Today, the Human Rights Campaign announced the endorsement of champions of equality running for the Iowa State Legislature.

Earlier this year, the Iowa State Legislature considered several anti-LGBTQ bills, including legislation that would have ended transgender civil rights protections. After a significant lobbying effort from One Iowa, the Human Rights Campaign, and our allies, that bill was defeated. Today’s endorsements mark the next step of our efforts to elect as many pro-equality allies as possible to the state legislature so all Iowans, regardless of who they are or whom they love, are treated equally under the law.

“Earlier this year, we fought hard to stop attempts by the Iowa legislature to discriminate against LGBTQ Iowans,” said HRC Associate Regional Campaign Director Lindsey Clark. “But our work will not be finished until we have more elected leaders in Des Moines who believe in the rights and dignity of LGBTQ Iowans. We are proud to endorse 17 champions of LGTBQ equality who have led the fight in their own communities and on the state level to advance equality and defend against attempts to roll back LGBTQ rights. Between now and November, we are laser focused on mobilizing the 448,000 Equality Voters across Iowa to ensure these and other pro-equality candidates up and down the ballot are elected.”

HRC Endorsed Candidates include:

• CJ Petersen (SD-06)
• Steve Gorman (SD-08)
• Sarah Garriott (SD-22)
• Matt Tapscott (SD-28)
• Dave Degner (SD-36)
• Tom Courtney (SD-44)
• Jen Pellant (HD-16)
• Andrea Phillips (HD-37)
• Karin Derry (HD-39)
• Kenan Judge (HD-44)
• Kayla Koether (HD-55)
• Liz Bennett (HD-65)
• Eric Gjerde (HD-67)
• Sue Cahill (HD-71)
• Phil Miller (HD-82)
• Kelcey Brackett (HD-91)
• Christian Andrews (HD-95)

In the 2018 midterms, HRC mobilized our grassroots army of 3.2 million members, supporters, and volunteers to work on behalf of pro-equality candidates and engage pro-equality voters primarily in six key states: Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. This unprecedented grassroots mobilization worked to recruit and train volunteers, register and mobilize voters and grow the organization's political organizing efforts in order to pull the emergency brake on the hateful anti-LGBTQ agenda of the Trump-Pence administration and elect a Congress that would hold them accountable.

In 2020, our engagement and mobilization efforts have only deepened. In addition to our expansive volunteer network, HRC will have at least 51 full-time staff in seven priority states (Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin) and an additional 26 staff focused on a second tier of states, including Iowa. While in person organizing has been limited by the COVID-19 pandemic, HRC has embraced digital organizing, launching a new tool called TEAM allowing our broad network of volunteers and steering committees to engage their networks personally and hundreds of virtual phone banks and text banks to engage pro-equality voters even without the ability to interact in person.