
← The Brian Nichols Show18 sept. · 38 min
Data Centers, H-1B Visas, Citizens United, & the Iowa Senate Race in the Middle of It | TBNS 1099
Dr. Thomas Laehn joins Brian Nichols to reveal how Iowa's data center fight, eminent domain, and Citizens United money all run through the 2026 Senate race - and why voters keep getting handed two bad options.
Laehn is the Greene County Attorney and the first Libertarian in Iowa history to win a partisan election. Then he won it again. Now he's on the November 3 ballot against Ashley Hinson and Josh Turek for Joni Ernst's open seat.
He wrote a bill that passed the House and passed the Senate. It never became law. What happened to it is the part nobody in Des Moines wants repeated.
Brian pushes back hard - on young men and H-1B hiring, on the cultural fight libertarians keep dodging, on whether one party is objectively worse than the other. Laehn's answer isn't the one you're expecting.
And then a former professor of constitutional law says something about the word "republic" that we had to sit with for a second.
Give it a listen.
CHAPTERS
0:00 The Third Party Line Iowa Just Broke
2:01 Preacher's Kid, Professor, Prosecutor
2:48 He Won as a Libertarian. Then Won Again.
4:23 Why Iowa and Not Your State
5:12 The Majority Nobody Bothers to Count