{"id":6303,"date":"2026-04-02T22:16:58","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T22:16:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/04\/02\/rob-sand-proposes-election-changes-and-term-limits-as-part-of-his-accountability-plan-if-elected-governor-iowa-public-radio\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T22:16:58","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T22:16:58","slug":"rob-sand-proposes-election-changes-and-term-limits-as-part-of-his-accountability-plan-if-elected-governor-iowa-public-radio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/04\/02\/rob-sand-proposes-election-changes-and-term-limits-as-part-of-his-accountability-plan-if-elected-governor-iowa-public-radio\/","title":{"rendered":"Rob Sand proposes election changes and term limits as part of his 'accountability' plan if elected governor – Iowa Public Radio"},"content":{"rendered":"

State Auditor Rob Sand \u2014 the only Democrat running for governor \u2014 is proposing term limits and cognitive tests for elected officials, along with changes to Iowa\u2019s elections, as part of his plan to promote accountability in the state\u2019s political system.
At a news conference Thursday, Sand said the current system helps politicians get reelected even if they don\u2019t solve problems. He believes the majority of Iowans would agree with his ideas for fixing that.
\u201cI think it\u2019s time that we implement them, so that people who are in public office actually have to resolve the issues that face Iowans in order to get reelected, they actually have to face competition and that they aren\u2019t spending their time enriching themselves,\u201d Sand said.
His \u201cAccountability for All\u201d plan<\/a> also includes age limits and stock trading restrictions for elected officials, requiring candidates to pass a civics test to get on the ballot, making prison time mandatory for people who steal public funds, creating new limits on education savings accounts (ESA) for private schools, strengthening whistleblower protections and rolling back limits that the Legislature put on the powers of the State Auditor\u2019s Office.
If elected governor, Sand would have to convince the Republican-majority Legislature to advance these policies.
\u201cA lot of them also support these issues publicly \u2014 lawmakers in both parties \u2014 and it\u2019s just a question of actually putting a point on it, advocating for these issues, bringing them to the front of the conversation, so that we are pushing them and forcing people to take positions on them,\u201d he said.
Sand called for changes to Iowa\u2019s primary elections, which require voters to register as a Republican or Democrat to cast a vote in one party\u2019s primary. He said all candidates should be on one ballot, and up to four of the candidates who receive the most votes would advance to the general election.
For general elections, Sand has proposed \u201capproval voting,\u201d which would let Iowans vote for as many candidates as they approve of. The candidate with the most votes would win.
\u201cWhat I have proposed would give independent voters an equal voice,\u201d he said. \u201cAnybody who says anything other than that are the people who are clinging to power in this state because they\u2019re desperate to keep it.\u201d
Some Republicans have criticized this proposal, saying it would be confusing and lead to delayed election results.
\u201cRob Sand isn\u2019t trying to fix Iowa\u2019s elections, he\u2019s trying to replace them,\u201d said Iowa GOP spokesperson Jade Cichy. \u201cIowa already delivers secure elections, voter ID, and fast, reliable results. Sand\u2019s plan trades that for a confusing, untested system that puts all of that at risk. That\u2019s not progress, it\u2019s a step backward.\u201d
Alaska, Washington and California have single-ballot primary election systems similar to Sand\u2019s proposal, according to Ballotpedia<\/a>. St. Louis is the only jurisdiction<\/a> that uses approval voting.
Sand said he is focused on state and local elections, and the changes don\u2019t necessarily need to apply to caucuses run by the Republican and Democratic parties. He said he likes caucuses, but he would be open to considering changes.
Sand said candidates should have to pass cognitive and civics tests to get on the ballot.
He also said statewide elected officials and state lawmakers should be subject to term limits and age limits. Sand said he is open to discussing what those limits should be, but he thinks 78 would be a reasonable age limit \u2014 that\u2019s the mandatory retirement age for Iowa judges \u2014 and three terms would be “about right” for a statewide office.
\u201cWe can all recognize that if you\u2019ve been there for five terms, there\u2019s probably someone else who\u2019s going to have a little bit more pep in their step, who\u2019d do a good job,\u201d Sand said.
He also called for a ban on stock trading by elected officials by requiring them to put stock holdings in blind trusts. He declined to say how many terms he would serve as governor or how he would handle his investments if these proposals do not become law.
Sand, in his current role of state auditor, has been calling on lawmakers to require prison time for people who steal public funds<\/a>.
\u201cThey\u2019re not drunk. They\u2019re not committing these crimes in a fit of passion,\u201d he said. \u201cThey are coldly and soberly thinking about their position of trust and their position of power, and they are making the choice week after week, month after month, to steal from taxpayers, because they have access to taxpayer money.\u201d
Sand proposed new limits on Iowa\u2019s ESAs, which send taxpayer dollars to Iowa families to help them pay for private school tuition.
He said there should be an income restriction to qualify for ESAs, and private schools that accept ESAs should be limited in how much they can raise tuition. He said the vast majority of Iowans want these changes.
\u201cThey want to know how public dollars are spent, including if they\u2019re spent by a private school,\u201d Sand said. \u201cThey want to have rules for how that money can get spent, because there\u2019s some things that you shouldn\u2019t be allowed to spend taxpayer dollars on.\u201d
Sand said if Republican lawmakers who voted for the ESA program don\u2019t agree, they should have to answer for it.<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

State Auditor Rob Sand \u2014 the only Democrat running for governor \u2014 is proposing term limits and cognitive tests for elected officials, along with changes to Iowa\u2019s elections, as part of his plan to promote accountability in the state\u2019s political system.At a news conference Thursday, Sand said the current system helps politicians get reelected even […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6304,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6303","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}