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Rob Sand
American politician (born 1982) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Robert Sand (born August 12, 1982) is an American lawyer and politician who has served as the 33rd Iowa Auditor of State since 2019. Sand is a member of the Democratic Party. Sand was the Assistant Attorney General of Iowa from 2010 to 2017. In 2018, he ran for state auditor, defeating Republican incumbent Mary Mosiman. After considering a run for governor of Iowa in 2022, Sand opted to run for re-election and was the only Democrat to be elected to a statewide office in Iowa in 2022.
In May 2025, he announced his candidacy for the 2026 Iowa gubernatorial election.[1][2][3][4]
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Early life
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Sand was born in Decorah, Iowa.[5][6] His mother, Leslie, worked as a physical therapist while his father, Kevin, was a doctor. While he attended Decorah High School, he spent two years lobbying community leaders in Decorah to build a skate park.[7][8] Sand graduated from Decorah High School in 2001.[5][6][7] Sand enrolled at Brown University, where he was awarded a Harry S. Truman Scholarship.[5][9] He graduated from Brown in 2005 with a bachelor's degree.[6]
While he was in college, he spent a semester interning in the Washington, D.C., office of Senator Tom Harkin, a member of the Democratic Party from Iowa.[10] He made his first political donation to Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign, but missed the Iowa caucus because he was modeling menswear in Milan.[11] He also modeled in Paris.[9] Sand graduated from Brown with a bachelor's degree in political science in 2005.[7] He caucused for Barack Obama' presidential campaign in 2008.[11]
After Iowa flood of 2008, Sand created a student volunteer effort dedicated to helping clean and rebuild Cedar Rapids, committing to 1,000 hours of service.[5]
Sand enrolled at the University of Iowa College of Law, with a full merit scholarship.[5][7] He earned his Juris Doctor in 2010.[6][7][12] In law school, he was both president of the Iowa Student Bar Association and an editor-in-chief of a law journal.[5] In law school, he worked as a law clerk for the Office of the Attorney General in Des Moines, Iowa, and was a summer law clerk at Simmons Perrine Moyer Bergman PLC in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.[13][better source needed]
He was awarded the Hancher-Finkbine Medallion while at the University of Iowa.[5] This award is to "recognize their peers for exemplary dedication in leadership, learning, and loyalty"[14] and is the highest award at the University of Iowa.[5]
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Political career
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Early career
In 2006, Sand worked as an aide for State Representative Ed Fallon's campaign for governor of Iowa. After Fallon lost the primary election, Sand became the campaign manager for Denise O'Brien, the Democratic Party's nominee for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture.[15][16] While he was on the campaign trail, he met Tom J. Miller, who was Iowa Attorney General at the time.[7]
Attorney General Office
Miller appointed Sand assistant attorney general in September 2010.[17] Upon joining the attorney general's office, he became the lead prosecutor for the Iowa Film Office tax credit scandal, in which millions of dollars of film tax credits were fraudulently obtained.[18][19][20] After completing the Iowa Film Office case, Sand was recruited by Tom H. Miller, the deputy attorney general, to work in the Area Prosecutions Division, which focuses on prosecuting white-collar financial crimes. Sand prosecuted an investment advisor for deceiving people to invest into the International Bank of Meekamui, an international Ponzi scheme emanating from Papua New Guinea.[21]
Sand also prosecuted the Hot Lotto fraud scandal, in which seven lottery tickets across five states were rigged, with the amount totaling $25 million. Eddie Tipton, the former information security director of the Multi-State Lottery Association, confessed to rigging a random number generator in the largest lottery rigging scheme in American history.[22] Tipton was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2017.[23] After completing the prosecution, Sand resigned from the Attorney General's office so that he could run for office.[22]
State Auditor
In the 2018 elections, Sand ran for Iowa State Auditor.[17] He was not opposed in the Democratic Party primary election.[24] Sand defeated Republican Mary Mosiman, the incumbent, in the general election[25] 51% to 46%, while Libertarian Fred Perryman received 3% of the vote.[26][27] He became the second of five Democrats ever elected to be Auditor.[28] After considering a campaign for governor of Iowa against Reynolds,[29] Sand announced in December 2021 that he would run for reelection in 2022.[30] In January 2022, Mary Ann Hanusa, a Republican former state representative, announced that she would run for state auditor.[31] Todd Halbur, a small business owner, defeated Hanusa in the primary election[32] and Sand defeated Halbur in the November 8 general election with 50.1% of the vote.[33]
Sand was sworn into office on January 2, 2019. At his swearing-in ceremony, he announced that he would have a "tri-partisan" leadership team, with his top three assistants being a Democrat, a Republican, and an independent.[34] As state auditor, Sand developed the Public Innovations and Efficiencies (PIE) program, which awards fiscal efficiency in government.[35] The PIE program inspired Shad White, the Republican state auditor of Mississippi, to develop a similar program.[36][37] Prior to the 2020 presidential caucuses, Sand's endorsement was sought by multiple candidates.[38][39] He did not endorse a candidate, though he did co-host a campaign event in Decorah with Cory Booker that he said did not constitute an endorsement.
Senate File 478, a bill that would restrict the powers of the State Auditor, passed the Iowa Legislature in April 2023 and was signed by Governor Kim Reynolds in June.[40] Sand has held multiple press conferences and town halls across Iowa in opposition to the bill, claiming it is targeting him as the only statewide Democrat remaining in Iowa.[41][42] The bill, which was opposed by all Democrats in the Iowa House and Senate along with six House Republicans,[43] has been opposed by the National State Auditors Association, the American Institute of CPAs, and former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker.[42]
Investigations and Audits
From 2011 to 2019, Jeffrey Dworek, a Metro Waste Authority (MWA) director of operations defrauded the company for over $2 million by billing services not rendered to subcontractors he owned.[44] He sent money to Lemar Programming Company, International Telemetry Technologies and Britad Enterprises and deposited the money in his own accounts.[44] On January 8, 2021 he was sentenced to 4.75 years in federal prison on charges of mail fraud and was sentenced by Chief District Judge John Alfred Jarvey.[45] This was a joint investigation with the Auditor and the FBI.[45] He was prosecuted by the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa Richard D. Westphal.[45]
From 2019 to 2025, the Auditor's office investigated the Johnson County Conservation Board due to misspent $95,000 by former Conservation Director Larry Gullett and Operations Superintendent Wade Schultz.[46] The Johnson County Conservation Board requested the investigation after finding the mismanagement.[46]
In 2020, an audit conducted by Sand's office found that Governor Kim Reynolds misspent $21 million from the CARES Act on unrelated state contracts rather than on managing the COVID-19 pandemic. The state returned the money to their coronavirus relief fund.[47] Sand alleged Reynolds broke Iowa's law against self-promotion by appearing in a taxpayer-funded video to promote wearing a mask. An Iowa ethics board later found Reynolds did not break any laws.[48] In November 2021, Sand said Reynolds improperly used nearly $450,000 in federal coronavirus relief funds to pay salaries for 21 staff members for three months in the last year.[49][50]
In 2022 and 2023, an audit was conducted of the Iowa Judicial Branch, which found $27.6 million was sent to the wrong place and shorted state and local funds.[51] This was caused by an IT error and was fixed but was investigated by the Auditor.[51]
In 2024, an investigation took place at the University of Iowa’s Department of Physics and Astronomy's Machine Shop due to Brian Busch depositing $943,634.97 into his personal account instead of the University's accounts.[52][53] It was also revealed that he possibly divereted money from the UofI to his own business.[52][53] Busch was fired after being on paid administrative leave from 2021 to 2024.[52][53] He was then arrested on charges of "First Degree Theft, Tampering with Records, Ongoing Criminal Conduct and First Degree Fraudulent Practice."[53]
In January 2025, Sand concluded an investigation that found over $425,000 was misspent, from 2015 to 2022, by the Children and Families of Iowa administrator Jodi Spargur-Tate, with $324,586 been given to her directly while another $100,000 was distributed to her family.[54][55] The Children and Families of Iowa is funded by the United States Department of Labor and administered by Iowa Workforce Development (IWD).[54][55] IWD asked the Auditor's office to initiate the special investigation, after initially being investigated by Children and Families of Iowa.[54][55] No charges have been filed yet, but the findings in the investigation were given to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, the Polk County Attorney’s Office and the Iowa Attorney General’s Office.[54][55]
In May 2025, Conesville Mayor Tom Van Auken and City Clerk Carol Zuniga raised concerns about a former clerk, Yamira Martinez, misusing funds of $127,000 and asked that the Muscatine County Sheriff's Office investigate.[56][57] After the Sheriff began investigating, the city additionally asked for an audit from the State Auditor.[56][57] In June 2025, Sand concluded that investigation.[56][57] Martinez was arrested by the Muscatine County Sheriff's Office for "two counts of ongoing criminal conduct, two counts of theft, and two counts related to forgery and fraud."[58]
2026 Iowa gubernatorial race
On May 12, 2025, Sand announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination in the 2026 Iowa gubernatorial election.[1][2][3][4]
He raised $8 million in 2024, $3 million of which came from his wife Christine and $4 million from her parents, Nixon and Nancy Lauridsen.[2][3][4][59] The last $1 million came from 28,000 individual donations.[59] In the first 24 hours of his campaign, he raised over $2 million from individual donations.[59]
On June 16, 2025, Sand announced a "100 Town Hall Tour", holding events in all 99 counties in Iowa plus a second one in Lee County, Iowa, due to their dual county seats of Keokuk and Fort Madison.[60] It began on June 25, 2025 and will continue until October 21, 2025.[60]
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Personal life
Sand and his wife, Christine Lauridsen, met in Des Moines and married in Madison County on June 2, 2012 and have two sons.[6][61][5]
Christine is the CEO of her family's business Lauridsen Group.[62] The Lauridsen Group began as a creamery, started by Hans Lauridsen, Christine's great-grandfather, and now owns several businesses involved in health and nutrition, having 60 facilities across the world.[62] The company was run by Hans, then his son Walter, then Walter's son Nix and now by Christine.[62]
Sand wrote The Winning Ticket: Uncovering America's Biggest Lottery Scam, a book about the Hot Lotto fraud scandal, with Reid Forgrave, a reporter for The Des Moines Register. The book was published on May 1, 2022.[23]
Electoral history
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Bibliography
- Sand, Rob; Forgrave, Reid (2022). The Winning Ticket: Uncovering America's Biggest Lottery Scam. Potomac Books. p. 240. ISBN 9781640123717.
See also
References
External links
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