Iowa Politics with Jeff Stein -- Thu. Sep. 03, 2026

Already far too late.

I'm Jeff Stein with today's Iowa Politics Report.

There is still talk about Congress passing a version of the Save America Act, something that would require a person to show some form of ID at the polling place nationwide.

But regardless of whether the votes are there in Congress or not,

It's a complete waste of time at this point because those in charge of Congress missed their opportunity on the issue long ago.

The House leaves today for the Labor Day break and won't be back until September 14th.

The Senate is on its annual month-long August recess and also won't be back in Washington until September 14th.

So even if both chambers passed the same bill and sent it to the President,

They're too late because early in-person voting begins on September 18th in four states, Idaho, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Virginia.

Even if the president signed it on Monday, the sure-to-follow legal challenge will delay implementation by at least a day or two, and those four states start voting on Friday of the very week Congress gets back.

Whoops!

Not enough time to implement any changes before voting begins.

Now we can have the conversation about why in the world voting in the November 3rd election starts anywhere on September 18th, but it does.

And even in states where early voting starts at a more reasonable time, how do you implement these changes in time, especially when many of those running elections don't want the changes to be implemented?

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but it's especially aggravating for those on the ballot to keep beating the drum on the issue, to either get notoriety or campaign contributions, or both, and to do it when the issue has been lost since summer began.

But, as I've also mentioned, the ones in Congress now were elected by the current rules.

So where's their incentive to change the system that they know, the one they've already used to their advantage?

It's one more example of how broken the system is and how hard it is for even a strong-willed president to change it.

And that's the Iowa Politics Report for Thursday, September 3 on Twitter, Instagram, Gitter, Threads and Truth Social at Iowa Politics.

I'm Jeff Stein on News Talk 1540, KXEL.