Laura Roan

A Toledo native and South Tama alum has entered a primary race for one of Iowa’s highest profile local elections in 2022.

Career prosecutor Laura Roan announced in early June her candidacy for Polk County Attorney. Longtime incumbent John Sarcone announced in June his plans to retire after 30 years in the office.

Shortly after Sarcone made his announcement, Roan and former U.S. Senate candidate Kimberly Graham put their hats into the ring to compete in a June 2022 primary election to be the Democratic nominee headed into the November general election.

Roan said she felt the timing was right for a county attorney bid given support from family and colleagues as well as the opportunity to run as a Democrat for an open seat held by a Democrat for decades.

“There are certainly a lot of conversations happening that maybe weren’t five years ago as we talk about community criminal justice and what that will look like for our communities in the future,” Roan said. “So we’re really looking at a new era. My decision came from the knowledge that I have the expertise inside and outside the courtroom that prepares me to take the job on and succeed in leading the office from day one.”

Apart from being the chief law enforcement officer for Iowa’s largest county, the Polk County Attorney’s office has been in the spotlight over the past year over the prosecution of racial justice protesters and journalist Andrea Sahouri who as arrested while covering protests for the Des Moines Register last year.

In an interview with Iowa Public Radio’s Kate Payne, Roan indicated she plans on setting herself apart, not only from her competitors, but also from Sarcone.

“I’m standing here now, not John Sarcone. I’m not his substitute and I’m certainly not gonna be his proxy,” Roan said in the interview. “I’m a female with my own career and my own goals for the office.”

Roan first came to Des Moines to attend Drake University Law School. She has served as an assistant county attorney in Polk, Wapello, and Jasper counties; an assistant attorney general for the Iowa Department of Justice; and an assistant United States attorney in the Southern District of Iowa.

She now works as an Assistant Attorney in the Polk County Attorney’s Office, a position she has held since February of 2021.

Through her work as a prosecutor at multiple levels, she has worked with an emphasis on fugitive sex offenders, child exploitation cases, and federal Violence Against Women Act crimes.

“One of the most impactful things I’ve learned in working with victims or survivors of violent crime and their advocates is how to prosecute in a victim-centered way,” Roan said. “Trauma really has a ripple effect. It impacts not only the victim and their family but also the family of the defendant. For those families, they didn’t choose to end up in a courtroom sitting across the aisle from the family of a victim or survivor of a violent crime. What I’ve also learned is that it’s not all negative, that trauma. I know that sounds a little counterintuitive, but what I’ve noticed and observed is that these incidents can open other doors and opportunities. I’ve seen families really demonstrate an amazing amount of resilience, and how they get motivated to take on new challenges or try new things in their life. And I think in some ways, what I’ve seen families and survivors of violent crime do has kind of led me to take on this next challenge. In fact, I know that I’ve been influenced by their experience.”

In the early going of her campaign, Roan has positioned herself as an experienced candidate having tried nearly 100 criminal trials with past experience as an attorney at multiple levels in the state of Iowa. In Tama County, Roan has participated in multiple cases, particularly in her former role as a Assistant Iowa Attorney General, including the murder trials of Dustin Jefferson in 2015 and Tait Purk in 2017.

She said a strength she brings as a candidate is a level of credibility with judges and members of the judiciary system.

“Those partnerships are important, but not in a sense that promotes coziness or cronyism,” Roan said. “I’m talking about arm’s length, professional relationships that help us come together as joint stakeholders to really solve problems. And that’s a lot different than coming in and on day one sort of igniting the place and, and sort of blowing it up from the inside out.”

Though Roan has spent much of her professional career outside of Tama County, she believes her roots in Tama-Toledo has given her an appreciation of public institutions that has carried through to where she is today.

“I really believe that the backbone of Iowa are those public institutions, whether it’s a courthouse, public offices and definitely the public school system,” Roan said. “These places are employers and they’re also a safety net. And I think that as a prosecutor, we’re just a resource, and we’re part of that safety net. It’s not always wielding the big hammer, there is another way, and often a better alternative for many of those individual case-by-case scenarios.”

Roan grew up the daughter of an attorney and recalled spending much time tagging along with her dad Jim as he worked at the Tama County courthouse in Toledo.

“I worked at my dad’s office and went to the courthouse every day to take papers to the clerk’s office and pick up mail and filings,” Roan said. “I especially remember the large wooden staircase going up to the district court and a display case that had a taxidermied bobcat and a snowy owl. I always loved the courthouse and remember it as a big part of my childhood.”

Roan was a member of the South Tama County graduating class of 1984. Over the past several years she has returned to South Tama each year to meet and engage with a high school forensic science class to talk about violent crime investigations and the basic principles of prosecution.

“I’m the product of a great school district and public school system. My parents (Jim and Mary Roan) still live in Tama-Toledo, and so I visit often and have ties to the community with lifelong friends there.”

Should Roan emerge as the Democratic nominee next June, she will run as the favorite in one of the state’s few remaining Democratic strongholds. So far, there have been no candidates from the Republican Party to step forward in the race.