Sand outlines Medicaid, insulin and housing proposals in run for governor
By Don Harrold, Executive Editor
don.harrold@enterprisepub.com
Iowa State Auditor Rob Sand, the Democratic nominee for governor, said he would end the privatization of Medicaid, cap the price of insulin and offer interest-free loans to first-time homeowners. Sand faces Republican nominee Zach Lahn in the Nov. 3 general election.
Sand said he is running because of his faith and his work as auditor. “I’m a big believer in public service. It’s part of my faith, but I also really loved my job at the state auditor’s office,” Sand said. “And when they took away our ability to truly serve the public because they made it harder for us to find misspent tax money, it became clear that we need a new direction.”
Sand said his affordability proposals focus mostly on energy, housing and health care. “Privatization of Medicaid has driven up costs and made the quality of care worse, and actually has seen tax increases for ordinary Iowans,” he said. “So we should end privatization of Medicaid. We should import pharmaceutical drugs from Canada the way Texas has started doing. We should have a pharmaceutical drug review board. We should cap the price of insulin.”
On insulin, he said, “We know what it costs to make insulin. ... It’s screwed up when people need a life-saving drug and they’re absolutely brutally exploited with the price of it, just because they have to have it in order to live.”
On housing, Sand said, “We should cut red tape. We should give folks interest-free loans for first-time homeowners.” For economic development, he said he wants to return to a program modeled on Vision Iowa. “I think it’s important that we move back to kind of a Vision Iowa-style program where we’re focusing on improving our communities because those community improvement projects give every town that they happen in just a little bit better boost, a little bit more gravity,” Sand said. He said such projects make people want to stay in those communities, “and that makes a big difference.”
Sand did not discuss in the interview how the proposals would be paid for. He encouraged voters to read the policy details on his campaign website and criticized Lahn’s. “I always like to invite people too to visit my opponent’s website because he’s got platitudes and nothing else,” Sand said.
Sand said his office found a record amount of misspent money across Iowa during his first term as auditor, which he credited to having different people working together. “I put an independent and a Republican who made campaign contributions to my 2018 opponent into the senior positions in the office, and we worked together and did a good job,” he said.
Sand did not name the law that he said limited his office, but described it this way: “And then politicians do what politicians sometimes do, which is look at someone else who’s holding them accountable and say, ‘I don’t want any more of that.’ Every single government watchdog in America ... that talked about this law said it was a terrible decision that was going to lead to an increase in waste, fraud and abuse. So there’s really no disputing that it was a bad law. I call it the biggest pro-corruption law in Iowa history.” He added, “If those folks are willing to pass something like that, then I’d say time to rotate the crops.”
Sand said he puts Iowa’s electorate at about 40% Republican, with independents and Democrats at roughly 30% each, though he said the numbers depend on how they are defined. He said he reaches independent and Republican voters through open town halls. “I go everywhere and I talk to everybody,” he said. “We do open public town halls. I hand the microphone to Republicans who are in attendance and let them ask me whatever questions they want.”
“I’m done with the two-party system. This is about controlling us. It doesn’t solve our problems,” Sand said. “We should have more than two options on the ballot, and I think a lot of Iowans feel the same way. We actually have over 3,400 Iowa Republicans that have donated to the campaign. That’s incredible, and we’ve had over 100 Republicans endorse me, including people in county-level office.”
Sand said the reforms he is pushing include ending what he called the special legal privileges of the Democratic and Republican parties, making independent voters equal participants, term limits and age limits, a ban on trading stock and mandatory prison time for people who steal from taxpayers. “If you start regulating politics, then you’ll end up getting more public servants in there who came for the right reasons,” he said.
Asked why he is not running as an independent, Sand said he has talked about opposing the two-party system for years. He compared his situation to voters who like an independent candidate but worry a vote for that candidate would be thrown away. “So I don’t want to throw my candidacy away either. If it’s a three-way race, I pull more votes from the Democrat, and then the Republican wins,” he said. “... That’s why we shouldn’t have a system that forces people to pick between the lesser of two evils.”
He also cited Chapter 43 of Iowa law, which he said gives the Democratic and Republican parties major-party status as long as their nominee for governor receives a minimum share of the vote. He said asking Democrats not to nominate a candidate would affect the party’s candidates in 2028. “I think that’s kind of a selfish thing for me to do to make everybody’s job harder two years from now because I just want to do one thing,” Sand said.
Sand said he registered as an independent voter at 18 and chose a party when he realized he needed one to vote in a primary. “I truly do not like parties,” he said. He said he became a Democrat because of “clean water, public land, sticking up for the little guy” and former President Bill Clinton’s budget record.
“I grew up hunting and fishing. I want to have clean water to drink and to fish in, and I think that Jesus is for the little guy, and the Democratic Party tends to be the one that’s looking out for the little guy,” Sand said. “And I remember Bill Clinton balancing the budget and using the surplus to pay down the debt and thinking, ‘Thank you.’”
Asked where he stands on whether boys can be girls, whether the U.S. should be dropping bombs in Iran, and illegal immigration and border security, Sand said, “Boys and girls are biologically different, and that’s that.” On Iran, he said, “The war in Iran is stupid and poorly informed, and driving up gas prices.”
“Look, illegal immigration is bad. We need comprehensive reform at the federal level. If people have a criminal record, send them home,” Sand said. “If they’re here illegally, there needs to be some kind of a consequence. To me, that means paying a fine ... doing something to make it right.”
He said that consequence should not mean removing people who are working and have no criminal record. “If somebody’s working here and paying their taxes and showing up for their immigration appointments and contributing to our society, and they don’t have any criminal charges, I don’t think that ... picking up every one of those people and sending them home is either productive or good,” he said.
Sand said he has campaigned in Harrison County before. With three weeks left before the election, he said his bet would be that he does not return, “but I couldn’t tell you.”
Sand described his upbringing as normal. “Still like to hunt and fish. My wife Christine and I have been married 14 years. We got two boys. They’re 10 and 12. That’s my whole life right there,” he said.
Sand said Iowa has a history of independence from both parties. “We have a proud tradition in Iowa. We have traditionally been a state that isn’t about being either Democratic or Republican,” he said. “It’s about putting checks and balances on politicians and making government actually work for ordinary people.”
