Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. He can be reached at BruceLear2419@gmail.com
The heavy summer air almost suffocated 10-year-old me as I shuffled into the dark woods clutching an open bag. My older friends coaxed me into a snipe hunt. They barely suppressed giggles as they explained I’d have to be patient, and a flashlight would scare the snipe away.
I stood shaking with an open bag. My friends evaporated into the night. I hadn’t asked the right questions. I trusted them. Things weren’t the same as they appeared.
I was left holding the bag.
With an election approaching, voters need to ask the hard questions, or we’ll all be left holding the bag and the unfunny joke will be on us. Here are some questions for Zach Lahn, the Republican nominee for governor.
Lahn claims he’s a farmer from Belle Plaine. But rural folks know just owning a farm doesn’t make you a real farmer. Farming is a 24-7 job done with calloused hands.
Question: How can Lahn be an Iowa farmer and spend more time traveling on his private plane to Kansas than he spends in Iowa farming?
When the Des Moines Register asked about Lahn’s frequent trips to Kansas, the Republican said, “if I’m elected governor, it would be a different arrangement, and we’d work it out. Because, you know, we’d be in Iowa as much as humanly possible.”
Question: Isn’t the job of governor a full-time gig requiring full time attention?
Lahn co-founded Wonder School, a private school in Wichita, Kansas in 2018. He’s still active in management.
Questions: Isn’t it a conflict of interest for Iowa’s governor to actively run a private business in another state?
Is that how Lahn plans to put “Iowa First?” Doesn’t Iowa need to welcome young people from every state to enroll in Iowa colleges and universities and then become Iowans? Does Lahn believe a person has to be born in Iowa to be a real Iowan? Doesn’t “Iowa First” really mean “Iowa alone?”
Lahn worked as a political operative for Americans for Prosperity, a group funded by the Koch brothers. The group has actively pushed for private school vouchers in Iowa and other states, and helped oust several Iowa House Republicans in 2022 primaries.
Question: How much influence will Koch industries have on the decisions Lahn would make as governor?
Lahn’s recent attacks on public schools raises even more questions.
In one of his TV ads before the June 2 primary, the candidate said, “Too many schools today teach kids to hate our country, our history, and our religion. When I’m governor, we will reclaim the curriculum from the Marxists who’ve hijacked it.”
Questions: Does Lahn really believe public schools are full of Marxist teachers trying to indoctrinate students?
Do Iowans believe teachers in their public schools are Marxists out to indoctrinate students?
When was the last time Lahn visited an Iowa public school?
Can he give a single example of a Marxist teacher in a specific Iowa public school?
How can he restore Iowa public schools to first in the nation, when he has said he wants to expand the private school voucher program to include “micro schools,” and to “have as many kids on the program as possible”?
Lahn has also advocated for ending all vaccine mandates to attend school.
Should public school schools be a partisan issue when the word “Community” is the middle name of almost every public school district?
Democratic nominee for governor Rob Sand and the rest of the Democratic ticket should not assume Lahn can’t get elected. He’s hiding his extreme views. Voters have been tricked before.
Most voters crave common sense. It will take more than shouting that Zach Lahn is a “Kansas carpetbagger.”
Sand has made it clear; he’ll use his veto pen to end the culture wars. Judging by his rhetoric, Lahn wants an escalation.
Sand may be working with a Republican majority in the legislature. That means change will come in small bites or with bipartisan support.
Let’s not be tricked by a candidate with the same worn-out ideas pretending to be something different. We don’t want to be left holding the bag after November 3.
Top photo of Zach Lahn speaking at the Iowa GOP’s state convention on June 13 was first published on the candidate’s Facebook page.