Bird, Willems present competing visions for Iowa Attorney General’s Office

Iowa’s 2026 attorney general race is emerging as a study in contrasts: Republican incumbent Brenna Bird, a prosecutor who centered her first term on law-and-order priorities and high-profile legal fights, versus Democrat Nate Willems, a labor attorney promising to refocus the office on wage theft, consumer protection and legal problems facing Iowans.

Bird, who unseated longtime Democratic Attorney General Tom Miller in 2022, endorsed Donald Trump ahead of the 2024 Iowa caucuses and traveled to New York last year to support the then-former president as he stood trial in a criminal hush-money case.

She is scheduled to headline a Nov. 12 fundraiser at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida, with suggested support levels of $5,000 per couple for a reception, $10,000 per couple for a reception and dinner, and $25,000 per couple as an event host, according to an invitation provided to The Gazette.

Willems, a former two-term state representative from Anamosa who now lives in Mount Vernon, vowed to refocus the attorney general’s office on protecting Iowans from wage theft and corporate abuses.

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Bird touts law-and-order record, defends Trump from prosecutions

At a recent campaign stop, Bird framed her re-election bid around her record of backing law enforcement, supporting crime victims and defending what she calls the rule of law against political weaponization.

“We certainly got to work in the AG's office, working hard,” Bird said at an Oct. 13 Johnson County Republican Women event in Iowa City. “And one of the things that's close to my heart as a prosecutor is working with our law enforcement and helping our crime victims, keeping Iowa safe and fighting crime.”

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She highlighted new initiatives under her tenure, including the creation of a cold case unit to help solve more than 400 unsolved suspected homicides statewide. “We recently filed charges in a case that was 36 years old,” Bird said. “… We will bring these murderers to justice and work those cases one by one, because we know every person matters.”

Bird also described backing stiffer penalties for assaults on law enforcement officers and defended supporting Trump during his legal battles. She said she was “so glad that President Trump fought back” against what she described as “injustice” and an effort to “weaponize” the justice system against him.

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Legal experts and former Justice Department officials have pushed back on claims that Trump’s prosecutions were politically motivated. Proponents of the DOJ’s actions argue the investigations were driven by evidence uncovered through established legal processes — including special counsel appointments, grand jury proceedings and court-authorized search warrants — in contrast to more recent moves under the Trump administration that some former DOJ officials warn show actual politicization, such as efforts to investigate political rivals like former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James despite internal warnings about the strength of the evidence.

Closing her remarks, Bird tied her campaign to constitutional principles and American ideals.

“We are truly blessed, but we know freedom is never further than one generation away from extinction,” she said. “We must continue to renew those constitutional principles that respect the rule of law.”

Bird told supporters she is preparing for what she described as a “tough fight” for re-election.

Bird’s record draws scrutiny over immigration, political lawsuits

The attorney general has faced criticism during her first term for what opponents describe as politicized decision-making and a focus on national conservative causes over the day-to-day needs of Iowans.

Earlier this year, Bird filed — and later dropped — a lawsuit against Winneshiek County Sheriff Dan Marx, a fellow Republican. The case stemmed from a February Facebook post in which Marx said his deputies would not comply with federal immigration “detainer” requests to hold suspected illegal immigrants that were not backed by judicial warrants, calling them unconstitutional.

Under a state law, local governments found guilty of not cooperating with federal immigration authorities can lose almost all state funding for a minimum of 90 days.

At Bird’s request, the post was taken down, but Marx refused to post a retraction drafted by her office. In announcing the lawsuit in March, Bird said: “Sanctuary counties are illegal under Iowa law. Sheriff Marx was given the chance to retract his statement, follow the law, and honor (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) detainers, but he refused — even at a cost to his home county. He left us with no choice but to take the case to court to enforce our laws and ensure cooperation with federal immigration authorities.”

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The sheriff pushed back, calling the case “thought policing,” and noted that his office had complied with all 21 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer requests it received since 2018. When she dismissed the case this summer, Bird said Winneshiek County “has now fully complied with” Iowa law, adding that “they have committed to continue to honor U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainers and cooperate with federal immigration authorities.”

Civil liberties advocates and local officials criticized the episode as an unnecessary and politically motivated overreach by the attorney general’s office. Willems, her Democratic challenger, called it inappropriate for the state’s top prosecutor to “try to bully a county sheriff or local law enforcement.”

Bird has also drawn fire for her 17-month review of Iowa’s victim services programs, which temporarily halted reimbursements to providers for contraception and abortion care for sexual assault victims. When she announced her findings last year, Bird said the state would resume paying for emergency contraception but would no longer cover abortion procedures.

Bird emphasized that “not one victim was denied services due to the audit.” Victims were able to receive contraception and abortions during the review period; only the reimbursements to providers were paused.

Victim advocates criticized Bird’s decision, saying it created unnecessary hardship and that cost should never be a barrier for victims seeking care, while Democrats noted her report offered no legal or financial reason for withholding payments.

National lawsuits and alignment with Trump policies

Bird has also faced criticism for devoting state resources to high-profile, ideologically driven national legal fights, many of them in coordination with Republican attorneys general aligned with President Trump.

Bird has co-led or joined multi-state actions defending Trump’s executive order aimed at ending birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S. to parents who are in the country illegally or temporarily.

Trump, in January, signed an executive order ending birthright citizenship for children born under certain conditions, including to immigrants without legal status. Last month, a three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals became the latest in a series of court decisions blocking the order.

In September, Trump appealed the rulings to the U.S. Supreme Court and is asking for his executive order to be upheld.

Bird argues that the 14th Amendment was not intended to guarantee citizenship to children born to those in the country illegally or temporarily.

“The Fourteenth Amendment was never intended to reward people for breaking the law,” Bird said in a statement.

Civil rights groups and immigration advocates, however, warned that the ruling undermines more than a century of precedent and that Bird’s support reflects a broader political agenda rather than the interests of Iowa residents.

Her participation in dozens of other multi-state lawsuits against the former Biden administration has prompted similar critiques. Bird has joined or led challenges to environmental regulations, immigration and asylum policies, health care and staffing mandates for nursing homes, housing and infrastructure standards, and education rules concerning gender identity and disability accommodations.

Supporters say the lawsuits protect Iowa’s sovereignty and shield families and businesses from costly federal overreach. Critics counter that Bird is using the attorney general’s office to advance partisan objectives and national ambitions rather than focusing on core state responsibilities like consumer protection and wage enforcement.

Willems has made that critique central to his campaign, arguing the office should spend “less time filing political lawsuits” and “more time helping regular Iowa workers, consumers and senior citizens.”

Willems to focus on wage theft, consumer protection, working Iowans

Willems — who practices labor law in Cedar Rapids and says he represents unions and workers “from the Missouri River to the Mississippi River” — is pitching a back-to-basics attorney general’s office focused on unfair pay practices and everyday consumer issues.

In a recent interview, he framed his candidacy around being “an attorney general who advocates on behalf of regular Iowa workers and consumers and senior citizens.”

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On public safety, Willems said he represents police unions in bargaining and shares concerns about recruiting and retention, and said the AG should support — not supplant — county attorneys.

“I don't really think it's the AGs job to kind of Bigfoot the local county attorney,” he said.

He criticized Bird’s litigation against the Winneshiek County Sheriff.

“It's never crossed my mind that an attorney general would try to bully a county sheriff or local law enforcement. I just, it doesn't seem to me to be appropriate,” he said, later adding that both officials swear oaths to the Constitution and that the sheriff “was probably acting in good conscience.”

Willems pledges to rebuild what he calls an atrophied Consumer Protection Division and to create a unit taking on wage-and-hour crimes.

He casts Bird’s multistate suits as distractions: “I'm not running for Attorney General because I'm interested in suing the government every 10 minutes,” he said. Litigation against federal policies, he added, should be reserved for “a real harm” or “real threat” to Iowans.

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At a Nov. 1 union rally in Cedar Rapids, Willems cast his campaign as part of a broader effort to restore balance and fairness for working Iowans.

He cited his role in recovering $15 million for 11,000 University of Iowa Health Care workers in a class-action wage case, calling it an example of the kind of enforcement he wants the state to pursue more broadly. But he argued that case represented “just a drop in the bucket,” estimating that “there's $900 million a year stolen from Iowa workers paychecks.” He pointed to common violations such as unpaid overtime, stolen tips and misclassification of employees, adding that “these are crimes which ought to be prosecuted.”

“Laws do not enforce themselves, but with a team of prosecutors taking on these types of workplace crimes, we can put more money in workers pockets and bring just a little bit more dignity to the workplace,” Willems said.

Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com