(Radio Iowa) – Iowa governors deliver the annual “Condition of the State” address on the first Tuesday after the Iowa General Assembly convenes on the second Monday of January. The next governor of Iowa will — as is tradition — be sworn into office on the first Friday during the legislature’s first week.

For example, in January of 1999, Governor Terry Branstad delivered his final “Condition of the State” address on a Tuesday and Tom Vilsack took the oath of office and became Iowa’s governor the following Friday.

The explanation for this is the speech is considered to be a report on the condition of the state, which means it’s a review of the previous year. However, it has also given past governors and the current governor a chance to reveal their forward-looking priorities for the legislature.

Iowa governors have the authority to deliver a “budget address” in late January around the deadline for presenting a budget to the legislature, but Branstad abandoned that practice in the late 1980s and it has not been revived. Branstad, Vilsack, Culver and Reynolds have all presented their proposed budgets to legislators at the same time as their “Condition of the State” message.