Iowa Lawmaker Eyes Minnesota Counties

DES MOINES, Iowa (DTN) -- Republican state lawmakers, spurred by President-elect Donald Trump's annexation ideas, are now proposing to acquire counties from neighboring blue states.

A state senator in the Iowa Legislature is introducing a bill that would allow Iowa to buy the bottom nine counties of Minnesota.

State Sen. Mike Bousselot, a Republican, announced his audacious proposal Tuesday before a crowd of 1,500 land investors and farmers at the Land Investment Expo in Des Moines. Bousselot said Iowa has struggled to increase its population, while Minnesota needs revenue. The nine border counties of Minnesota fit into Iowa because they are all deeply rural and agricultural, Bousselot said.

"It's a real land deal, and on top of that, it's a sign of things to come because every single Minnesotan who becomes an Iowan would immediately have lower taxes -- lower income tax, lower sales tax, lower business tax, lower property taxes," he said. "They would also have a better managed state. Minnesota is desperately in need of cash, right? They've raised taxes. They're on a path for a budget deficit and they just keep spending. And finally, those nine counties are agricultural counties. They're counties where people want to invest in farmland and hogs and the types of investments that Iowa will reward. In fact, we create incentives for it."

In Indiana, House Speaker Todd Huston, a Republican, announced Tuesday that he wants 33 eastern Illinois counties to consider joining Indiana. Huston is introducing a bill to create a commission to make that happen and is making it one of his priority bills. Huston also cited the attractiveness of Indiana having lower taxes than Illinois.

Bousselot said his proposal is different from Indiana's proposal because Iowa would "buy" the nine Minnesota counties.

Bousselot also used a 2017 comment from Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, which Republicans brought up during the presidential campaign when Walz was the vice-presidential candidate, that the southern rural counties "are just full of rocks and cows."

"So, what we see is, just like any business, who looks at maybe the subsidiaries of a competing business or a neighboring business and says, 'We can take those assets, and we can do more with them than they're doing with it.' We have the cash to do it and the other side, you know, is maybe in need of that cash."

Iowa has "billions of dollars in economic surplus" Bousselot said. Minnesotans that are incorporated into the state, about 180,000 or so in population, would also have no income tax on retirees, he noted.

Pork producers in those southern Minnesota counties would also be allowed to expand their operations because Iowa's "master matrix" for livestock operations is better for pork producers than Minnesota's laws, Bousselot said.

Bousselot said states swapping borders isn't unprecedented. In 1961, Minnesota and North Dakota changed their border compact because of some adjustments to river flows along the border. Bousselot said the process still exists. Such a plan would take congressional approval once the states agreed to it.

Since the election, Trump has repeatedly talked about Canada becoming the "51st state," and buying Greenland, as well as taking back the Panama Canal. Bousselot noted Trump's proposals, but he had considered his plans "long before he started talking about buying Greenland." He also said he has strong support among other Iowa lawmakers.

"With our cash position and with the lack of cash position in Minnesota and the philosophical alignment of those counties, we thought that made sense," Bousselot said. "It's about 180,000 people that would become Iowans. They'd have a little more money in their pockets to buy Minnesota gear. You know, they can still buy Gopher gear."

DTN reached out to Gov. Walz's office late Tuesday for comment but did not receive an immediate response.

The nine Minnesota counties include Rock, Nobles, Jackson, Martin, Faribault, Freeborn, Mower, Filmore and Houston.

Chris Clayton can be reached at Chris.Clayton@dtn.com

Follow him on social platform X @ChrisClaytonDTN

(c) Copyright 2025 DTN, LLC. All rights reserved.