Meet the candidates running for Iowa Attorney General

DES MOINES, Iowa — Attorney General Brenna Bird is the first Republican to serve in that office since 1979 and she is defending her seat this November against Democratic challenger Nate Willems.

Both candidates running for Iowa's top law enforcement position say they're the best candidate for the job. While Willems says it's time for some change in that office, Bird is pointing to her record during her first term.

Brenna Bird was born and raised on a farm near Dexter. She still lives on the family farm today with her husband and son.

Before serving in the attorney general's office, Bird worked as legal counsel for former Iowa Governor Terry Brandstad and later served as the Fremont County Attorney and Guthrie County Attorney.

Bird was elected to her first term in the AG's office in 2022, beating longtime Democratic incumbent Tom Miller, who served in that role for a total of 40 years. During her tenure, Bird has doubled the number of prosecutors in the office and created the Cold Case Unit to work on 400 unsolved cases across the state.

"No one should get away with murder and families, I want them to know that when a tip comes in, it's going to get acted on in our office," Bird told WHO 13 News.

She also says she's fighting against scammers and robocalls. Under her leadership, Iowa was the first state in the country to sue crypto ATMs.

If elected to another term, Bird said there's more to do with fighting scammers, but she also wants to create a new unit to address crime against children.

"Those who try to rip off Iowans and take advantage of them, that really makes me mad. And we're doing everything we can to hold them accountable and to help people that have been hurt by them," she said.

"I would also like us to have a Special Victims Unit in our office that would focus on crimes against children, whether it's human trafficking, sexual exploitation, sexual abuse, crimes that are really important to get justice and to stop those criminals from doing them, to lock them up," Bird said.

Nate Willems of Mount Vernon has previously served two terms in the Iowa House. He's currently a labor attorney in Cedar Rapids, which is a role he's held for 20 years.

He said this experience is ultimately what inspired his run for Iowa Attorney General.

"What I do in this little office in Cedar Rapids is just a drop in the bucket because there's such a massive and growing challenge out across the state of making sure Iowans get paid all wages and do in a timely manner," Willems told WHO 13 News.

If elected, he said he wants to crack down on employer paycheck fraud and help Iowa workers by opening a new unit within the AG's office called the Wage Enforcement Unit.

"I've made a public plan to create the first-ever Wage Enforcement Unit at the Iowa attorney general's office. There's $900 million a year stolen out of Iowa workers' paychecks. And state government does not quite nothing but almost nothing about it. That's important to me," Willems said.

He said the unit would have a few lawyers and support staff working with local law enforcement, county attorneys, nonprofits, and the labor movement to enforce the state's wage and labor laws.

"It would... enforce just these basic laws, which we've had on the books for generations, which say you have to pay a worker all wages due in a timely manner. Also, taking on, there are periodically times where a worker's timecard gets falsified— that's a criminal act. Or if a worker fails to carry worker's comp insurance— that's a felony," he said.

Willems also said he wants to revitalize the Consumer Protection Division within the AG's office, which protects the public from fraud, deception, unfair business practices, false advertising, and illegal debt collection. Another priority Willems shared is to enforce clean air and clean water laws.

"The attorney general is the only person who can and should be seeking meaningful penalties as a deterrent to deter future bad conduct," said Willems.

While there are places Willems and Bird disagree, Willems said he gives credit to Bird for entering the multistate lawsuit against Meta to address youth social media addiction and consumer protection violations.

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