Iowa General Assembly

City: Des Moines

State: Iowa

The first Iowa Constitution of 1844 created the Iowa General Assembly as the legislative authority of the state. Like the U.S. Congress, the Iowa General Assembly is a bicameral body composed of the upper house Iowa Senate and the lower house Iowa House of Representatives. The state sustained this body in its 1857 constitution. From 1846 to 1857, the General Assembly met in Iowa City. In 1857, Des Moines replaced Iowa City as the state capitol, and the General Assembly moved to the new seat of government.

Iowa Const. of 1844, art. IV, § 1; Iowa Const. of 1857, art. III, § 1; Christian Montès, American Capitals: A Historical Geography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014), 329.