Schultz: “I love serving Iowans as their SOS”

Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz told TheIowaRepublican.com on Tuesday afternoon that he won’t run for the U.S. Senate. Schultz is traveling today and unavailable for interviews.

Here’s the written statement from Schultz:

“Over the past few weeks I have been truly humbled by the encouragement I have received from Iowans to run for the U.S. Senate.

“After many conversations with my family and friends about the U.S. Senate race, I keep coming back to the fact that I love serving Iowans as their Secretary of State.

“In my first two years as Secretary of State we have worked to increase voter participation with our “Honor a Veteran” program and our partnership with Rock the Vote to encourage young people to vote through Rock Iowa. We have made it easier to start a business in Iowa by streamlining the filing process and we used technology to make voting easier by creating apps that allow voters to find their polling place and track their absentee ballots right from their cell phones. We have also created an electronic poll book, “Express Voter”, to make voting easier on Election Day.

“While I am proud of our achievements, there is more to accomplish. I will continue working to improve the business climate in Iowa, and fighting for integrity in our elections. This is why I am going to run for re-election as Iowa’s Secretary of State.”

Brad Anderson, the Democrat who announced his intention to run for Secretary of State in January, released a written statement in response:

“Iowa has a proud history of clean and fair elections, yet Matt Schultz has spent his time in office wasting hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on fruitless investigations and has proven to be the most partisan Secretary of State in recent memory. I believe we can do better by modernizing the office and ensuring election integrity without disenfranchising any eligible Iowa voters. Now that Secretary Schultz has decided to run for re-election, advocates for fiscal responsibility and voters’ rights will be more unified than ever to make change in 2014.”