Iowa Lt. Governor Chris Cournoyer announced her candidacy for state auditor today, a position currently held by Rob Sand. Cournoyer spoke with Our Quad Cities News via Zoom to discuss her campaign and why she chose to vie for that position and not run for governor of Iowa.
“When the governor (Kim Reynolds) made her announcement a couple of weeks ago, I started thinking,” she said. “Of course, I’m going to fill out the term as lieutenant governor and help the governor fill out her agenda and achieve the goals that she still has yet to achieve over the next 20 months. I started thinking about what it looks like for me to continue in public service and how I can best serve Iowans. I thought about my background; I have a degree in computer science. I worked in corporate America. I was a small business owner for 27 years in the technology sector. I served at the local level, on the school board. I was in the state senate for six years, and now as lieutenant governor.”
“Part of my public service that has really been a passion of mine is lowering taxes, but also, what do we need in order to sustain those tax cuts? It’s to make the government run leaner and more efficiently. Being part of the governor’s vision of government realignment and the boards and commissions that got rid of a lot of needless regulations and really downsize the size of government is something that’s really interesting to me. I’m working with the governor right now in the DOGE Task Force to continue to look for waste, fraud and abuse in government. As we root that out, we are making sure that every single dollar that Iowans pay into the system is well spent and in delivering the services that they deserve in the most effective and efficient manner possible. When I looked at my passion and what would interest me and my background, when I looked into the role of auditor, that just seemed like a good fit for my background and experience.”
Cournoyer says her background in technology will help her protect the state’s budget surplus. “I certainly want to make sure that we’re looking at all the taxes get cut by the legislature and the governor and the executive branch. Something that we’ve done over the last several years is we’ve balanced the state budget and we have a surplus. The first line of defense to protect that budget surplus and that balanced budget is the state auditor going out and conducting those audits of the state agencies and the local agencies to root out that fraud, waste and abuse and make sure that we look for those bad actors that are misusing taxpayer dollars. There’s a lot of opportunities with AI to be able to find those outliers and those anomalies and those bad actors. I’m really hopeful to bring my technology background to make the role of auditor even more effective for the state of Iowa and the taxpayer.”
She already knows how she’d like to start her term if she wins the election. “First of all, I think I’d do an audit of the auditor office and just get to know the people that are working there, and find out what’s working well, and find out what we can do better. Then really start to dig in, build those relationships across the state, with the departments and also with the local governments to let them know that I’m a resource, not only to audit and look at the books, but also to help them implement some of the Best Practices and government efficiencies that we’ve seen work well and give them the resources to be able to implement those practices.”
Cournoyer is pleased that the current governor of Iowa is backing her for state auditor. “I’m really proud of the fact that Governor Reynolds has endorsed my campaign. You know, she’s entrusted me to be her Lieutenant Governor and really help her implement her agenda for the remainder of our term together. But it really means a lot to me that she’s entrusted me with this position, and that she has thrown her support behind me.”