Folks, gather ’round, because what’s unfolding in Iowa is as messy as a rattlesnake in a church pew, and twice as dangerous to handle. I’m talking about a political showdown that’s hotter than a Texas summer, centered right in the heartland of America.

In Des Moines, Iowa, where the corn grows tall and the politics grow complicated, we’ve got ourselves a situation that would make a billy goat lose his breakfast. Democratic Senate hopeful Jackie Norris, who’s aiming to fill Senator Joni Ernst’s boots, finds herself in what we call down home a “pickle jar moment” – stuck tight and struggling to twist free.

While serving as Des Moines School Board Chair, Norris oversaw the hiring of Ian Andre Roberts from Guyana as superintendent. That decision has come back to bite harder than a hungry farm dog. Roberts, as it turns out, was about as legal as a three-dollar bill, leading to his arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement after dodging a deportation order from May 2024.

The numbers, like a stubborn mule, tell their own story. Fresh polling shows Norris neck-and-neck with her Democratic primary opponents – she’s sitting at 23%, while Zach Wahls edges ahead with 24.7%, and Josh Turek trails at 17.6%. That’s tighter than bark on a tree, friends.

But here’s where it gets more interesting than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Despite this controversy, 74% of Democratic voters are standing by Norris’s call for “radical empathy” following Roberts’s arrest. And hold onto your hat – 30% of these same Democrats believe it’s acceptable to harass public figures they disagree with, while 57% want to abolish ICE altogether.

Norris, for her part, is standing firmer than a fence post in concrete, maintaining that neither the school board nor any employees were ever notified about Roberts’s work eligibility issues. She says he claimed citizenship on his I-9 form and provided the necessary documents.

But here’s the kicker that’ll knock your socks off – Roberts wasn’t run through the federal E-Verify system, which is about as basic as checking if your boots are on the right feet before heading out to work.

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When ICE came calling, Roberts took off like a scared jackrabbit, abandoning his vehicle in the woods. When they finally caught up to him, he was carrying a loaded handgun and $3,000, which is not exactly your typical school administrator’s accessories.

The school district is now pointing fingers faster than a weather vane in a tornado, suing JG Consulting for its role in the hiring process. Meanwhile, Baker-Eubanks, another firm involved, claims they shared “all publicly available criminal records” with the district, which went ahead with the hire anyway.

This is a tale of political ambition, immigration enforcement, and what happens when the vetting process has more holes than a prairie dog town. In Iowa, where they take their education as seriously as their corn, this story’s far from over.