Allow Iowa’s state auditor to audit

Republicans who control the Iowa Senate pushed to passage this week a bill that would allow government agencies to bypass the state auditor and have their annual audits conducted by private accounting firms.

This year’s legislative salvo aimed at the auditor’s office comes on the heels of a bill approved last year making it tougher for the auditor to access information from state agencies. It requires a three-member panel to judge the request, with one representative from the agency at issue, the auditor and a representative appointed by Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds.

It just so happens that State Auditor Rob Sand is the only Democrat holding a statewide office in Iowa. And yet, Republicans, with a straight face, insist these moves are not political.

“Only in politics could hiring a nonpartisan, independent, licensed certified public accountant be labeled as political,” said Sen. Mike Bousselot, R-Ankeny, who also spearheaded last year’s bill.

Politely, we call baloney.

This legislation and the 2023 bill clearly are aimed at reducing the Democratic auditor’s oversight of an executive branch controlled by a Republican governor. Sand, while doing the job he was elected to do, has at times been a political fly in the ointment aggravating Republicans.

Curtailing his ability to obtain information and allowing state agencies to run an end-around by shutting Sand out of audits ignores that fact that Sand won re-election in 2022 fair and square. Iowans who voted for him likely wanted him to be a government watchdog, not an official sidelined by political revenge.

Illinois, hardly a state known for clean government, has an auditing policy similar to the Iowa GOP bill. And how much more will it cost taxpayer to hire private firms?

Throwing up barriers to hamper Sand is a political exercise through and through. We know this because we watched it happen to former Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller. Republicans passed legislation requiring Miller to seek the governor’s permission before joining out-of-state legal actions, in particular lawsuits against the Trump administration.

Miller agreed to seek the governor’s permission in exchange for the bill being vetoed.

But lawmakers have now expanded and enhanced the authority of Republican Attorney General Brenna Bird. Bird has joined numerous legal actions against the Biden administration, and no lawmaker has said a word about the attorney general wasting her time on political litigation.

So what’s happening here is clear. If Republicans can’t control a state office, they’ll simply seek to hobble its performance with misguided legislative edicts.

Lawmakers should scrap this bill and let the auditor audit. That’s why voters sent him to Des Moines.

(319) 398-8262; editorial@thegazette.com