The Iowa House approved a bill on Thursday that will make driver’s license exams in the state English-only. The Iowa Department of Transportation currently offers written exams in 21 languages besides English. There are only six states in the country that restrict their driver’s license exams to just English.
HF 2102 passed on an almost party-line vote of 58-30, with five Republicans joining all the House Democrats in opposing it.
Rep. Josh Meggers, a Republican from Grundy Center and the manager for the bill, opened the floor debate on HF 2102 by calling it “straightforward and narrowly tailored.”
“Under existing law, English is the official language of the state of Iowa,” Meggers said. “Our statute already requires that official documents, proceedings and actions conducted on behalf of the state be in English. However, driver’s license examinations have been carved out as an exemption.”
In 2001, Gov. Tom Vilsack, a Democrat, signed into law the Iowa English Language Reaffirmation Act, which established English as the state’s official language. According to the text of the act, “The state of Iowa encourages the assimilation of Iowans into Iowa’s rich culture,” and in American and Iowan history, “the common thread binding individuals of differing backgrounds together has been the English language.” The law contains several exemptions, including one for driver’s license exams and related materials, to the general English-only requirement it established. The bill passed by the House on Tuesday does not address any of the other exemptions.
HF 2102 “simply brings [the driver’s license exemption] into alignment with the broader policy that this body has already adopted,” Meggers said. “This bill is about consistency in law and clarity in public safety.”
Meggers did not suggest that providing driver’s license exams in languages other than English has ever caused a problem in Iowa. If there are any published studies or other reports of drivers who took their exam in language other than English display less proficiency than drivers who answered questions in English, Meggers didn’t cite them. He didn’t even offer any anecdotes from his own experience as a state trooper to suggest HF 2102 was needed to address a problem on Iowa’s road.
Meggers was the only Republican who spoke on the bill before the vote. Three Democrats spoke out against it.
“We often talk about the Iowa Idea,” Rep. Jeff Cooling of Cedar Rapids said. “We talk about hard work, family, community. But today we’re here to discuss a bill that mandates English-only driver’s license exams. And while some, as we’ve heard, will frame this matter as official language, in the real world, the world where Iowans work, drive and raise families, this is a matter of public safety, fiscal waste and our very identity as a state.”
“A driver’s license is not a luxury, it’s a lifeline.”
Cooling told his fellow House members that “hardworking residents [who] cannot pass a technical written exam in their second language do not simply stop needing to go to work. Unable to get a license but still need to drive, they will do so without a license, which in turn means “they will drive uninsured.” That will increase car insurance rates for all Iowans, Cooling said.
He pointed out that the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety has reported there’s “no evidence that testing in a native language increases crash risk” and the uniform color and shape of road signs make their meaning easy to recognize whether one can read or not.
The current system of driver’s license exam is working, Cooling said, and there is no need to change it.
Rep. Adam Zabner of Iowa City made his remarks on HF 2102 twice, first in Spanish, then in English.
“Iowa is a rural state,” he said. “In most of Iowa it is impossible to work if you cannot drive. This bill would make the daily life of citizens, of Iowans with legal status, impossible.”
Cedar Rapids Rep. Angel Ramirez also talked about impact changing rules for getting a driver’s license will have on Iowans.
“Let me be direct, it is already illegal for undocumented individuals to obtain a driver’s license in Iowa,” Ramirez said. “The people this bill most are legal residents and citizens.”
English is a complex language, “it takes years to master,” she said.
“Anybody in this body who has tried to learn a second language might know that under stress, even proficient speakers struggle. That is not incompetence, that is not criminality, that is being human.”
HF 2102 “will create a chilling effect that pushes legal residents and full citizens away from taking the driver’s license exam,” Ramirez said. She also pointed to another problem area for the bill.
“The H-2A and H-2B visas administered by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services currently allow U.S. employers that meet specific requirements to bring foreign national workers to fill both temporary agricultural and non-agricultural jobs when there are insufficient U.S. workers available.”
According to Ramirez, “this piece of legislation will hinder that program.”
The representative cited reporting by Investigate Midwest that showed Iowa’s increasing reliance on H-2A visa holders in agricultural work. Reviewing data from the U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services, Investigate Midwest found that between 2018 and 2025, the number of H-2A visa holders in Iowa had increased 91 percent, from 2587 workers on those visas to 4858. H-2A visa holders are not required to read and write English with any fluency, but many of the jobs they fill do require them to drive.
When Meggers made his final remarks on the bill before the vote, he didn’t really engage with what the three Democrats said, beyond remarking, “The purpose of a drivers’ license exam is to ensure competency and understanding of traffic laws. Lowering or bypassing standards because someone might otherwise drive illegally is not sound public safety policy.”
HF 2102 now goes to the Iowa Senate for consideration. As Meggers noted just before the vote, it is the first transportation bill the House has passed this session.
