the Iowa HHS Director, or their “designee,” to determine what is “healthy food” allowable for purchase SNAP and Summer EBT. It also ties the state’s participation in Summer EBT, and seems to also require the state to have a healthy food waiver in place to participate in SNAP—though there’s contradictory language about ensuring “the provision of SNAP benefits to recipients is uninterrupted.”
HSB 696 is a “welfare reform” bill introduced by Rep. Austin Harris, chair of the House Health and Human Services Committee.There are some problematic pieces in Division I (namely Sections 4 and 6), but the most concerning elements are Sections 12 and 15.
- Section 12 would require 12-months residency to qualify for public assistance programs, which goes against federal law for SNAP, WIC, and Medicaid. It would allow Iowa HHS to ask applicants how long they’ve been in Iowa and their “reasons for being in the state.”
- Section 15 (Division IV) would restrict WIC eligibility to citizens and “qualified aliens.” This would take food away from pregnant women, infants, and children at no savings whatsoever to the state, just to make a political point. Proper nutrition is critical for young bodies and minds to grow and develop. Taking formula and food away from mothers and their babies is just plain cruel.
We encourage you to reach out to all members of the House Health and Human Services Committee and encourage them to strike Section 16 from HSB 694 and strike Sections 12 and 15 from HSB 696.
SNAP Bills Show Up in the Senate
This week also saw the introduction of a number of related bills in the Iowa Senate. SSB 3130 is the Governor’s bill, and companion to HSB 694. IHC opposes it for the same reason: Section 16 codifies food restrictions for SNAP and Summer EBT. A subcommittee meeting has not yet been scheduled.
While we have not yet seen a companion bill introduced for HSB 696, Sen. Kara Warme, Chair of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, did introduce SSB 3140. Thankfully, this bill does not change eligibility for WIC, but it still does contain a concerning provision that would require the state to report the citizenship status of all members of a SNAP household to USDA, even those not applying for benefits. This could prevent mixed-status households from applying for SNAP out of fear for their families’ safety.
- A subcommittee meeting for SSB 3140 is scheduled for Tuesday, February 17, at 12:00pm in Room 315. Sen. Webster, Sen. Warme, and Sen. Trone Garriott are assigned to the subcommittee. Please reach out to them and encourage them to strike lines 22-26 on page 2 of the bill. As a reminder, you can testify remotely in the Senate, and you can always submit public comments online.
- Sen. Scott Webster – scott.webster@legis.iowa.gov
- Sen. Kara Warme – kara.warme@legis.iowa.gov
- Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott – sarah.trone.garriott@legis.iowa.gov
On Thursday, Sen. Westrich introduced a similar, more narrow bill, SF 2310, which simply requires the state to use the SAVE system to verify immigration status for public assistance programs in the state. This is already current practice for SNAP in Iowa. But we’ve also seen how the Department of Homeland Security has overhauled SAVE under the Trump administration in a way that has the potential for abuse.
Sen. Warme also introduced multiple bills that seem to split up the Governor’s public health bill. SSB 3139 contains the same Section 16, which IHC opposes, and strips out the Governor’s proposed tobacco and hemp tax increase.
- A subcommittee meeting for SSB 3139 is scheduled for Monday, February 16, at 12:00pm in Room 315. Tell the subcommittee members to oppose Section 16, which would make food restrictions permanent for SNAP and Summer EBT. You can testify remotely in the Senate, and you can also submit public comments online (but we encourage you send emails, too).
- Sen. Kara Warme – kara.warme@legis.iowa.gov
- Sen. Mark Costello – mark.costello@legis.iowa.gov
- Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott – sarah.trone.garriott@legis.iowa.gov
Instead, the smoking tax increase is in SSB 3145, which also contains a $1 million appropriation for Double Up Food Bucks. IHC is registered in support of SSB 3145, as well as SF 2027, a Double Up Food Bucks bill introduced at the start of session by Sen. Dawson.
- A subcommittee meeting for SSB 3145 is scheduled for Tuesday, February 17, at 1:00pm in Room 217. In addition to emailing the members thanking them for their support for Double Up Food Bucks, you can also speak at the subcommittee online or leave public comments on the legislative website.
- Sen. Kara Warme – kara.warme@legis.iowa.gov
- Sen. Annette Sweeney – annette.sweeney@legis.iowa.gov
- Sen. Catelin Drey – catelin.drey@legis.iowa.gov
Some Other Good News
In addition to some positive indications on legislation supporting Double Up Food Bucks, we’ve also seen The Iowa Farm Act advance out of subcommittees in the House and Senate. This legislation was introduced by the Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS) Secretary Mike Naig. It includes making the Choose Iowa Farm to School Food Purchasing Program permanent, a priority for the Iowa Hunger Coalition and our partners at the Iowa Food System Coalition.
- Contact members of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees and encourage them to support the Choose Iowa provisions in the Iowa Farm Act, and to make sure they’re funded in the budget, too!
A few other good bills were also introduced this week by House Democrats: HF 2394 would create a $1 million matching fund for food banks and emergency food providers, and HF 2421, which would direct the state to use reserve funds to issue SNAP benefits in an event of a government shutdown and delayed issuance of SNAP benefits, like we saw in November 2025. Unfortunately, because both of these bills were introduced by Democrats, they have a slim chance of even getting a subcommittee meeting scheduled, much less a vote on the floor.
Next week is First Funnel, where most bills need to pass out of their Committee by the end of the week or be considered “dead.” This can be a make-or-break moment for bills. You can expect to see a flurry of activity, and we should have a better sense next week where we need to focus our attention next.
If you have any questions about these bills, or others you think we should be paying attention to, feel free to reach out at iowahungercoalition@gmail.com.
Thank you for all your ongoing advocacy!