State Center Mayor and former two-term state Sen. Steve Sodders, a Democrat, will challenge incumbent Republican Nan Benson for the Marshall County Auditor/Recorder seat in the Nov. 6 general election. The winner will serve until 2020 to finish out the four-year term vacated by prior auditor/recorder Deanne Raymond. Sodders was nominated at a special Marshall County Democratic convention in July.

He said many of his constituents encouraged him to run for this position. Sodders is currently employed as a Marshall County deputy sheriff and will officially retire from his position on Nov. 20 after 28 years of service.

“I am running because we need someone who will stand up to Secretary of State (Paul Pate) to push back on voter suppression issues,” Sodders said. “The auditor should make sure that every eligible voter gets to the polls and I’m not sure we’re doing that now. The voter-identification laws passed by the Republican-controlled legislature in 2018 disenfranchise voters.”

Sodders first ran for elected office in 2008 when he defeated Republican Jarret Heil for an open seat in the Iowa Senate. He won re-election in 2012, defeating Republican Jane Jech. He then was defeated by Republican Jeff Elder of State Center in 2016 by a narrow margin of approximately 300 votes. He took office in January in his first run for mayor, a job he said he will have to step down from if he is elected as auditor/recorder.

Sodders said his experience as a legislator and mayor has given him an understanding of how to manage a budget, as well as effectively communicate with the general public.

“Being a former senator, we dealt with $6 billion to $7 billion of budget items. I dealt with the public on a daily basis, which I still do as mayor, and you have to make sure money is being spent properly and departments are working efficiently,” he said.

Sodders said the Marshall County Courthouse renovation project — which is projected to cost $15.5 million — can be used as an opportunity to streamline office space within the courthouse.

“I think there’s an opportunity here and the auditor can play a big role in this. We can redesign how we use the courthouse,” he said.

Specifically, Sodders said if elected, he would work to relocate the court system and county attorney offices to the Marshall County Sheriff’s office, 2369 Jessup Ave.

“The reason that makes sense is then we wouldn’t have to transport prisoners from way out from the sheriff’s office jail (which is about 12 miles outside of Marshalltown). There are security issues with that. We could possibly use some of those same dollars from the fix-up to put some courtrooms out there, and there is one out there already that could be enlarged. This would open up offices in the courthouse,” he said. “We could pull in the engineer’s office to the courthouse. Right now we pay for extra buildings around town for county offices that could be centralized in the courthouse. It is the way it is done in Story County. I just think you need to think outside the box and not enough people do that.”

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Contact Sara Jordan-Heintz at 641-753-6611 or sjordan@timesrepublican.com