After years of denying Laura Belin press credentials to cover the Iowa House of Representatives, it took the chief clerk of the House less than a week to reverse course after Belin filed a federal lawsuit. On Wednesday, Belin and the nonprofit Institute for Free Speech, which was representing her in the lawsuit, announced Belin had finally received press credentials.
“Filing this lawsuit made House leaders understand that they have been violating my First Amendment rights,” Belin said in a written statement. “For years, the Chief Clerk applied the chamber’s credentialing policy unfairly and inconsistently, which prevented me from covering legislative proceedings on equal footing with my peers in the statehouse press corps.”
Belin, one of the state’s leading political journalists, has covered the Iowa Legislature since 2007 for her own news site, Bleeding Heartland, and has been KHOI’s statehouse reporter since 2021. She has applied for Iowa House press credentials at the beginning of the legislative session every year since 2019, and before the reversal this week, had been rejected every year.
Republican leaders in Iowa have frequently expressed hostility towards Belin’s careful reporting on state government issues, and claimed Belin isn’t a “real journalist” because she is candid about her liberal political beliefs. The clerk’s office never cited Belin’s politics when rejecting the press credential application, and instead claimed at various times that Belin wasn’t actually a journalist or was a “nontraditional” journalist, or simply gave no reason at all for the rejection.
“Ms. Belin endured shifting obstacles for years. But once litigation demonstrated the serious constitutional issues, the House had to recognize her qualifications,” Courtney Corbello, an attorney with the Institute for Free Speech, said. “This case underscores the First Amendment principle that public officials cannot manipulate press credential policies to play favorites or suppress critical coverage.”
