Taking down Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds
The State Auditor here in Iowa is a young man named Rob Sand. First elected in 2018, he was the first Democratic State Auditor in many years. Sand and his people have worked hard to expose wrongdoing and questionable activities across a variety of public organizations. Among those he has held accountable includes Governor Kim “CovidKim” Reynolds’s maladministration.
Last year Sand caught CovidKim red handed trying to use CARES act funding to upgrade HR computer systems in Iowa and forced her to return about $21 million dollars that she allowed to be improperly used for the upgrade. And as I mentioned not too long ago, she was caught misusing COVID relief funding by Sand a second time, when she used that funding to pay her staff salaries.
CovidKim will be up for election next year. One of the names that came up a fair number of times as a challenger to CovidKim was Rob Sand. He would have made an excellent governor. Sand takes his duties seriously and does not see government as his personal slush fund, unlike CovidKim.
Sand announced his plans for 2022. He is not running for Governor next year, but instead is running for reelection as State Auditor. I respect that decision. I hope in future years he will consider a run for Governor as he would be excellent. But I am glad he made his decision public early. To defeat a Branch Trumpvidian like CovidKim, Democrats need to get it together quickly and have a candidate lined up ASAP, and then coalesce around the best candidate. I think Sand’s move will help speed that along, and I hope it gives us a great Democratic candidate that’ll send CovidKim packing next year.
