“I want to start with something that I think is common sense,” Rob Sand told the more than 950 people gathered in the Main Lounge of the Iowa Memorial Union (IMU) on Monday night. “Most people know it, but they don’t hear a lot of people who are running for office say it. I think our political system is broken largely because it’s run by two private clubs.”
“There are a lot of people in the leadership of both those private clubs,” as Sand refers to the Democratic and Republican parties, “who are much more interested in beating up on each other than they are in actually solving our problems.”
Sand was in Iowa City on Monday for the Johnson County stop of his 100 Town Halls Tour. This the second year Sand, the Democratic candidate for governor, has done the tour. Last year’s stop in Johnson County was at Field Day Brewing in North Liberty.
The IMU event was Sand’s 192nd town hall since he kicked off his first tour last year. It was structured in the same way as the previous 191. The roughly hour-long event was fairly evenly divided between Sand’s stump speech and a question-and-answer period.
Near the beginning of his speech, Sand asked people to raise according to how they are registered the vote. There were a few Republicans, a few more registered independent and as might be expected at Democratic politician’s campaign in heavily Democratic Johnson County, the vast majority of the audience were Democrats. After each group raised their hands, Sand had the audience applaud to demonstrate each group was welcome at the town hall. He then had the audience sing the first verse of “America the Beautiful.”
This is how Sand has begun all his town halls. He stressed that he believes Iowans have more in common than the divided nature of the state’s politics recognizes.
“Rightwing, leftwing, same bird,” Sand said. “Maybe we should work together.”
Sand’s speech on Monday followed along the same lines as his speech in North Liberty in September last year.
He talked about registering as an independent when he first registered to vote, then deciding to reregister as a Democrat in his 20s to be able to participate in primary elections.
“I did for a few reasons,” Said said of his party choice. “Number one, my faith. What you do to the least of these, you do to me. I know Jesus is for the little guy, and I think the Democratic Party at its best is the party of the little guy.”
He also preferred the party’s environmental stance and its stand on preserving public lands.
“I don’t think your ability to enjoy the great outdoors should depend on whether or not you can buy a slice of it,” he said.
Sand also said that as a teenager he admired how President Clinton was able to balance the budget and reduce the national debt. He skipped over his undergraduate years at Brown University and mentioned in passing earning his law degree at the Uniiversity of Iowa College of Law, before moving on to his career in state government, first as chief public corruption prosecutor in the Iowa Attorney General’s Office, and then as Iowa State Auditor.
“I pissed off a bunch of powerful people in both political parties as your state auditor, and I’d like to keep pissing them off as your governor,” Sand said.
Based on what he said his first legislative proposal will be if elected governor during a meeting with reporters before the speech, as governor, Sand will quickly piss off a lot of important people in the legislature.
“Accountability for politicians,” Sand replied, in response to Little Village’s question about the first bills he would propose. “Not just term limits – yes – but age limits, banning stock trading for people who sit in elective office, mandatory prison time for people who steal a bunch of money from taxpayers, a civics test if you want to get on the ballot, cognitive tests if you’re in office, mandatory town halls if you’re in office – public ones, where there’s at least two weeks advance notice, so that anyone can come in, not matter what their party affiliation is and you take non-pre-screened questions the way you’re supposed to in a democracy.”
Sand first laid out these proposals in a policy paper in March.
“The reason that we struggle with high prices and high corruption and high costs and a water quality crisis and a cancer crisis is because our political system works to reelect incumbents, it doesn’t work to serve us,” he said. “And the more we take people in elected office and force them to serve ordinary people, by cutting off their avenues to serve insiders and special interest groups, the more they will do that.”
After a moment, Sand added, “Ending the special legal privileges of the Democratic and Republican Parties, to have a single open primary, rather than giving them taxpayer money to run a private club’s election.”
Having closed party primaries, Sand maintains, limits choices in a way that effectively reduces a voters’ choices to the lesser of two evils and helps politicians get reelected repeated by stirring up partisan divides rather than solving problems.
As he has throughout the campaign, Sand reminded the audience that if elected his power will be limited because he’ll be working with a legislature still dominated by Republicans. But he said he’s looking forward to working with the Republicans.
A Sand win along with continued Republican control of the Iowa House and Senate would return divided government to the state, something that had been the norm before the 2016 election.
“I don’t care which party it is, one party control means fewer people with more power for too long,” Sand said. “Power corrupts and absolute power …”
He paused an the people in the IMU Main Lounge complete the line for him, “… corrupts absolutely.”
“And so here we are. We’ve had 10 years of one-party control. That’s what brought us here,” he continued.
“Meanwhile, were are 48th in personal income growth, at the bottom for economic growth, we’re at the top for cancer growth, we have a water quality crisis in this state, we have a public education crisis in this state and their definition of a problem they really need to address in Des Moines is ‘Hey, the state auditor won’t quit finding all the money we mispent, time for change,’” he said, referring to a bill Gov. Reynolds signed into law in 2023 that imposed new limits on the State Auditor’s Office.
“I’m sick and tired of the people in control of this state abusing our state and abusing you taxpayer resources because they think they’re just members of the right private club and they won’t be held accountable for it,” Sand said as he brought his speech to a close.
The limitations of divided government came up in response to one of the first questions in the Q-and-A.
Asked about what he would do to restore women’s rights and the state’s healthcare system, Sand began his reply, “I’m a supporter of a woman’s right to choose.”
He said he supported the trimester framework for abortion rights created by the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973, and considered the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision that overturned Roe to be wrong.
Turning to the state-level, Sand said, “I do not support the six-week abortion ban, I thought that that was a mistake when it was passed.”
The audience applauded loudly. Once the applause subsided, Sand said, “But let me remind you, I know I’m going to be working with a Republican legislature, and I cannot repeal that law unilaterally. I can’t.”
“I feel that I have spent most of my life listening to politicians promise they’re going to do stuff they can’t do. And all that it does is undermine trust in the system … I’d rather be honest with you.”
But Sand said he would be able to take a major step to reform healthcare on his own. As governor, he will be able to end Medicaid privatization through an executive order. Sand said the haphazard way former Gov. Terry Branstad privatized the management of Medicaid has lead to an expensive, wasteful system that provides poor service for patients.
“We audited the program, and we found that after privatization the number of illegal denials of care went up in Iowa by 900 percent,” he said.
The Reynolds administration objected to the criteria used in the audit, so Sand’s office redid it using the governor’s preferred criteria. The second set of results showed 500 percent increase in illegal denials of care.
Sand was also asked about school vouchers — he said any school taking taxpayer money should be held to the same standards as public schools — and water quality — he favors finally funding the Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Trust Fund voters approved 16 years ago, but lawmakers have left unfunded, as an expansive wetland restoration program.
He was also asked about increasing Iowa’s minimum wage. Sand said he favored letting countries set their own minimum wage. Although Sand didn’t mention it, that solution would require changing the law. Banning the ability of counties to set their own minimum wages was among the first thing Republicans did in 2017 when they took control of both chambers of the legislature.
At this point, an aide to Sand told him the allotted time for questions had expired, but the candidate said he wanted to continue the Q-and-A. The next person he called on asked a question those who attended last year’s town hall in North Liberty could have anticipated.
In North Liberty, two questioners asked Sand about his stated positions on the rights of transgender Iowans. The first questioner asked about Gov. Reynolds and Republican legislators making Iowa the first state to erase a section of its civil rights code in order to eliminate gender identity protection for trans and nonbinary Iowans.
“Now, I’ve been clear … the civil rights repeal for transgender people was wrong,” Sand said. “It was wrong. You should not be fired from your job in the state of Iowa for being different. You should not be evicted from your apartment in the state of Iowa for being different.”
A later questioner asked Sand about his support for banning transgender girls and women from participating on school or college sports teams that match their identities. At the beginning of his campaign, Sand had come out in favor of the ban. In a written statement Sand said he supported the sports ban because he “supported common-sense policies like the law protecting fairness in women’s sports.”
“You’ve been really clear that as governor you would govern based on facts and evidence,” Becca Mallon of North Liberty said, pressing Sand on his support for the ban. “I believe the trans ban in sports is based on fear and discrimination. I was just wondering if you had any statistics to back up that ‘common sense’ stance, or that’s something you might like to reconsider.”
Sand did not cite any facts or statistics in his response. He did say, “This is a conversation I’m interested in having.” He went on to say he wanted everyone in Iowa to feel welcome.
As Sand moved on to the next question, someone in the back of the North Liberty crowd shouted “Coward!” Sand thought he said “louder,” and asked the next person to speak up as they asked their question.
“My 13-year-old trans neighbor wants me to speak up on his behalf,” the woman Sand called on to start his extended Q-and-A said. The 13-year-old, she explained, was at baseball practice.
The questioner pointed out how rightwing activists are using transphobia as a political wedge and to distract from other issues.
“Can you make clear that you support trans people, that you support trans athletes, you are for equal rights for everybody?” she asked Sand.
“Two things,” he replied. “There have been two laws passed related to transgender folks recently. One is the sports question. I tend to agree with them on that, and I know you might be disappointed.”
“Coward!” someone in the audience shouted. This time the shout was loud and the word was unmistakable.
“OK,” Sand said unperturbed, before finishing his answer. “Here’s the other one. They repealed civil rights, so now in the state of Iowa, you can be fired from your job and you can be evicted from your apartment because of who you are. And I think that’s wrong also for the same reason, it’s not fair.”
The audience applauded.
“The bottom line on this stuff, at the end of the day is I want state government to get back focused on the issues that impact 100 percent of Iowans,” Sand continued. “We have a water quality crisis, we have a cancer crisis, we have an economic crisis. We have a lot of issues. Public education, health care in the state of Iowa. We should be addressing these issues, and that’s why I want to say, we’re vetoing all the culture war bills. We need to have state government addressing the issues that impact everyone in the state of Iowa.”
“I want to make it clear: I want everybody in this state to feel welcome,” he concluded.
Sand said he would take one more question, and he was asked about restoring the bargaining rights of public section union members the Republican-led legislature eliminated in 2017.
Sand said he supported the restoration of full bargaining rights for public-sector union members, but added it was something he could not do on his own as governor.
“If the legislature would change that, I’d be happy to work with them,” he said. “I don’t think they’re going to, but I do think we can move in a better direction.”
By a better direction, he once again meant restoring divided government and vetoing culture war bills.
Sand finished by drawing a contrast between himself and Republican candidate Zach Lahn on issues such as women’s rights (Lahn supports passing a “personhood bill” that would grant a fertilized ovum the same essential rights as any Iowan, making all abortion and many forms of contraception illegal), the privatization of Medicaid (Lahn supports it), school vouchers (Lahn would expand the program) and mRNA vaccines (which Lahn would block the use of in Iowa).
“Basically, he looks around at where Iowa is right now and says, ‘keep going, this is great.’” Sand said. “I think it’s time for change, I think most Iowans are going to agree with me.”
