State Reps. Josh Turek and Lindsay James have a lot in common. They’re both Democrats. They’re both running for federal office in open-seat races. They both currently serve in the Iowa House.
And they both missed over half their votes during the 2026 legislative session.
Legislative journals from the Iowa House show that Turek, of Council Bluffs, missed 58.1 percent of floor votes in the House this year — the second-most of any member of the Iowa House.
Turek is running for the U.S. Senate seat left open by the retirement of Sen. Joni Ernst. The legislative session coincided with his primary campaign against former State Senate Minority Leader Zach Wahls, which attracted over $10 million in outside spending.
James, who also faced a primary election during the legislative session, fared only slightly better attendance-wise. Fox News reported that the Dubuque Democrat missed 177 of 342 votes taken during the 2026 legislative session, or 51.7 percent.
Turek’s opponent for the open Senate seat is 2nd District Congresswoman Ashley Hinson of Marion, whose candidacy leaves an open congressional seat in IA-02. James is vying for that seat against former Republican State Rep. Joe Mitchell of Clear Lake.
Both races are competitive, and Hinson and Mitchell’s campaigns have pounced on their opponents’ checkered attendance records. The implication, of course, is that while both Turek and James have been chasing their dreams of higher office, they haven’t given much attention to their existing roles as state legislators.
And if they won’t show up to the jobs they have now, why should voters give them a promotion?
MORE THAN VOTES MISSED
In the Iowa Legislature, the floor vote is only one part of the process. Depending on the stage of the session, legislators are also in committee meetings; gathering with their caucuses to strategize; greeting constituents, some of whom drive a long way to have a day at the Iowa Capitol; and actively debating bills and amendments.
The actual votes only take a few minutes each. If Turek and James weren’t present for those, they likely weren’t there for the committee meetings and the public hearings and the students on field trips and the advocacy groups. And when a visitor at the Capitol filled out the slip to request a moment of their time, those visitors were likely told by a page or a legislative assistant that the legislator was not in at the moment.
Turek defended his absences, saying, “I was around meeting Iowans all over the state.”
As the state legislator from House District 20, his obligation is to the residents of northern Council Bluffs and Carter Lake. Anyone else he encountered wasn’t a constituent, they were a potential voter.
Turek wasn’t out legislating “all over the state.” He was campaigning.
OPPONENT’S RECORD
Speaking to reporters last month, Turek said, “Ashley Hinson has already also missed 193 votes in her six years up in Congress. It’s more votes than I have missed.”
Even a Gumby-like stretch can’t make that a reachable claim. Turek is comparing his number of missed votes from a single legislative session to those of Hinson’s entire congressional career, which spans almost six years. On top of that, the number he cites for Hinson’s missed vote total includes committee votes and floor votes. His 58.1 percent miss rate only tracks floor votes.
Turek isn’t so much comparing apples to oranges as he’s comparing apples to a whole citrus grove.
Looking at just floor votes, Hinson has missed 33 of 2,886 — in her entire six years in Congress.
This year alone, she has missed five out of a total of 285.
Chuck Grassley would say that’s still too many. But GovTrack, an independent website tracking the votes of members of Congress, says Hinson’s lifetime missed vote rate is 1.1%, better than the median of her peers in the House of Representatives.
Even in context, the comparison between Hinson’s and Turek’s voting record this year contains one fundamental flaw: Hinson is a member of Congress; Turek is a state legislator. They are serving in two remarkably different offices.
State legislators gavel in for four months out of the year. Most are employed outside of their legislative duties. Members of Congress are in session year-round with the exception of August and October. And Congress is their employment.
Turek’s district is four miles wide and has 32,000 constituents. Hinson’s is 22 counties with almost 800,000 people. Turek travels two hours by car to get to the Statehouse; Hinson travels two hours by plane to the U.S. Capitol — if she can get a direct flight.
A TRUE COMPARISON
The one similarity between the two is that Hinson, like Turek, spent four years as a state representative. And like Turek, Hinson spent her last year in the Statehouse balancing her legislative duties with a run for federal office.
That’s where the true comparison comes in: Hinson’s attacks on Turek’s shoddy attendance would be meaningless if she, too was a no-show while preparing for her first congressional run in 2020.
Unfortunately for Turek, that wasn’t the case. Records show that Hinson was present for 100 percent of the floor votes during all but one day of the 2020 legislative session. She missed six votes on June 12, 2020 but participated in the other 17 taken that same day.
To keep things in full context, the 2020 legislative session was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, meaning Hinson might not have faced some of the same campaign distractions luring Turek and James away from their duties. But life — and the Iowa Legislature — were completely normal before March 16 of that year. Even pre-COVID, Hinson’s voting frequency was flawless.
Mitchell, James’ opponent, has not served in the state legislature since 2022. He did not seek higher office at any point during his tenure, so the same comparison cannot be made between his and James’ attendance.
Of course, by condemning James for missing half her votes, Mitchell is essentially insisting that he would not have done the same if he, too had been juggling legislative duties and a run for Congress.
As I’ve informed readers before, I’ve been a friend of the Hinson campaign since its inception in 2019, during my political activism days. Given the subject matter for this column and my position on the issue, a reminder of that feels right.
But in this circumstance, even the most shameless hack can sit back and let the numbers speak for themselves.
And those numbers say it clearly: While Iowa legislators were at work in 2026, Josh Turek and Lindsay James were somewhere else.