(Radio Iowa) – State Auditor Rob Sand says this year’s legislature should repeal a 2023 law that restricts auditors in his office from accessing certain state-held information and prevents him from going to court to try to force the release of public records. But Sand, a Democrat who’s running for governor, acknowledges it is unlikely the Republican-led legislature will do that – or enact his other priorities. “Partisanship is a heck of a drug,” Sand said.

Sand has long sought to require prison time for public officials convicted of stealing 10-thousand dollars or more in tax money. “We’ve seen this bill advance, just a little bit, a couple of years. I have — even at the request of Republican legislators — been quiet about it in certain past years when they asked me to because they thought if I wasn’t talking about it that might help,” Sand said. “Of course, we are still today not in position where if you steal a lot of money from taxpayers, you have to go to prison…We’re going to talk about it because I think this is important.”

He also says the budget legislators provided for the audits his office does every eight years for Iowa’s smallest towns is not big enough to handle the volume and that delays results. “We have a number of proposals that we have proposed before that are oriented around improving transparency and accountability for the spending of tax dollars in the state of Iowa…all designed to help strengthen oversight, prevent fraud and make government work more efficiently,” Sand said.

Sand has been state auditor since 2019 and is the only Democrat currently serving in statewide office. Sand made his comments during a news conference in his State Capitol office.