Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA) faces an ethics complaint over her husband’s role at an insurance lobbying group, as a new poll showed her trailing her Democratic Senate rival.
Brian Lemek, executive director of the watchdog group Defend The Vote, asked the House Office of Congressional Conduct to investigate Hinson in a complaint filed this month, Iowa Starting Line reported.
The office is an independent, nonpartisan body that reviews misconduct claims against House members and can refer cases to the House Ethics Committee, according to its website. The complaint points out that Hinson herself sits on that committee.
“Specifically, it appears that Rep. Hinson has provided her husband and his professional association with special access to her, and other congressional offices, in violation of House standards of conduct,” Lemek wrote.
The complaint relies on an Aug. 27 report by NOTUS (now the Washington Sun), which found that Hinson’s husband, longtime insurance executive Matt Arenholz, chaired the government affairs committee of the Independent Insurance Agents of Iowa.
That group is the state branch of the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America, a national trade association that has spent more than $5 million lobbying the federal government since Hinson was elected in 2020, NOTUS reported.
Arenholz took the post in 2019 and still held it in 2023, according to archived pages from the Iowa group’s website cited by NOTUS. He started two years before Hinson took office in 2021, and the complaint says the role does not appear on her financial disclosure report.
“In fact, Matt was able to arrange a meeting with all four of our congressional members in one large conference room,” Tom O’Meara, the Iowa group’s chief executive, wrote in the organization’s magazine, NOTUS reported.
O’Meara acknowledged the couple’s marriage in a fall 2023 edition of the magazine, NOTUS reported. He also wrote that while he was in Washington for a conference, he was asked how many members of Iowa’s congressional delegation had met with his organization.
“I was given several strange looks when I responded that we met with all six of ours from Iowa,” O’Meara wrote. “Several replied to me that they were not talking about congressional staff members rather the actual elected officials themselves. My answer remained the same, ALL SIX!”
“Matt’s not a lobbyist nor has he ever lobbied Ashley on anything — they maintain the highest ethical standards,” a Hinson campaign spokesperson, who declined to be named, told NOTUS.
The spokesperson said the meeting O’Meara described was arranged “through the proper and appropriate channels.” Arenholz has belonged to the Iowa group since 2003, and his government affairs post focused on state-level issues, the campaign said.
Hinson disclosed in 2025 that Arenholz held between $1 million and $5 million in High Street Insurance Partners, a private equity-backed insurance brokerage, according to NOTUS. The stake produced up to $1 million in dividend income in 2025, the complaint says.
Between 2019 and 2025, Hinson and her affiliated committees took $67,500 from the political action committee of the national independent agents group and another $67,500 from the Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers PAC, according to the complaint. The filing says the council listed High Street as a Platinum Partner in 2024.
“These facts raise serious questions about whether Representative Hinson’s official actions were, or reasonably appeared to be, influenced by her spouse’s financial relationship and/or official position with a regulated industry and lobbying group,” Lemek wrote.
The Hinson campaign told NOTUS the national group’s PAC support “had no relationship to her husband’s membership” in the Iowa group.
“Every member of Congress – both Republican and Democrat – should be held to the highest ethical standards and serve with integrity,” Hinson said in a March 2025 statement announcing her appointment to the Ethics Committee.
“I’m working with President Trump to take on big insurance companies, and I’m fighting to ban stock trading in Congress,” Hinson said in the first ad of her Senate campaign, NOTUS reported.
Hinson’s Senate race against state Rep. Josh Turek (D-IA) has become one of the most important contests of the 2026 midterms, NOTUS reported. In late August, Hinson led by less than 1 percentage point in the RealClearPolitics average, the outlet reported.
A Marist Poll survey released Tuesday found Turek leading Hinson 50% to 42% among registered voters. The survey of 1,050 registered voters, taken Sept. 17 to 20, has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points, according to Marist.
Hinson has also broken with President Donald Trump, calling Monday for an “immediate end” to the war with Iran after voting six times against House measures directing him to halt it, NBC News reported.
Filing a complaint does not automatically trigger an investigation, and the office’s board decides whether to open one, according to the office.
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