DES MOINES -- Republicans in the Iowa House this year added a member without winning an election.
Of course, while she is at the Iowa Capitol every day, Alma Jones does not vote on bills, and she is yet to speak during debate. Maybe she’s playing her political cards close to the vest. Maybe she’s more the strong, silent type.
More likely, it’s because she’s only 2 months old.
Alma Lucille Jones is the daughter of Iowa Rep. Megan Jones, a Republican from Sioux Rapids. Alma was born Jan. 24, just more than 2 weeks into this year’s legislative session, and has been with her mother in the Capitol since birth. Jones carries her daughter with her everywhere she goes: into committee hearings, on the floor during debate, and into closed-door caucus meetings with her fellow Republicans.
“We’ve been apart three times since May of last year (when Jones became pregnant),” Jones said.
Once Jones and her husband Will, who farms corn, beans, cattle and pigs about 10 miles south of Spencer in northwest Iowa, knew she was pregnant, they did the math and realized the baby likely would arrive early in the 2018 legislative session. Their other child, son Anchor, is old enough to attend daycare, but there was not a spot for Alma.
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Jones asked Iowa House Speaker Linda Upmeyer and Majority Leader Chris Hagenow if she could bring Alma with her to work.
“So God has his own timing, and he doesn’t always think of the legislative schedule,” Jones said. “Shortly into our pregnancy I had a conversation with the Speaker and Majority Leader, and they were so supportive. ...
“We’re a big family here. So what’s one more person to the bunch?”
Alma has been a bipartisan hit. Legislators of all political stripes have fawned over her, and have gone out of their way to make her mother comfortable.
“It’s been really fun having a baby in the House for a while,” Upmeyer said. “It might have been different if Alma wasn’t a really good baby. But she’s just a really good baby.”
Jones said other than missing roughly two weeks early in the session to give birth, she has not altered her legislative schedule. Alma accompanies her mother in an over-the-shoulder sling, and when she needs to be fed or be changed, Jones uses an office she shares with fellow Republican Rep. Mike Sexton.
“We have a pre-arranged agreement that if the door is shut, you don’t come in,” Jones said. “So far it has worked out swimmingly.”
After the day’s work at the Capitol is done, Jones and Alma retire to a condominium in a western Des Moines suburb that Jones rents during the session.
“When we wake up in the morning is kind of dictated by how the night goes, of course, with a newborn. We get up, get ready, come to work,” Jones said. “We gavel in, to caucus just like everybody else. ... I just wear her around.”
Jones said a Republican colleague joked that Alma could come in useful during key moments of legislative debate.
“(Democratic Rep.) Mary Mascher is a great debater, and it was a bill she wasn’t exactly fond of, and somebody said, ‘Give her the baby,’” Jones said.
Indeed, everyone wants to see or hold the baby. Jones said she is trying to be judicious --- “Baby passing is not good, especially during flu season,” she said --- and the hand sanitizer is flowing freely.
“A lot of hand sanitizer,” Upmeyer said.
Alma’s time at the Capitol is winding down. A spot in daycare has opened up.
Jones said as great as it has been having Alma with her throughout the legislative session, it will be good for mother and daughter to “spread their wings.”
This will be a memorable session for Jones, and just as she starts to explain why, Alma starts to get a little fussy.
“A lot more calm ... a lot more bipartisan,” Jones said in describing the session. “Maybe that’s just what I’m feeling. ... Certainly I think she helps defuse some of those negative feelings.
“And she really helps remind us all about why we’re here. We’re all fighting for the kids and fighting for the future of Iowa. We just may have a different opinion of how that works.”
People and groups who attempt to recruit women to run for political office talk about the challenge in convincing women who feel an obligation to their family. Upmeyer and Jones said this shows that people who are motivated do not have to choose between their family and a political career.
But both said this story is somewhat unique.
“Families can make those decisions. It’s OK. It isn’t up to society to judge whether that’s the way the family should work or not,” Upmeyer said. “It does kind of liberate people to think outside the box.”
“You just make it work," Jones said. "That’s really what this is about.”
