Lindsay James, an Iowa state legislator now running for Congress, has missed 177 of 342 votes in the Iowa House this year. That's a 51.7% absence rate — worse than a coin flip on whether she'll bother showing up.
She campaigned on the opposite.
"You know me, I have a pretty strong work ethic at the capitol, early, very late, providing for my constituents," James said when she announced her bid for Iowa's 2nd Congressional District. She also promised voters that "full-time campaigning" wouldn't interfere with "fulfilling my important work in the Iowa legislature."
Fox News reports the reality has been somewhat different. On April 20, James skipped a vote on a screen time limitation bill to attend a campaign event in Cedar Rapids — roughly two hours from Des Moines. On April 30, she missed a vote on a bill to make animal torture a felony so she could attend a brewery meet-and-greet in Decorah. She also missed a vote on property tax reduction while campaigning in Dubuque, a three-hour drive from the capitol.
These weren't obscure procedural motions. Screen time for kids. Animal cruelty. Property taxes. The kind of bread-and-butter issues that a legislator with a "pretty strong work ethic" might want to weigh in on.
Emily Tuttle, a spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee, didn't mince words. "Lindsay James promised Iowans that campaigning wouldn't distract her from the job she was elected to do. That didn't last long," Tuttle said. "James chose her own political ambitions over showing up for work."
James's campaign spokesperson, Jackson Smith, offered a defense that leaned heavily on biography rather than attendance records. "Lindsay has always fought for Iowa families, taking on corporate greed and predatory landlords and writing the bill to cap the cost of insulin," Smith said.
That's a fine résumé line. But writing a bill and voting on other people's bills are two different things, and the second one is literally the job description. James has been in the Iowa House since 2019. She knows how the schedule works.
The seat opened up because Rep. Ashley Hinson, a Republican, is pursuing the Senate bid to replace retiring Sen. Joni Ernst. James won her primary earlier this month and will face Republican Joe Mitchell in the general election.
Most Americans who miss half their shifts get a conversation with HR, not a promotion. James is banking on voters not noticing the gap between the campaign pitch and the voting record.
The pitch was "strong work ethic." The record is 177 missed votes out of 342. One of those is a slogan. The other is a percentage.
