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.

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.

These days, Iowans may wonder how our elected officials, who should prioritize protecting and caring for the most vulnerable, can live with themselves or even look at themselves in the mirror. More than 50,000 Iowans live in the state’s more than 400 nursing homes. Most of those facilities are for-profit enterprises, funded by tens of billions of taxpayer dollars. These residents, their families, those of us approaching our own long-term care needs—and frankly, all Iowans—should be able to count on responsible individuals of both political parties to fulfill their oaths. 

Not in Iowa.

Republicans have had full control of state government (the Iowa House, Senate, and governor’s office) since 2017. In her recent Condition of the State address, Governor Kim Reynolds made it sound as if we were now living in the State of Nirvana, thanks to her and her party.

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.

Iowa’s 2025 legislative session has only just begun, and nursing home residents have already been informed the Republican-controlled legislature has nothing more to do for them, since the industry is supposedly over-regulated already. 

Here’s what you should know.