DUBUQUE, Iowa

DUBUQUE, Iowa — On November 3, 2026, Iowa voters will decide the state’s only statewide ballot measure: Amendment 1, which would write a new rule into the Iowa Constitution requiring a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to raise income taxes.

Here is what the measure does, who stands to gain most from it, and why critics say Iowa’s lowest-income residents could end up worse off.

What a yes vote would do

Amendment 1 would require the affirmative votes of at least two-thirds of the members elected to each house of the Legislature — 67 of 100 representatives and 34 of 50 senators — before any bill could raise the individual or corporate income tax rate, or create a new state tax on income. Today, such a bill needs only a simple majority. A no vote keeps the current system.

The amendment would not itself raise or lower anyone’s taxes. It would not change state spending, sales taxes, property taxes, or local-option taxes, and it would not create or protect any tax credit, deduction, or exemption. Lawsuits challenging whether a covered bill passed correctly would have to be filed within one year of enactment. The measure, passed by lawmakers as Senate Joint Resolution 11, would add a new Article XIII to the state constitution.

Who benefits most

The amendment gives nobody a tax cut on its own. But it would lock in the current tax structure, and that is where the distributional question comes in.

Iowa now has a 3.8 percent flat income tax, the product of several rounds of cuts in recent years. An analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found the average Iowa millionaire’s cut was worth about $62,000 a year, while Iowans earning $40,000 to $60,000 saved roughly $300 a year, and most Iowans earning under $40,000 saw no cut at all. Common Good Iowa, part of the coalition opposing the amendment, estimates two-thirds of the benefits of the move to the flat tax went to the top 20 percent of earners.

That is the core of the “who benefits” answer: high-income individuals and profitable corporations would benefit most from Amendment 1, indirectly, because it makes the current low-rate structure much harder for a future Legislature to reverse. A small minority — 34 representatives or 17 senators — could block any income tax increase, even one backed by a majority of lawmakers.

Supporters, led by Iowans for Tax Relief, answer that the rule applies equally regardless of income: whether a taxpayer earns $25,000 or $1 million, the same two-thirds threshold would apply to raising the rate that applies to them. They also note that at least 16 other states have some form of supermajority requirement for tax increases, and argue the rule would force broader consensus and give families and businesses more stable rates to plan around. Polling cited by supporters in September 2026 put support at 68.3 percent, while an August 2026 Suffolk University poll found voters split — 33 percent yes, 36 percent no, and 30 percent undecided — so the state of public opinion is genuinely unclear.

Would it hurt Iowa’s poorest?

Amendment 1 does not raise taxes on low-income Iowans, and because they owe little or no state income tax, a future income tax increase blocked by the amendment would not have cost them much in the first place. The risk critics describe is indirect, and it runs through the state budget.

Iowa is already facing large shortfalls: the state’s Revenue Estimating Conference projected fiscal year 2027 revenue more than $1.1 billion below the budget lawmakers approved in May, with a deficit of more than $800 million looming in fiscal year 2028 even under a flat budget, according to Common Good Iowa’s account of the estimates. Critics argue that if income taxes are effectively off the table, future legislatures facing shortfalls will have only two moves left: cut services low-income Iowans rely on, such as public schools and health care, or raise other taxes and fees.

That second option is where the regressivity argument bites. Amendment 1 covers only income taxes, leaving sales taxes untouched. Sales taxes take a larger share of income from poor households than from rich ones: Common Good Iowa notes the bottom 20 percent of earners pay six times more of their income in sales tax than the top 1 percent. A retired University of Iowa finance professor, Peter Fisher, put the figures at about 6 percent of income in sales and excise taxes for the lowest-income Iowans, versus 1 to 2 percent for top earners.

Supporters dispute that chain of events, saying the amendment does not require spending cuts, does not raise the sales tax, and does not prevent lawmakers from raising an income tax rate — it only requires more votes to do so.

The bottom line

A yes vote is, in effect, a bet that the bigger danger is future income tax increases, and that locking in today’s rates is worth tying future legislatures’ hands. A no vote is a bet that the bigger danger is a budget squeeze that gets resolved through service cuts or regressive taxes, and that majority rule over tax policy is worth preserving. Neither side’s worst-case scenario is guaranteed — but the evidence on who has gained from Iowa’s recent tax cuts, and who pays the most in sales tax, is the factual starting point for deciding which risk matters more.

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