Governor Kim Reynolds’ proposal to restructure state government was recently cleared by one hurdle in the Iowa Legislature.
The Iowa Senate passed the governor’s nearly 1,600-page bill that includes multiple changes to how state government is run. District 24 Senator Jesse Green (R-Boone) voted for the bill, but says there was one part that was a sticking point before the legislation was put to a vote. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio he received lots of pushback from several county attorneys, including Greene County Attorney Thomas Laehn, about the Iowa Attorney General having the authority to take over prosecuting any criminal case in any county at any time.
Green points out that the governor’s bill clarifies existing Iowa Code that does allow for the Iowa Attorney General to prosecute any county case and he gives an example of how that could happen with election laws.
“There’s sometimes you have county attorneys that don’t prosecute or don’t dig into some election fraud issues within their counties. So this would, I believe would give some clarity the attorney general to be able to step in, in those couple of those situations.”
Laehn argues that this bill would also create other issues, such as criminal defendants, to contact the Iowa Attorney General if they have concerns with how the county attorney is handling their case.
“Do we really want that, to essentially allow a criminal defendant who thinks I’m being too aggressive, do we want it to say, ‘Well that person can call the Attorney General’s Office, have the Attorney General intervene in my case and dismiss it?’ Or if some member of the public, some voter could call the Attorney General’s Office and say, ‘Unless you intervene in this case, I’m not voting for you in four years.’ I don’t think we want that. We don’t want to politicize our criminal justice system.”
Green says while he had some hesitancy when it came time to vote on the bill, the concerns from county attorneys didn’t outweigh his support for the bill overall. The legislation is now in the House for consideration.