Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column. This essay first appeared on Substack.
A recent email from the Iowa Attorney General’s (AG’s) office to Greene County Assistant Attorney Laura Snider is of great concern to Greene County Attorney Thomas Laehn. That’s because it displays a quandary created by the state’s 2023 government reorganization act.
Much of Snider’s work in the county attorney’s office deals with Child in Need of Assistance (CINA) cases. Iowa law puts county attorneys in charge of such cases, particularly when it comes to deciding whether to recommend that a court remove a child from a parent’s custody…