His Own Parents Are Suing Him for $275,000, and Iowa Is Supposed to Make Him Lieutenant Governor

The English language uses 2 different words for money owed and moral wrongdoing. Debt and guilt. Derek Wulf has managed to bring both meanings together on the same piece of farmland. The 45-year-old Republican, married with 2 children, wants to become Iowa's lieutenant governor. His parents would like their money first. Between those 2 wishes lies a field where distrust has been growing for 2 years. Duane and Jackie Wulf, ages 83 and 82, have sued their son for $275,000. He stopped paying rent on farmland his parents had leased to him 2 years ago, according to a court filing submitted Tuesday. They want their money back. And that's the less troubling half of the lawsuit: Wulf allegedly misrepresented his assets in financial documents submitted to a lender. On paper, that would have made Derek Wulf look wealthier than the man his parents know from their own farmland.

In farming families, land eventually passes from the older generation to the younger one anyway. It's the unspoken agreement between generations, the kind nobody ever bothers to put on paper. Here, the son already has the land. He just doesn't want to pay for it. And 2 people in their 80s are sitting down with a lawyer to collect what their own child owes them. A court must now settle what once would have been settled around the kitchen table. The furrows run as they always have, but the trust has drained out of the soil. Wulf himself remains silent. Speaking for him is Zach Lahn, his running mate, who wants to become governor with Trump's blessing. Lahn denies that Wulf owes his parents anything at all. In the same breath, he suggested that the dispute might have something to do with his father's poor health. An elderly man asks for his rent money, and the response from the campaign points to his illness. His parents call that claim "categorically false."

On the campaign trail, Wulf promotes faith and conservative family values. The Fourth Commandment promises a long life in the land to those who honor their father and mother. Wulf has found a shortcut: He took the land and left out the honoring. Lahn, meanwhile, wants to deny certain government benefits to other people, because handouts are supposedly bad for your character, unless you're giving yourself a break on the rent you owe your own parents. Democrats accuse Wulf of supporting legislation that weakened state financial oversight and protections against environmental pollution. A self-proclaimed upright citizen with a soft spot for pollution and an aversion to auditors sounds contradictory, yet somehow remarkably consistent. God sees everything, as the saying goes. In Wulf's case, a look at the public record will do.

His parents are hardly alone in demanding payment. They're simply standing at the end of a long line. Since 2023, 8 individuals and businesses have sued Wulf and his company, Shallow Creek Land & Livestock, over unpaid bills. All but 1 of those cases ended in settlements, a kind of peace you negotiate when you haven't earned it. The only remaining case is a lawsuit brought by WCF Financial Bank. The bank alleges that Wulf is more than a year behind on his loan payments. With each settlement, Wulf bought himself some peace and quiet, while the underlying problem remained. For a man whose company name prominently features land and livestock, his collection of creditors looks surprisingly well stocked. Read the court filings one after another, and they add up to a kind of résumé, only without any gaps. Creditors come and go, and eventually Mom and Dad join the list.

Of course, one could argue that his debts are a private matter, a sad story from a farm in Iowa, nothing more. But a lieutenant governor doesn't just manage a farm. He makes decisions involving other people's money and public offices. Someone who allegedly presented an inflated picture of his wealth to a lender, and whose own parents have to sue him, raises an uncomfortable question. What would he use the power of public office for if this is how he handles the trust of his own family? The answer is embarrassing and alarming at the same time, and hopefully Iowa will never have to find out. Rent is a promise that has to be honored again every year. An oath of office lasts an entire term. According to the polls, Wulf and Lahn are trailing Democrat Rob Sand, who is running for governor, by around 11 percentage points. Quite a gap in a state Trump won by 13 points just 2 years ago. There, the president's party is stumbling with a ticket whose second-in-command allegedly hasn't even paid the rent he owes his own parents. A judge will now decide who is entitled to the proceeds from the Wulf family's farmland.