July 22, 2025 • 45 mins
Rob Sand Joins Emery to Discuss His Run for Iowa Governor. Should We End the Two-Party System?
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I do feel like there is this element, and I
think when this conversation comes up, I'm going to ask
Rob saying some questions, and I'm sure he's going to
say answers that are not going to align with a
lot of the values of conservatives who are listening to
this show.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
And that's good.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
It's good.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I'll tell you why.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
It is so much better to know what the other
side is thinking, not just to like, oh I hate
what I'm hearing, I'm going to shut this off. We're
not making you think anything. We're literally getting a candidate's
opinion about things, the way that he sees things, what
he's hoping is done, and how it is changed or
adjusted for people of Iowa in his case. And we
(00:40):
have a lot of Western Iowa listeners here, and I
know we have a lot of Nebraska listeners, and you're thinking,
why does this matter to me? This is a good
snapshot of I think what the new Democrat is going
to look like, at least for twenty six, maybe more
so in twenty twenty eight. This is a person, especially
a younger leaning person. Rob sand is a young man.
(01:03):
He's barely forty. Probably I don't exactly know what his
exact ages, But Matt, you want to check that for me.
Rob Sand's age real quick. He's a younger person, but
he is going while operating with the D next to
his name as a Democrat and with you know, elected
official experience. He's been in the state auditor for the
(01:24):
last he'll be eight years by the time twenty twenty
six rolls around. He is going to be kind of
putting himself more in the middle. And yes he's a Democrat,
and yes there are going to be things that he's
going to say that are going to sound very much
like a Democrat, but he is going to try to
reach an alli branch across the island and say, there
are some things that we need to do better on
as Democrats, and I think we can meet you there
(01:45):
and do better for you, the people of Iowa, or
the people of Nebraska, or the people of Omaha, or
the people of the United States of America. And this
is the kind of thing that you just need to scout.
You need to listen, even if you know you're not
going to agree, even if a lot of the stuff
that you hear say, you're not going to fool me.
I'm never voting for a Democrat. That's fine, but that
doesn't mean we shouldn't talk to people. It doesn't mean
(02:06):
we shouldn't learn about how they feel about things and
really get a grasp of exactly what is on their
mind and how they view things. So I'm excited to
chat with him. I'm excited to talk with him throughout
the entire process. I'm sure as the campaign ebbs and
flows and we get a little bit deeper into kind
of the weeds of what it will look like. And
it seems like Randy Feenstra is you know who's currently
the fourth congressional district representative for Iowa. He is going
(02:28):
to not run in that for that race, again, that's
a very red district. They'll have no chance of losing
that to a Democrat. He is going to attempt to
utilize his name recognition and become the governor. And then
I you know, there are other names that we're going
to see there, like Mike Nagg, Secretary of Agriculture in
Iowa as well potentially getting in the mix. But just
challenge yourself to listen to what he has to say
(02:51):
so we can come to the table and understand. Okay,
so why does he say this and what effect will
that have on an independent voter, what effect will that
have on a blue voter? Will that have on a
red voter, And especially in a place like Iowa that
has swung so red over the last decade plus, I
think that it's important to see how much of a
dent he can make even if he doesn't win, If
(03:12):
he can make it a really competitive race, that is
a I mean, that's definitely things looking up for Democrats
in the state of Iowa because of how red all
of the races have become. Even if the Zach Nunn
and Marionette Ullner Meeks races have been pretty competitive, it's
still red in the state of Iowa. I mean, Governor
Camernil has had no chance to lose, you know a
(03:32):
few years ago when she ran for re election in
twenty twenty two. Matt, do we have an age on
Rob forty two? All right, there you go. So this
is a younger guy. I mean, this is kind of
the blueprint. This is going to be kind of the prototype.
And not to say that he's like everybody else, because
you know, every persons different, but I think this not
just you know, his profile, but also the way that
(03:53):
he speaks. He's not a person that the means. He's
not a person that says, you know that the people
who vote read are bad people or dumb people or
deplorables like some certain people have utilized those terms before.
He's the kind of person that, you know, he's just saying,
I think we could do some things a little bit better,
and here's what I think. And that's you know, it's
(04:16):
a fascinating situation. Now, certainly everybody's going to have their
own opinion about each and every issue and topic, and
we're certainly not going to be able to touch on all
of them here. And again, we are still a full
year away from really getting into the meat of the
you know, matter for the general election, for the gubernatorial
race next November.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
So we're so far away.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
But I think it is going to be interesting to
kind of see how he feels about certain things. And
I'm quite interested to kind of quizmont and Rare Songer
joining me is candidate for governor, currently the state auditor
of the state of Iowa. Rob sand joining us in
the studio here in Omaha. Rob, thanks so much for
being here.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yeah, thanks for having me. Memory good to see you.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Yeah, good to see you too, as we're kind of
reminiscing about how long I've actually been in Nebraska two years.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Flies.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Yeah, it's crazy. You've been kind of busy too. Let's
talk about what your job is state auditor. And I
know people in Nebraska are like, you know, is this
putting in information? Me? Yes, and I will tell you
why in a second. But you've got a very important
job as an elected official and the only Democrat who's
an elected official at the state level in Iowa. Tell
me take me through kind of what your day to
day job is.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
It's pretty straightforward. Where the taxpayers watchdog. So we have
about one hundred folks in the office working hard auditing
tax spenders, not taxpayers. So we audit state government, we
audit local government. We are trying to find misspent money, waste, fraud, abuse,
and we also in my first term started a government
efficiency program to do also some promotion of good as
(05:42):
opposed to just going after the bad. That program is
called PI. It's actually been copied in two other states,
and the idea is just making sure that we can
help identify new practices that are going to save money
for taxpayers and help those get implemented.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Very interesting. That sounds like something someone who's not a
demokrat would say. And yeah, so let's talk about that
part of it because you're running for governor and we'll
talk about why in a second. But you are a
Democrat and you're running as a Democrat, but you don't
really seem like when you say something like that, if
I didn't say you were a Democrat, people would say, Oh,
(06:18):
I like this guy. That sounds like something I would
be in supportive.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
And it's not just the job, you know. I think
most people if you said, Okay, here's a candidate who
was born and raised in a small town in a
rural area, who likes to hunt and fish, who's in
church every Sunday, who owns guns, including handguns, who was
a criminal prosecutor. I mean, what like probably eighty five
percent of people will be like, oh, that's a Republican. Yeah,
that's me. I grew up in Decorra. I do like
(06:42):
to hunt and fish, I do own guns, including handguns.
I am in church every Sunday. All these things are
important pieces of my life from when I was growing
up and they still are today. And a lot of
this comes down to Emory, Like I just I cannot
stand the state of our politics. I think it's broken.
I think that so many of us are sick of
being forced to feel like we're stuck between Iraq and
(07:03):
a hard place or the lesser of two evils. And
we have far more things in common with each other,
I think than lots of political leaders want us to acknowledge.
But the boy, it's a lot easier to control us
if you can convince people that the other side is
evil and out to destroy your way of life. Then
if you've got political leaders, tell me that, check your wallet,
because then it's easier to pick your pocket. If you
(07:25):
can't go anywhere else, if you haven't got another party
you feel like you can vote for, you're going to
tolerate an awful lot of corruption because you're going to say, well,
at least it's at least it's my guy who's grew
upt well.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
And that's the one thing that we heard from a
lot of people even before the twenty twenty four election.
There are a lot of people who big Donald Trump fans,
and you know, there are a lot of people who
are saunched Democrats and they're not gonna, you know, get
off of their particular trains, but a lot of independent voters,
that's exactly what they say is I'm voting for the
lesser of two evils in my head right, which sounds
like it's a messed up system to begin with. We're
(07:56):
speaking with Rob saying to your state auditor of Iowa,
and he's going to be a candidate for Are he
as a candidate for governor for next fall? Why the
governor spot in Iowa? Now, you mentioned you're from small
town in Iowa. What kind of end this moment, with
all this good work that you've been doing in the
auditor's office, did you feel like now is the right time?
Speaker 2 (08:13):
There's a number of things. Number One, the state of
Iowa deserves better leadership. We are number one in the
growth rate for cancer cases. We are forty ninth for
economic growth. We are literally winning the contest you want
to lose and losing the contest you want to win.
And what have the leaders in des Moines been up to?
What have they been spending their time on that have
gotten us to the point where regular Iowans are dealing
(08:34):
with higher costs every single day with rising cancer rates,
and yet what are they busy doing in des Moines,
I'm in my first term, we uncovered a record about
them have spent money. And then in des Moines in
my second term, they decided to change the law of
the state of Iowa to make it harder for us
to find waste, fraud, and abuse. That's what they're doing.
It's politicians and they want to do politics. They don't
(08:55):
want accountability for the tiny number of people that actually
run state government in Iowa. I was holding them accountable.
We found that record amount of spent money. I wasn't
playing their games, and they decided, Okay, well, we're just going
to go ahead and sideline this guy. They have lost
whatever reason if we want to assume good intentions, they
have lost direction for whatever it was that got them
into what's supposed to be public service in the first place.
(09:18):
They are just looking out for insiders and special interest
groups and governments supposed to be looking out for Iowans
in Iowa.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
I look at the government in Iowa and I mentioned this.
You are the only state level elected official that isn't
a Republican.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Governor.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Cam Reynolds on a national level has been applauded for
the work that she has done in helping turn Iowa
as read it as it has become. Both senators are Republicans,
all four, including there's a couple of districts that are
very competitive, but all four are Republicans right now, you know,
and it just has felt like it's gotten rehdter and
(09:55):
rehder over time. So when people here an upstart candidate
who is a younger guy but he's serving in state government,
say Iowa deserves better leadership. While the people have consistently
voted these types of people or people from the Republican
party into power, how would you best explain how people
have consistently made that their voice despite you know, you
(10:18):
saying that the leadership hasn't been as good as people
think it is.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I think it's pretty straightforward. I mean a lot of
this has been pretty recent, right. I mean, we know
the phrase power crrups and absolute power croups absolutely. And
now you can look back in Iowa and you can say, also,
as it turns out, it takes about ten years. Right.
It was recently that this law passing the gutting our
ability to find misspent money became law. It was very
(10:41):
recent that this school vouchers program that has no accountability
for how these tax dollars are spent, and almost no
rules for how private schools can spend this money. It
was very recently that that got passed. I think these
things are piling up at the same time that again,
we are forty ninth in the country for economic growth,
we are number one cancer rates. It's misplaced priorities and
(11:02):
all this is becoming clearer and clearer with every day
that goes by. I mean, it's lots of headlines about layoffs.
In the meantime, you've got a bunch of people on
the other side of the aisle who are effectively just cheerleaders.
And I'll work with anybody to do something good for Iowa,
but if they're going to do something bad, I'm going
to oppose it. Great example of this, I mean, yeah,
(11:22):
Donald Trump on Iowa three times. In between one of
those times, the people of Iowa also elected me as
their state auditor. And I hear from people every day, Oh,
I'm a Trump voter, but I like you too, or
oh me, yeah, my uncle. I can't hardly talk to
abou about anything, but boy, we can talk about the
fact that we both like the work that you're doing
and your approach to politics.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Robson joining US and state auditor right now running for
governor next year in the state of Iowa. Let's talk
about that party system, right because you know, trying to
bring people together. You are a Democrat, you are running
as a Democrat. But the way that you speak about politics,
I think people would, you know, like you be kind
of tricked that maybe he's a Republican, maybe he's a Democrat.
(12:03):
Maybe he's just an independent that just is in public service.
So how can you best describe how you view the
two party system right now broken?
Speaker 2 (12:12):
If I only had one word, I was a registered
independent when I first registered to vote, I realized then
that in order to vote in primaries, I had to
pick one, and so I did. But partisanship itself is poison.
And the idea that in the state of Iowa, at
least independent voters don't get to participate, to me, is
(12:32):
an Unamerican law. We literally celebrate our independence on fourth
of July. After in June we disenfranchise our independence in
the state of Iowa. We turn them away and tell
them they don't get to vote in an election that
their own tax dollars pay for unless they join a
private club first, Make that make sense to me. I mean,
it's stupid. And yet one of the very few things
(12:52):
that lots of establishment Democrats and establishment Republicans agree upon is, yeah,
it should be easier to get elected if you're a
Democrat Republican. Yes, these two parties should have special privileges.
Explain that to me. They don't exist in the Constitution,
they don't exist in the Declaration of Independence. And most
of our founders warned us about this too. I mean,
George Washington in his farewell address, warned about factionalism, the
(13:16):
idea that you could just have these massive, calcified parties
battling it out with each other as opposed to actually
advancing the will of the people. That is the state
of our democracy today, period. And I keep talking about that.
It's hard to find people that disagree.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Well, especially the way that you're saying it, right, It's
just like, wow, and the partisanship for whatever. I mean,
it didn't take long for Thomas Jefferson and John Adams
to get at each other's throats and kind you know,
start everything once the adult in the room decided to,
you know, say farewell and go back to Mount Vernon.
But why is Rob sand running as a Democrat? I
will ask him that question to his face next after
this on news Radio eleven ten kfab Emeric, we continue
(13:55):
our conversation here with Rob Sand. He is the current
state auditor of the state of Bio. He's also running
for governor as a Democrat for next falls governor election.
Certainly they'll be primary for him before that. And we
had just gotten done talking about Rob the partisan system
in how you see this as a broken system? And
I already have multiple emails here saying, well, if he
(14:17):
sounds like a conservative, why isn't he And you know,
Rob Sand, if the Democrat party is not what fits him,
then why is he still in it?
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Well, I have you here.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
I get a chance to ask why are you running
as a Democrat for governor of the state of Iowa.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Well, I think it's pretty simple. One piece of this is,
you know, if there's two things that don't fit you,
put on the one that fits a little better. The
Republican Party doesn't fit either. I'm someone that I would
say rejects the idea that there's only two ways to think.
When I registered as a Democrat, I didn't leave my
independent mind behind I still think for myself, and some
(14:52):
people in my party wish that I didn't. I'm the
only at the end of the day, I've got to
wake up and go to bed with myself, and I've
got to live with what I say, and I'm not
going to mislead people about what I think I believe
or about what the truth is. So why Democrat? Well,
(15:12):
A faith is a big part of my life. As
I mentioned, I think of the Democratic Party and its
best tradition is the party for the little guy. Jesus's
fourth a little guy. He was for everybody. He came
and said, the meek will inherit the earth. The Sermon
on the Mount. The heart of my faith, I think,
is about a lot of the things that the Democratic
Party at its best stands for, and I think people
(15:34):
can disagree about whether or not they're still there today,
but that's the party that I stand up for, and
that's my idea of it that I want to represent.
I'd also say too, when I was in I'm forty
two now, when I was in high school, I remember
watching Bill Clinton Bragg at the State of the Union
about balancing the budget and paying down the debt, and
I thought Hey, thanks, that's good because I don't want
(15:56):
to have to pay that off later. And I remember
my parents given me a loan to buy a mountain
bike when I was in it might have been in
eighth grade, but high school, eighth grade, something like that.
And I'd opened the serial cabinet every morning and see
the eight by eleven sheet of paper with how much
money I owed them. And I learned very early on
(16:16):
that that is not fun. And so because of Bill
Clinton talking about that after I had had that experience,
that was you know, points in the column for the
Democratic Party too.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Yeah, And we've actually had had that conversation before about
what administrations have been most responsible for the crazy national debt. Sure,
and Bill Clinton was the one time that it kind
of plateaued a little bit and didn't exactly grow. So
you talk about that, Rob, I Again, we can have
so many knockdown, drag out fights about certain issues. But
(16:49):
one thing that Nebraska does for its primary system, and
for like I mean here for mayor, for instance, we
had five candidates. They're not listed by party, everybody's a
part to the primary, and the top two candidates advanced
to the general election. How do you view kind of
how Nebraska does this stuff, and is this a better
system than what Iowa currently has with a two party system.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
I have to say I like the idea of nonpartisan elections. Yeah.
It gives everyone, I think, as a candidate a little
bit more freedom to say what they think, a little
bit less pure pressure to say things that they don't
agree with, and it gives all of us as voters
a little bit more of a sense of like, well,
maybe I should dig into this a little bit more
(17:31):
and make a little bit more of a unique judgment
on each character, which that's our democracy at its best.
I think the bottom line and a lot of this stuff, though, is,
you know, going back to the debt, like both parties
have done it, pretty terrible job with it. Bill Clinton's
the exception. But again, I think this is why a
system that's a duopoly doesn't work very well. I don't
(17:52):
think that the Democrat or the Republican parties solve enough
problems to have their little shared monopoly on our choices,
because what it does is it enables them to say, well, yeah,
I know, I gee, we over here haven't solved those problems,
but you're just kind of stuck with us anyway, and
so we wonder why it is. We look around our
(18:12):
country and our states and we say, we've got all
these problems piling up point they're getting solved. And the
answer is that it's easier to get re elected by
demonizing your opponent than it is to actually solve people's problems.
If you have more than two realistic options for voters
in the ballot, if you're not just giving someone a
golden ticket to the final round just for having ad
(18:33):
or ar behind their name, then all of a sudden,
voters will have much more realistic choices, and I think
we'd have more responsive elected officials and more accountability, which
accountability is fifteen years of what I've been doing, accountability
for people in positions of trust and power. Right because
prior to my two terms of state Auditor, I spent
seven years as the chief Public Option prosecutor in Iowa.
If anybody over remembers hearing about the guy that rigged
(18:55):
all those lottery jackpots, I ran the investigation that found
that in the prosecution that heldmcoun for it, people in
positions of trust and power will eventually, given the right opportunity,
in the right situation, abuse that trust in that power,
and that's why you've got to have a system that
actually allows for more accountability.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
It's quite interesting to hear a person actually running for office,
like bigger office, to say this out loud, regardless of
the political party. We're speaking with Rob sand state auditor
currently in the state of Iowa and running for governor
next fall.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Chimeral does not in that race.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
She has I think, by all accounts, by conservative measures,
has been a success to make Iowa redder and redder
and has really put Iowa on the map conservatively. But
you also, being a Democrat at the state level of government,
see things that you'd like to change. What are some
of those things you've kind of mentioned, the cancer rate,
you mentioned the economic growth. What are some things that
(19:47):
you would change if you were elected, and how would
you go about making those changes?
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Sure, and I want to emphasize two because this is
the this is how we talk right, redder and bluer.
Our slogan is not redder or bluer, but better and truer.
I don't teach my kids. We've got two boys. There
are eleven and the other one sists almost nine. Very important.
We don't teach our kids that redder blue. Our values,
(20:12):
you know, we teach them to do better, we teach
them to speak the truth, we teach them to be kind,
we teach them to work hard. And our politics, when
it's become so easy to summarize it as redder or bluer,
is just one other way that I think it's fundamentally broken. Now, look,
there's certainly some things that have happened to have been
good things. I'm glad to see that we have done
(20:33):
some work in the legislature and the governor signed a
bill getting cell phones out of schools. I think that
they're really problematic for young kids and obviously problematic in
the classroom. But one of the things that we need
to do is absolutely get focused on reducing costs for Ionans.
I've already talked about the fact that I think we
need to reform our political system and give voters real choices,
(20:56):
real ballot freedom, not just being forced to choose between
the lesser of two evils. We've got a water quality
problem in the state of Iowa that we actually need
to take action on. The current status QUO has had
a terrible record on that. They actually defunded five hundred
water quality monitors in the state of Iowa just a
couple of years ago, meaning they don't even necessarily want
(21:17):
us to know what's in the water. That to me
is kind of creepy, and I think most Iowans. The
bottom line is, our economy is struggling again, forty ninth
in the country for economic growth according to the Trump
administration statistics. We have got to get to work making
sure that our economy is moving in the right direction
and that Iowans have got good opportunities and that their
fundamental freedoms are protected.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
To what would be the first thing you would do
about fixing the economy in Iowa, especially considering that the
current administration has been able to say, we've balanced the
budget at a state level in a few different ways,
but that doesn't equate to economic growth.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Well, and that was true until this year. This spring,
the Iowa legislation and the governor passed a budget. We
had a nine hundred million dollar budget deficit, the biggest
budget deficit in Iowa history. So they had been doing okay,
but the bottom line on that really is they got
a pile of money from the federal government and they
(22:16):
basically did something like Wilven of saying, oh, you know,
my uncle left me three times what I make in
a year when he died, so I'm just going to
quit my job altogether. Most people wouldn't do that. They'd
be like, well, okay, but that's going to run out,
and then what are you going to do?
Speaker 1 (22:28):
You know?
Speaker 2 (22:29):
And yet that's that's the attitude that they've taken with
the federal government. So that's a problem too. I think
one of the easiest solutions that we can do in
the state of Iowa is start treating alcohol the way
we treat mayor or sorry the other way around. Start
treating marijuana is the way we treat alcohol. It is
silly to me that you could go to prison in
the state of Iowa just for using marijuana. Our citizens
(22:54):
are driving across the state border in all directions to
find legal marijuana. That means their tax dollars, their revenue
is leaving the State of Iowa to go to those
states as well. And we have a workforce crisis in
the state of Iowa, where you know, what are we
doing here? To take people out of the workforce, to
put them in prison just for using marijuana doesn't doesn't help.
(23:17):
It doesn't mean that it's a trifling thing. It doesn't
mean that there's that people should use it, but we
shouldn't be throwing people in prison for it. And I
think that we need to go ahead and move to
a place we've got a more sensible, common sense policy
around that.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
It's an interesting we've had that conversation about Nebraska. I
mean that that debate is raging about Nebraska and also
in gambling in Nebraska, because we see what Iowa does
with the gambling dollars that people can just you know,
drive across the border real quick before I let you go,
Rob sand joining us here. You're in Omaha to talk
to me. What brings you to Western Iowa. I do
(23:51):
one hundred public town halls every year. If you want
to come and see me, you're going to have to
come to Iowa. It's robsand dot com slash events. We
announced all of them at the same time, so I
have public events from here through October you can find
on the website. I again back to the theme of accountability.
I think that voters should be able to hold me accountable.
(24:11):
If they want to come yell at me about this,
that or the other thing. They ought to have an
opportunity to do it. That's part of the game, and
I am willing to do that. Most selected officials hide.
Most elected officials are scared. They don't want to hear
from people whose lives they have hurt, whose lives they
have impacted. I think that we should quit putting up
with that, and I am always proud to be trying
(24:33):
to set a new standard for ways that a candidate
or potentially a governor can be accessible to regular people.
Rob sand he is the current state auditor and taking
all of your auditor related questions also as well as
candidate for next falls governor's race in the state of Iowa.
This is fantastic, always great to chat with you an
ultiate book. I really do appreciate it, and hopefully we
(24:54):
get a chance to chat soon. Absolutely, thanks, i'mory all right,
Rob sand there. I appreciate you for listening to us
as well. It is three thirty on news radio eleven
ten KFAB.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Emery Songer on news radio eleven ten KFAB
I do feel like there is this element, and I
think when this conversation comes up, I'm going to ask
Rob saying some questions, and I'm sure he's going to
say answers that are not going to align with a
lot of the values of conservatives who are listening to
this show.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
And that's good.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
It's good.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I'll tell you why.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
It is so much better to know what the other
side is thinking, not just to like, oh I hate
what I'm hearing, I'm going to shut this off. We're
not making you think anything. We're literally getting a candidate's
opinion about things, the way that he sees things, what
he's hoping is done, and how it is changed or
adjusted for people of Iowa in his case. And we
(00:40):
have a lot of Western Iowa listeners here, and I
know we have a lot of Nebraska listeners, and you're thinking,
why does this matter to me? This is a good
snapshot of I think what the new Democrat is going
to look like, at least for twenty six, maybe more
so in twenty twenty eight. This is a person, especially
a younger leaning person. Rob sand is a young man.
(01:03):
He's barely forty. Probably I don't exactly know what his
exact ages, But Matt, you want to check that for me.
Rob Sand's age real quick. He's a younger person, but
he is going while operating with the D next to
his name as a Democrat and with you know, elected
official experience. He's been in the state auditor for the
(01:24):
last he'll be eight years by the time twenty twenty
six rolls around. He is going to be kind of
putting himself more in the middle. And yes he's a Democrat,
and yes there are going to be things that he's
going to say that are going to sound very much
like a Democrat, but he is going to try to
reach an alli branch across the island and say, there
are some things that we need to do better on
as Democrats, and I think we can meet you there
(01:45):
and do better for you, the people of Iowa, or
the people of Nebraska, or the people of Omaha, or
the people of the United States of America. And this
is the kind of thing that you just need to scout.
You need to listen, even if you know you're not
going to agree, even if a lot of the stuff
that you hear say, you're not going to fool me.
I'm never voting for a Democrat. That's fine, but that
doesn't mean we shouldn't talk to people. It doesn't mean
(02:06):
we shouldn't learn about how they feel about things and
really get a grasp of exactly what is on their
mind and how they view things. So I'm excited to
chat with him. I'm excited to talk with him throughout
the entire process. I'm sure as the campaign ebbs and
flows and we get a little bit deeper into kind
of the weeds of what it will look like. And
it seems like Randy Feenstra is you know who's currently
the fourth congressional district representative for Iowa. He is going
(02:28):
to not run in that for that race, again, that's
a very red district. They'll have no chance of losing
that to a Democrat. He is going to attempt to
utilize his name recognition and become the governor. And then
I you know, there are other names that we're going
to see there, like Mike Nagg, Secretary of Agriculture in
Iowa as well potentially getting in the mix. But just
challenge yourself to listen to what he has to say
(02:51):
so we can come to the table and understand. Okay,
so why does he say this and what effect will
that have on an independent voter, what effect will that
have on a blue voter? Will that have on a
red voter, And especially in a place like Iowa that
has swung so red over the last decade plus, I
think that it's important to see how much of a
dent he can make even if he doesn't win, If
(03:12):
he can make it a really competitive race, that is
a I mean, that's definitely things looking up for Democrats
in the state of Iowa because of how red all
of the races have become. Even if the Zach Nunn
and Marionette Ullner Meeks races have been pretty competitive, it's
still red in the state of Iowa. I mean, Governor
Camernil has had no chance to lose, you know a
(03:32):
few years ago when she ran for re election in
twenty twenty two. Matt, do we have an age on
Rob forty two? All right, there you go. So this
is a younger guy. I mean, this is kind of
the blueprint. This is going to be kind of the prototype.
And not to say that he's like everybody else, because
you know, every persons different, but I think this not
just you know, his profile, but also the way that
(03:53):
he speaks. He's not a person that the means. He's
not a person that says, you know that the people
who vote read are bad people or dumb people or
deplorables like some certain people have utilized those terms before.
He's the kind of person that, you know, he's just saying,
I think we could do some things a little bit better,
and here's what I think. And that's you know, it's
(04:16):
a fascinating situation. Now, certainly everybody's going to have their
own opinion about each and every issue and topic, and
we're certainly not going to be able to touch on all
of them here. And again, we are still a full
year away from really getting into the meat of the
you know, matter for the general election, for the gubernatorial
race next November.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
So we're so far away.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
But I think it is going to be interesting to
kind of see how he feels about certain things. And
I'm quite interested to kind of quizmont and Rare Songer
joining me is candidate for governor, currently the state auditor
of the state of Iowa. Rob sand joining us in
the studio here in Omaha. Rob, thanks so much for
being here.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yeah, thanks for having me. Memory good to see you.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Yeah, good to see you too, as we're kind of
reminiscing about how long I've actually been in Nebraska two years.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Flies.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Yeah, it's crazy. You've been kind of busy too. Let's
talk about what your job is state auditor. And I
know people in Nebraska are like, you know, is this
putting in information? Me? Yes, and I will tell you
why in a second. But you've got a very important
job as an elected official and the only Democrat who's
an elected official at the state level in Iowa. Tell
me take me through kind of what your day to
day job is.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
It's pretty straightforward. Where the taxpayers watchdog. So we have
about one hundred folks in the office working hard auditing
tax spenders, not taxpayers. So we audit state government, we
audit local government. We are trying to find misspent money, waste, fraud, abuse,
and we also in my first term started a government
efficiency program to do also some promotion of good as
(05:42):
opposed to just going after the bad. That program is
called PI. It's actually been copied in two other states,
and the idea is just making sure that we can
help identify new practices that are going to save money
for taxpayers and help those get implemented.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Very interesting. That sounds like something someone who's not a
demokrat would say. And yeah, so let's talk about that
part of it because you're running for governor and we'll
talk about why in a second. But you are a
Democrat and you're running as a Democrat, but you don't
really seem like when you say something like that, if
I didn't say you were a Democrat, people would say, Oh,
(06:18):
I like this guy. That sounds like something I would
be in supportive.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
And it's not just the job, you know. I think
most people if you said, Okay, here's a candidate who
was born and raised in a small town in a
rural area, who likes to hunt and fish, who's in
church every Sunday, who owns guns, including handguns, who was
a criminal prosecutor. I mean, what like probably eighty five
percent of people will be like, oh, that's a Republican. Yeah,
that's me. I grew up in Decorra. I do like
(06:42):
to hunt and fish, I do own guns, including handguns.
I am in church every Sunday. All these things are
important pieces of my life from when I was growing
up and they still are today. And a lot of
this comes down to Emory, Like I just I cannot
stand the state of our politics. I think it's broken.
I think that so many of us are sick of
being forced to feel like we're stuck between Iraq and
(07:03):
a hard place or the lesser of two evils. And
we have far more things in common with each other,
I think than lots of political leaders want us to acknowledge.
But the boy, it's a lot easier to control us
if you can convince people that the other side is
evil and out to destroy your way of life. Then
if you've got political leaders, tell me that, check your wallet,
because then it's easier to pick your pocket. If you
(07:25):
can't go anywhere else, if you haven't got another party
you feel like you can vote for, you're going to
tolerate an awful lot of corruption because you're going to say, well,
at least it's at least it's my guy who's grew
upt well.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
And that's the one thing that we heard from a
lot of people even before the twenty twenty four election.
There are a lot of people who big Donald Trump fans,
and you know, there are a lot of people who
are saunched Democrats and they're not gonna, you know, get
off of their particular trains, but a lot of independent voters,
that's exactly what they say is I'm voting for the
lesser of two evils in my head right, which sounds
like it's a messed up system to begin with. We're
(07:56):
speaking with Rob saying to your state auditor of Iowa,
and he's going to be a candidate for Are he
as a candidate for governor for next fall? Why the
governor spot in Iowa? Now, you mentioned you're from small
town in Iowa. What kind of end this moment, with
all this good work that you've been doing in the
auditor's office, did you feel like now is the right time?
Speaker 2 (08:13):
There's a number of things. Number One, the state of
Iowa deserves better leadership. We are number one in the
growth rate for cancer cases. We are forty ninth for
economic growth. We are literally winning the contest you want
to lose and losing the contest you want to win.
And what have the leaders in des Moines been up to?
What have they been spending their time on that have
gotten us to the point where regular Iowans are dealing
(08:34):
with higher costs every single day with rising cancer rates,
and yet what are they busy doing in des Moines,
I'm in my first term, we uncovered a record about
them have spent money. And then in des Moines in
my second term, they decided to change the law of
the state of Iowa to make it harder for us
to find waste, fraud, and abuse. That's what they're doing.
It's politicians and they want to do politics. They don't
(08:55):
want accountability for the tiny number of people that actually
run state government in Iowa. I was holding them accountable.
We found that record amount of spent money. I wasn't
playing their games, and they decided, Okay, well, we're just going
to go ahead and sideline this guy. They have lost
whatever reason if we want to assume good intentions, they
have lost direction for whatever it was that got them
into what's supposed to be public service in the first place.
(09:18):
They are just looking out for insiders and special interest
groups and governments supposed to be looking out for Iowans
in Iowa.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
I look at the government in Iowa and I mentioned this.
You are the only state level elected official that isn't
a Republican.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Governor.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Cam Reynolds on a national level has been applauded for
the work that she has done in helping turn Iowa
as read it as it has become. Both senators are Republicans,
all four, including there's a couple of districts that are
very competitive, but all four are Republicans right now, you know,
and it just has felt like it's gotten rehdter and
(09:55):
rehder over time. So when people here an upstart candidate
who is a younger guy but he's serving in state government,
say Iowa deserves better leadership. While the people have consistently
voted these types of people or people from the Republican
party into power, how would you best explain how people
have consistently made that their voice despite you know, you
(10:18):
saying that the leadership hasn't been as good as people
think it is.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I think it's pretty straightforward. I mean a lot of
this has been pretty recent, right. I mean, we know
the phrase power crrups and absolute power croups absolutely. And
now you can look back in Iowa and you can say, also,
as it turns out, it takes about ten years. Right.
It was recently that this law passing the gutting our
ability to find misspent money became law. It was very
(10:41):
recent that this school vouchers program that has no accountability
for how these tax dollars are spent, and almost no
rules for how private schools can spend this money. It
was very recently that that got passed. I think these
things are piling up at the same time that again,
we are forty ninth in the country for economic growth,
we are number one cancer rates. It's misplaced priorities and
(11:02):
all this is becoming clearer and clearer with every day
that goes by. I mean, it's lots of headlines about layoffs.
In the meantime, you've got a bunch of people on
the other side of the aisle who are effectively just cheerleaders.
And I'll work with anybody to do something good for Iowa,
but if they're going to do something bad, I'm going
to oppose it. Great example of this, I mean, yeah,
(11:22):
Donald Trump on Iowa three times. In between one of
those times, the people of Iowa also elected me as
their state auditor. And I hear from people every day, Oh,
I'm a Trump voter, but I like you too, or
oh me, yeah, my uncle. I can't hardly talk to
abou about anything, but boy, we can talk about the
fact that we both like the work that you're doing
and your approach to politics.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Robson joining US and state auditor right now running for
governor next year in the state of Iowa. Let's talk
about that party system, right because you know, trying to
bring people together. You are a Democrat, you are running
as a Democrat. But the way that you speak about politics,
I think people would, you know, like you be kind
of tricked that maybe he's a Republican, maybe he's a Democrat.
(12:03):
Maybe he's just an independent that just is in public service.
So how can you best describe how you view the
two party system right now broken?
Speaker 2 (12:12):
If I only had one word, I was a registered
independent when I first registered to vote, I realized then
that in order to vote in primaries, I had to
pick one, and so I did. But partisanship itself is poison.
And the idea that in the state of Iowa, at
least independent voters don't get to participate, to me, is
(12:32):
an Unamerican law. We literally celebrate our independence on fourth
of July. After in June we disenfranchise our independence in
the state of Iowa. We turn them away and tell
them they don't get to vote in an election that
their own tax dollars pay for unless they join a
private club first, Make that make sense to me. I mean,
it's stupid. And yet one of the very few things
(12:52):
that lots of establishment Democrats and establishment Republicans agree upon is, yeah,
it should be easier to get elected if you're a
Democrat Republican. Yes, these two parties should have special privileges.
Explain that to me. They don't exist in the Constitution,
they don't exist in the Declaration of Independence. And most
of our founders warned us about this too. I mean,
George Washington in his farewell address, warned about factionalism, the
(13:16):
idea that you could just have these massive, calcified parties
battling it out with each other as opposed to actually
advancing the will of the people. That is the state
of our democracy today, period. And I keep talking about that.
It's hard to find people that disagree.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Well, especially the way that you're saying it, right, It's
just like, wow, and the partisanship for whatever. I mean,
it didn't take long for Thomas Jefferson and John Adams
to get at each other's throats and kind you know,
start everything once the adult in the room decided to,
you know, say farewell and go back to Mount Vernon.
But why is Rob sand running as a Democrat? I
will ask him that question to his face next after
this on news Radio eleven ten kfab Emeric, we continue
(13:55):
our conversation here with Rob Sand. He is the current
state auditor of the state of Bio. He's also running
for governor as a Democrat for next falls governor election.
Certainly they'll be primary for him before that. And we
had just gotten done talking about Rob the partisan system
in how you see this as a broken system? And
I already have multiple emails here saying, well, if he
(14:17):
sounds like a conservative, why isn't he And you know,
Rob Sand, if the Democrat party is not what fits him,
then why is he still in it?
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Well, I have you here.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
I get a chance to ask why are you running
as a Democrat for governor of the state of Iowa.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Well, I think it's pretty simple. One piece of this is,
you know, if there's two things that don't fit you,
put on the one that fits a little better. The
Republican Party doesn't fit either. I'm someone that I would
say rejects the idea that there's only two ways to think.
When I registered as a Democrat, I didn't leave my
independent mind behind I still think for myself, and some
(14:52):
people in my party wish that I didn't. I'm the
only at the end of the day, I've got to
wake up and go to bed with myself, and I've
got to live with what I say, and I'm not
going to mislead people about what I think I believe
or about what the truth is. So why Democrat? Well,
(15:12):
A faith is a big part of my life. As
I mentioned, I think of the Democratic Party and its
best tradition is the party for the little guy. Jesus's
fourth a little guy. He was for everybody. He came
and said, the meek will inherit the earth. The Sermon
on the Mount. The heart of my faith, I think,
is about a lot of the things that the Democratic
Party at its best stands for, and I think people
(15:34):
can disagree about whether or not they're still there today,
but that's the party that I stand up for, and
that's my idea of it that I want to represent.
I'd also say too, when I was in I'm forty
two now, when I was in high school, I remember
watching Bill Clinton Bragg at the State of the Union
about balancing the budget and paying down the debt, and
I thought Hey, thanks, that's good because I don't want
(15:56):
to have to pay that off later. And I remember
my parents given me a loan to buy a mountain
bike when I was in it might have been in
eighth grade, but high school, eighth grade, something like that.
And I'd opened the serial cabinet every morning and see
the eight by eleven sheet of paper with how much
money I owed them. And I learned very early on
(16:16):
that that is not fun. And so because of Bill
Clinton talking about that after I had had that experience,
that was you know, points in the column for the
Democratic Party too.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Yeah, And we've actually had had that conversation before about
what administrations have been most responsible for the crazy national debt. Sure,
and Bill Clinton was the one time that it kind
of plateaued a little bit and didn't exactly grow. So
you talk about that, Rob, I Again, we can have
so many knockdown, drag out fights about certain issues. But
(16:49):
one thing that Nebraska does for its primary system, and
for like I mean here for mayor, for instance, we
had five candidates. They're not listed by party, everybody's a
part to the primary, and the top two candidates advanced
to the general election. How do you view kind of
how Nebraska does this stuff, and is this a better
system than what Iowa currently has with a two party system.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
I have to say I like the idea of nonpartisan elections. Yeah.
It gives everyone, I think, as a candidate a little
bit more freedom to say what they think, a little
bit less pure pressure to say things that they don't
agree with, and it gives all of us as voters
a little bit more of a sense of like, well,
maybe I should dig into this a little bit more
(17:31):
and make a little bit more of a unique judgment
on each character, which that's our democracy at its best.
I think the bottom line and a lot of this stuff, though, is,
you know, going back to the debt, like both parties
have done it, pretty terrible job with it. Bill Clinton's
the exception. But again, I think this is why a
system that's a duopoly doesn't work very well. I don't
(17:52):
think that the Democrat or the Republican parties solve enough
problems to have their little shared monopoly on our choices,
because what it does is it enables them to say, well, yeah,
I know, I gee, we over here haven't solved those problems,
but you're just kind of stuck with us anyway, and
so we wonder why it is. We look around our
(18:12):
country and our states and we say, we've got all
these problems piling up point they're getting solved. And the
answer is that it's easier to get re elected by
demonizing your opponent than it is to actually solve people's problems.
If you have more than two realistic options for voters
in the ballot, if you're not just giving someone a
golden ticket to the final round just for having ad
(18:33):
or ar behind their name, then all of a sudden,
voters will have much more realistic choices, and I think
we'd have more responsive elected officials and more accountability, which
accountability is fifteen years of what I've been doing, accountability
for people in positions of trust and power. Right because
prior to my two terms of state Auditor, I spent
seven years as the chief Public Option prosecutor in Iowa.
If anybody over remembers hearing about the guy that rigged
(18:55):
all those lottery jackpots, I ran the investigation that found
that in the prosecution that heldmcoun for it, people in
positions of trust and power will eventually, given the right opportunity,
in the right situation, abuse that trust in that power,
and that's why you've got to have a system that
actually allows for more accountability.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
It's quite interesting to hear a person actually running for office,
like bigger office, to say this out loud, regardless of
the political party. We're speaking with Rob sand state auditor
currently in the state of Iowa and running for governor
next fall.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Chimeral does not in that race.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
She has I think, by all accounts, by conservative measures,
has been a success to make Iowa redder and redder
and has really put Iowa on the map conservatively. But
you also, being a Democrat at the state level of government,
see things that you'd like to change. What are some
of those things you've kind of mentioned, the cancer rate,
you mentioned the economic growth. What are some things that
(19:47):
you would change if you were elected, and how would
you go about making those changes?
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Sure, and I want to emphasize two because this is
the this is how we talk right, redder and bluer.
Our slogan is not redder or bluer, but better and truer.
I don't teach my kids. We've got two boys. There
are eleven and the other one sists almost nine. Very important.
We don't teach our kids that redder blue. Our values,
(20:12):
you know, we teach them to do better, we teach
them to speak the truth, we teach them to be kind,
we teach them to work hard. And our politics, when
it's become so easy to summarize it as redder or bluer,
is just one other way that I think it's fundamentally broken. Now, look,
there's certainly some things that have happened to have been
good things. I'm glad to see that we have done
(20:33):
some work in the legislature and the governor signed a
bill getting cell phones out of schools. I think that
they're really problematic for young kids and obviously problematic in
the classroom. But one of the things that we need
to do is absolutely get focused on reducing costs for Ionans.
I've already talked about the fact that I think we
need to reform our political system and give voters real choices,
(20:56):
real ballot freedom, not just being forced to choose between
the lesser of two evils. We've got a water quality
problem in the state of Iowa that we actually need
to take action on. The current status QUO has had
a terrible record on that. They actually defunded five hundred
water quality monitors in the state of Iowa just a
couple of years ago, meaning they don't even necessarily want
(21:17):
us to know what's in the water. That to me
is kind of creepy, and I think most Iowans. The
bottom line is, our economy is struggling again, forty ninth
in the country for economic growth according to the Trump
administration statistics. We have got to get to work making
sure that our economy is moving in the right direction
and that Iowans have got good opportunities and that their
fundamental freedoms are protected.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
To what would be the first thing you would do
about fixing the economy in Iowa, especially considering that the
current administration has been able to say, we've balanced the
budget at a state level in a few different ways,
but that doesn't equate to economic growth.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Well, and that was true until this year. This spring,
the Iowa legislation and the governor passed a budget. We
had a nine hundred million dollar budget deficit, the biggest
budget deficit in Iowa history. So they had been doing okay,
but the bottom line on that really is they got
a pile of money from the federal government and they
(22:16):
basically did something like Wilven of saying, oh, you know,
my uncle left me three times what I make in
a year when he died, so I'm just going to
quit my job altogether. Most people wouldn't do that. They'd
be like, well, okay, but that's going to run out,
and then what are you going to do?
Speaker 1 (22:28):
You know?
Speaker 2 (22:29):
And yet that's that's the attitude that they've taken with
the federal government. So that's a problem too. I think
one of the easiest solutions that we can do in
the state of Iowa is start treating alcohol the way
we treat mayor or sorry the other way around. Start
treating marijuana is the way we treat alcohol. It is
silly to me that you could go to prison in
the state of Iowa just for using marijuana. Our citizens
(22:54):
are driving across the state border in all directions to
find legal marijuana. That means their tax dollars, their revenue
is leaving the State of Iowa to go to those
states as well. And we have a workforce crisis in
the state of Iowa, where you know, what are we
doing here? To take people out of the workforce, to
put them in prison just for using marijuana doesn't doesn't help.
(23:17):
It doesn't mean that it's a trifling thing. It doesn't
mean that there's that people should use it, but we
shouldn't be throwing people in prison for it. And I
think that we need to go ahead and move to
a place we've got a more sensible, common sense policy
around that.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
It's an interesting we've had that conversation about Nebraska. I
mean that that debate is raging about Nebraska and also
in gambling in Nebraska, because we see what Iowa does
with the gambling dollars that people can just you know,
drive across the border real quick before I let you go,
Rob sand joining us here. You're in Omaha to talk
to me. What brings you to Western Iowa. I do
(23:51):
one hundred public town halls every year. If you want
to come and see me, you're going to have to
come to Iowa. It's robsand dot com slash events. We
announced all of them at the same time, so I
have public events from here through October you can find
on the website. I again back to the theme of accountability.
I think that voters should be able to hold me accountable.
(24:11):
If they want to come yell at me about this,
that or the other thing. They ought to have an
opportunity to do it. That's part of the game, and
I am willing to do that. Most selected officials hide.
Most elected officials are scared. They don't want to hear
from people whose lives they have hurt, whose lives they
have impacted. I think that we should quit putting up
with that, and I am always proud to be trying
(24:33):
to set a new standard for ways that a candidate
or potentially a governor can be accessible to regular people.
Rob sand he is the current state auditor and taking
all of your auditor related questions also as well as
candidate for next falls governor's race in the state of Iowa.
This is fantastic, always great to chat with you an
ultiate book. I really do appreciate it, and hopefully we
(24:54):
get a chance to chat soon. Absolutely, thanks, i'mory all right,
Rob sand there. I appreciate you for listening to us
as well. It is three thirty on news radio eleven
ten KFAB.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Emery Songer on news radio eleven ten KFAB
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.