DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa’s auditor may face new challenges in his quest to track taxpayer dollars after a new law takes effect Saturday that allows state agencies to deny his office access to information and bars him from making an appeal in court.
State Auditor Rob Sand, the only Democrat in statewide office, said the law advanced by Republican lawmakers is a politically motivated attack on accountability. The law could stifle Sand, who described his office as “assertive."
“Bottom line on that is, we uncovered a record amount of waste, fraud and abuse in my first term. That’s where it came from,” Sand said in an interview with The Associated Press. “They don’t want accountability.”
But supporters of the Iowa law emphasize the changes are meant to protect Iowans’ privacy and that the risk to the auditor’s work is low.
Going forward, a state agency is not allowed to provide the state auditor’s office access to confidential information, such as medical or school records, unless it is deemed necessary to the auditor’s responsibilities. The auditor's office, as usual, must maintain confidentiality of those records.
That could mean business as usual — as Republican lawmakers suggest — if the auditor is doing his job as outlined in generally accepted federal audit standards. Or, it could mean agencies would more often question a request and withhold information from his office.
If a dispute arises, Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds is empowered to appoint a tiebreaker vote to an arbitration panel, on which Sand and the agency involved each will have a representative. That gives two of the three voices on the panel, whose decision is final, to Reynolds’ administration.
The bill made its way through a Republican-dominated statehouse and passed easily without support from Democrats, who argued it has the potential to give the state's Republican leadership more power to quiet political rivals and hide corruption.
Uneven political power in Republican-controlled state governments has given way to some more extreme examples of retribution in recent months, including the expulsion of three Democratic lawmakers in Tennessee's Legislature and the removal of a Democratic transgender lawmaker from the Montana House floor.
Iowa Republican State Senator Mike Bousselot said previous state Supreme Court rulings in cases between Sand’s office and state agencies raised questions about the role of the auditor’s office.
“Why should the Auditor have unfettered access to Iowans’ medical records, financial aid, school records and more?” Bousselot wrote in an email. “It is irrational and potentially dangerous for the Auditor to seek irrelevant information in an audit.”