Randy Meier, who protects Clinton Co. seniors from scammers, runs for Iowa House

Randy Meier of Clinton wants to protect Iowans from scams, and get more support for public schools and teachers.

For the last 12 years, Randy Meier has worked to prevent senior fraud for the Clinton County Sheriff’s Department. He remembered one instance where a Clinton woman had sent over $200,000 to a scammer posing as a Romanian civil engineer. 

“You have someone who lost a spouse suddenly get involved in a scam. And it’s not just money,” Meier said. “They lose trust in people. They become more financially dependent, sometimes losing the ability to make their own decisions. They can become even more isolated.”

He said he wants to work to protect seniors from bad actors looking to take advantage of them. So Meier, a Democrat, is running to represent House District 69, which contains Clinton, Camanche, Andover and Goose Lake.

Meier grew up on a family farm outside Bellevue. In 1974, he enlisted in the Army out of high school and served for three years.

When he came home, he studied at Clinton Community College, and in 1978 got a job as patrol officer—and later a narcotics detective—for the Clinton Police Department. He retired from the department in 2011 as a detective commander.

After less than a year of retirement, Meier decided to take a job with the Sheriff’s Office working with seniors. 

“This is a great state,” he said. “But I’m concerned about what my opponent and his party have done in power.”

His opponent, Republican Rep. Tom Determann of Camanche, won the seat in 2022. Determann spent the last few years climbing from the Clinton City Council to the county board of supervisors in 2016 before taking his current seat in the Iowa House. In 2023, he endorsed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for president. 

Determann did not respond to a request for an interview.

In the Iowa Legislature, Determann has supported Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds’ private school voucher program as well as recent work to ban certain books from school libraries. 

Population loss was a trend Meier said he wants to do something about. Although Iowa gained population during the last decade, 69 counties recorded population loss between 2010 and 2020. The two largest declines were Lee County, which lost 2,307 people, and Meier’s home county of Clinton, which lost 2,656 people.

“I see the focus of this state has been on big metros while rural communities are hollowed out,” he said. “Places like us and Lee have to do things differently.”

To reverse the trend, Meier said state government needed to focus on improving public education, water quality, and keeping hospitals open—particularly in rural areas. 

“The legislature under Republican control has pushed policies of tax cuts and incentives for big corporations and ignored our once-excellent public education system,” Meier said.

This November, incumbent Determann is significantly outraising Meier: According to the most recent state fundraising data, Meier raised $60,000, mostly small contributions from people in the district.

Meanwhile, Determann raised nearly half a million dollars, 82% of which came from in-kind donations from the Iowa Republican Party. The remainder of Determann’s support ranged from a mix of political interests from Iowa Renewable Fuels Association and Iowa Farm Bureau to Koch Industries and a group representing the owners of manufactured housing parks.