I am writing to encourage each of you to attend a town hall meeting with State Auditor Rob Sand in Forest City from 1:15 to 2:15 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 2, outside at the Winnebago County Courthouse gazebo. I first became acquainted with Rob a number of years ago when he was a student at the University of Iowa College of Law and I was serving as a director of the Iowa Law School Foundation and Rob was a student representative to that board. We hit it off and have been friends ever since. We could all see endless potential in Rob at that time, and certainly he has not disappointed.

Rob, a Democrat, in spite of a very good year for Republicans in Iowa in 2018, defeated the incumbent Republican state auditor. A big factor in this win was that Rob puts people before partisanship. He has a political brand that transcends party lines. He does public service differently than politics, keeping an independent and a Republican in senior leadership positions at the state auditor's office and promoting, not firing, employees who made campaign contributions to his political opponent. But Rob has also done his job, and he has done it well! He has been a watchdog for Iowa taxpayers – identifying over $25 million in waste fraud and abuse. He also was the national accountability leader on the pandemic response. He issued what is believed to be the first COVID-related audit in the nation. He also had some of the only official findings of misspent COVID relief dollars by elected officials -- demonstrating a willingness to put himself in the crosshairs of powerful politicians in order to do his job. His review of Iowa’s prohibition on self-promotion with taxpayer funds criticized not only Iowa’s Republican governor but also the Democratically controlled Polk County Board of Supervisors. He advocated for the law to be expanded to prevent additional politicians from promoting themselves in ads taxpayers pay for.