Dean Lerner served Iowa as an Assistant Attorney General for sixteen years, Chief Deputy Secretary of State for four years, and about ten years as Deputy Director, then Director of the Department of Inspections & Appeals. He then worked for the CMS Director of the Division of Nursing Homes, and the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa. He is a graduate of Grinnell College and Drake University Law School.
Dear Iowa Senators Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley:
Subscribers to your weekly email missives sharing your proffered efforts and accomplishments are left wondering. Senator Ernst titles her newsletter “Joni on the job.” Senator Grassley invented “The Scoop, Your weekly dish from Senator Chuck Grassley.”
Regarding “Joni on the job,” we Iowans have to admit that you’re making them squeal, but have you considered who’s being made to squeal? Of particular note, but certainly not an isolated concern, your new Secretary of Defense is leaving soldiers on the battlefield and dismissing international conventions you learned to uphold. We’re wondering where “Duty-Honor-Country” fits within your weekly self-aggrandizements.
Regarding “The Scoop, Your weekly dish from Senator Chuck Grassley,” Iowans may be unable to swallow your scoop, because your dish is causing statewide illness. Of particular note, but certainly not an isolated concern, your beloved whistleblowers are disappearing in full view, before your very eyes. Too bad for Iowa and the rest of the country that you could have been one of those whistleblowers you proclaim to value and admire. We’re all wondering if the cat got your tongue.
Senators Ernst and Grassley, I will say that you both have solved a mystery. Iowans no longer have to wonder what blind fealty will do to a senator whose conscience, courage, and constitutional duty have been replaced by self-preservation and cowardice.
Top photo of Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst is cropped from an image first published on Ernst’s official Facebook page on January 6, 2025.