Rep. Zach Nunn Finally Finds His Acorn - and a New Way to Be Disingenuous
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) —- Where I grew up in Iowa there’s an old saying: “Even a blind hog finds an acorn every now and then.” Maybe you’ve heard it too, in your part of the country.
If you have, you’ll know what I mean when I say it looks like U.S. Rep. Zach Nunn (R-3rd Ia) - whose eye sight, I should add appears to be just fine - seems to have finally found his “acorn.”
His “acorn?” He voted with the majority to extend subsidies for Affordable Care Act (ACA) premium this past Thursday, one of just 17 House Republicans to join all House Democrats to do so. After a congressional career of casting mostly knee jerk MAGA votes and subservience to Trump.
Nunn is among the most vulnerable members of Iowa’s congressional delegation. He’ll be on the ballot in November, seeking re-election.
That’s a big part of this story, by the way.
Nunn’s “acorn” was, indeed, a rare vote that finally makes sense for Iowans, rather than for the ideologically rigid, Obama/Biden-hating MAGA crowd with whom he can usually be found standing.
Without the subsidies, some premiums could double or even triple in cost, pricing many working families right out of the health insurance market. Which means, practically and literally, they will have no health insurance coverage. And no health care.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-4th LA), and most Republicans in Congress, are apparently just fine with that outcome - millions losing access to affordable health insurance and health care.
Johnson, in fact, blocked a vote on renewing the subsidies for months. It took a hard-won discharge petition to make Thursday’s House vote even possible. After months of working to overcome Johnson’s one man road block against the bill, a discharge petition signed by every House Democrat and just four House Republicans, forced an end to Johnson’s obstruction and finally sent the bill directly to the House floor for a vote.
Which is where the disingenuousness of Nunn’s vote and his claims of concern for the ability of all Iowans to obtain affordable health insurance and health care start to fall apart.
While Nunn’s vote to pass the extension is to be applauded, that is by far not the whole story of Nunn and this vital issue of life and death for many Iowans.
There would have been no vote on Thursday had it not been for those four brave House Republicans. It took Democrats months to get those four to agree to sign.
Because they signed, all Democrats plus four Republicans were able to end Republican Speaker Johnson’s months long blockade and allow the House to vote on whether to extend the subsidies. The vote to extend the subsidies was approved on a 230 - 196 vote.
Guess who said nothing about Johnson’s months long effort to block the bill, preventing the legislation from even being considered by the full House?
Guess who did nothing to convince Johnson to stop blocking the bill?
Guess who said nothing about Johnson’s intention to never let the proposal reach the House floor?
Guess who did nothing to overcome Johnson’s forever blockade?
More tellingly, guess who never - NEVER - signed the discharge petition that forced the legislation onto the House floor and broke Johnson’s one man road block that prevented a House vote on extending the ACA subsidies?
Iowa Congressman Zach Nunn. On all counts. Zach Nunn said and did nothing.
The record is clear:
Zach Nunn’s chose to stand with Speaker Johnson as Johnson blocked a vote on extending the ACA subsidies. He chose to say and do nothing on behalf of the Iowans who need affordable health insurance as Johnson blocked the bill that provided the subsidies that would mean they would have access to affordable health insurance. With his silence, Nunn made clear that he - like Johnson - was perfectly content to let the legislation to extend the ACA subsidies “twist slowly, slowly in the wind” and die a slow death.
In fact, he watched for months, silently, as that happened.
Signing the discharge petition to move the bill onto the floor for a vote was the key action point in this saga. Speaker Johnson and every other Republican - including Zach Nunn - knew it would pass if the House got a chance to vote on it. Getting it to the House floor for a vote was the vital key.
Yet, Zach Nunn didn’t lift a finger to get it to the floor for a vote.
I’ve seen some reporting that Nunn “broke with Republican leaders” on the issue when he voted to renew the subsidies.
He did vote to renew the subsidies, and we should all be glad he did, but the rest of that narrative is pure bunk.
Zach Nunn did not break with Republicans when he remained silent as Speaker Johnson blocked a vote for months.
Zach Nunn did not break with Republicans when he declined for months to add his name to the discharge petition that was the only lifeline that could have forced the bill to the House floor. He was willing to let it die. His actions show that.
He never did sign the discharge petition.
Zach Nunn’s silence and inaction enabled everything that was done to prevent a vote on the legislation he eventually voted to pass.
Some hero. Some friend of saving the ACA premium subsidies.
This is also important to know: It is routine in election years for party leaders to give very vulnerable members of their party - members of the House who are most likely to lose their re-election bids come November - a free pass on tough votes that they can use to help themselves with the folks back home when the party position is unpopular there - especially when they know there are enough votes to pass/defeat the party’s position on legislation like this without them; and in this case, when Senate Republicans have already pronounced the legislation “dead on arrival” in the Senate.
Nunn’s vote was no “rebellion.”
It required no courage.
He was not, in an act of conscience, standing up for Iowans who otherwise would lose their health insurance had the Republican policy prevailed.
Rather, Zach Nunn’s vote - given what preceded it - has all the markings of a “gimmee” vote from Republican leaders trying desperately to keep Nunn’s seat on the Republican side of the aisle after the November election. Also of one cast by an eager Nunn who looks in the mirror each morning and sees the very strong possibility of a soon to be “former” Congressman from Iowa looking back at him,.
I am a regular reader of Nunn’s press releases, memes and social media posts. I read them for the same reason I read the comic pages in the newspapers. I don’t expect to find much news there, but I do get a lot of laughs.
During the Biden years Nunn was always stomping around “demanding” the President do this or that in letters and press releases that I’m sure gave the folks at the White House, if they even noticed them, a good laugh, too.
In Congress, he usually claims that anything that moves there that can be spun as good for Iowa - in reality, a mighty short list in this Congress - is all his doing. He passed it, won approval for it. It’s another Zach Nunn victory!
Truth is, Nunn remains a back bencher and is responsible for nowhere near even a fraction of the things for which he claims credit.
My favorite was when he went to the White House last July to ask Trump for permission to run for Governor of Iowa. When Trump said, no, Nunn returned from the White House all giddy, claiming he’d won Trump’s endorsement - for another run for the congressional seat he already occupied.
I bet even Trump couldn’t keep from rolling his eyes on that one.
Now Nunn is posting all over social media that his “number one priority” in Congress is lowering health care costs for Iowans.
Like for the months and months during which he was willing to let many thousands of Iowans lose their health coverage because he wouldn’t lift a finger to save it when the discharge petition urgently needed his signature?
That “number one priority “ for lowering health care costs?
Zach Nunn cast the right vote on extending the subsidies for ACA premiums. But it came only after long months of indifference and of standing with those trying hard to get rid of those subsidies entirely.
Now he claims he has been focused like a laser beam on bringing health care costs down for Iowans, even though he was willing to let many Iowans go without health insurance and affordable care because of his own inaction.
In short, Zach Nunn’s correct vote came wrapped in yet a new way of being disingenuous.
Which is a polite way of putting what “the gentleman from Iowa” has been on this issue.
WEEKLY OVERDUE FARM BILL TRACKER: 833 Days. Still waiting.
Farmers are still waiting for a new Farm Bill to replace the 2018, five year farm bill that expired on September 30, 2023. It’s been 833 days (as of Sunday, January 11, 2026). The clock is still ticking
In what can only be described as an epic failure by Congress - or a pointed message of indifference by Congress to the needs of family farmers - no new bill has been passed by Congress since the old one expired. Little to no work by those who control Congress is being done to enact a new one.
The legislation is vital to farmers. It sets federal farm policies - essential for planning farm operations - for the next five years.
Farm Bills were once considered “must pass” legislation not so many years ago. For the Republicans who control this Congress, however, it is apparently now considered “Farm Bill? What Farm Bill” legislation.
Two thirds of Iowa’s “Silent Six” congressional delegation serve on either the House or Senate Agriculture. Committees. They should be working hard to get this bill across the finish line and onto the president’s desk for his signature.
They are not.
Their names: U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Joni Ernst (R-IA); and U.S Reps. Zach Nunn (R-3rd IA) and Randy Feenstra (R-4th IA).
Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-1st IA) and Ashley Hinson (R-2nd IA) - while not members of the House Agriculture Committee - also have a responsibility to work to move this long overdue bill to enactment, as representatives of a major farm state.
They are not doing so.
Feenstra and Hinson, astoundingly, both apparently think their part in this “failure to enact” merits a promotion! Time that could be spent working to pass a new Farm Bill is instead being consumed seeking higher political office.
NEW FEATURE FOR 2026: PHOTOS FROM MY ARCHIVES
Photo by Tom (Tucker) Straight
This pix is from May 1968. That’s a young US Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) on the right. He was one of three featured speakers at a Polk County Democratic fundraising picnic at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines. That kid on the left? That’s’ a 14 year old me, a still “wet behind the ears” cub reporter not yet clear on whether reporters should wear political candidate buttons. (I thought wearing a couple RFK buttons might get me some Q&A time with Kennedy. As you can see, it worked. Briefly.)
Kennedy spoke on behalf of his brother, Senator Robert F. Kennedy (NY), who was running for president in 1968. Future Vice President and then-Senator Walter F. Mondale (D-MN) was there to speak on behalf of Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Michigan Democratic Party Chair Zoltan Ferency spoke on behalf of Senator Eugene McCarthy (D-MN), the other major candidate in the race for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination.
Governor Harold E. Hughes (D-IA) - then running for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Bourke Hickenlooper (R-IA) - a seat which Hughes would win, and Congressman Neal Smith (D-4th IA) were there, too, and also delivered speeches to the crowd.
I believe that’s the West Des Moines Dixieland Band, in the background.
This photo is part of the new series that joins the line up of this column for 2026 - “Photos from My Archives.” We’ll feature pix from my archives from more than 50 years of close observation of; reporting on; and eventually senior level involvement in politics in Iowa, in Congress, and along the campaign trail.
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COMING ATTRACTIONS: SOUND BITES & WHISPERED BITS
Also new to the column for 2026, a feature called “Sound Bites & Whispered Bits.” This is the first installment. This feature will contain quick thoughts - sound bites - that don’t quite require a full column to make the point, but that do contain a point that needs to be made.
Also, it is where I will share notes on stories just starting to circulate in Washington, that are being quietly talked about here, but have not yet quite “ripened.”
The new features I’m adding to the column in 2026 will appear periodically, so be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss even one.
Our inaugural “Sound Bites & Whispered Bits:”
NOTE TO ICE: Having brown or black skin, speaking with an accent, or being fluent in a foreign language do not constitute “probable cause” of immigration law violation.
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"I don’t expect to find much news there, but I do get a lot of laughs." Exactly. Great column, Barry, and I love the photo!
Nunn is, at best, an amateur chameleon. Thank you for the deep dive on his hypocrisy.