ICYMI: To Keep Iowans Safe, Start With Fair Pay to First Responders

Willems: "This is not a Democratic position or a Republican position. It is simply the position that the men and women who run toward danger should be paid like it."

DES MOINES, Iowa — In case you missed it, in a new guest column for the Des Moines Register, Iowa attorney general candidate Nate Willems outlines the importance of supporting fair pay and benefits for first responders in Iowa.

Willems, a labor attorney from Mount Vernon, has spent his career representing blue-collar workers, police officers, firefighters, and health care professionals across the state. He has helped tens of thousands of Iowans whose wages and health care benefits were stolen, rights ignored, or safety endangered on the job. Previously he secured the largest collectively bargained wage increase in Iowa history for the Carter Lake Police Department.

Des Moines Register: To keep Iowans safe, start with fair pay to first responders · Nate Willems, 7/12/26

I've spent my career helping hard-working Iowa workers get the pay they have earned but denied to them by their employer. Those Iowans keep our hospitals open, our roads paved, and our grocery shelves stocked.
And in the case of Iowa law enforcement officers, fair pay is what helps them keep our communities safe.
This is not a Democratic position or a Republican position. It is simply the position that the men and women who run toward danger should be paid like it.
I have represented police officers in contract fights from across the state. Small towns across Iowa are losing officers to bigger cities and to states paying better. That is bad for the officers and bad for public safety.
I represented the Carter Lake police officers as they proceeded to arbitration, and won. As a result of that victory, new hires received 12 percent raises and the most experienced officers got even more. Today, Carter Lake is now better positioned to attract highly qualified officers that will make the city safer. It was reported that this was the largest collectively bargained wage increase in Iowa history.
There is more work to do. Iowa's volunteer fire departments are stretched. Rural sheriff's departments struggle to fill positions. Mental health calls are eating up patrol time that small departments do not have.
Now, I'm running for attorney general because I believe the laws on our books can do more than they are doing. We need an attorney general who will fight for working Iowans, secure justice for crime victims, and support the people who put on a uniform and answer the call.
That also means making sure our prosecutors have what they need to put violent offenders behind bars — including the capacity to quickly and thoroughly test forensic evidence. And it means standing behind the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners who do some of the hardest work in this state, sitting with victims through the worst moments of their lives and building the cases that lead to convictions.
Iowa's attorney general should be the state's strongest advocate for the people who serve and the people they protect. I have been doing that work for twenty years. Now I'm asking to do it from the attorney general's office.

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