Sen. Tom Harkin's Wife Involvement on ISU Board is Unethical, President Leath Says

Sen. Tom Harkin's wife, Ruth Harkin, has voted on decisions affecting the Iowa State University institute named for her husband even though she may not be on the Harkin Institute of Public Policy's advisory board, the Des Moines Register reported late Wednesday.

Monday Ruth Harkin voted to lift agricultural research restrictions that ISU President Steven Leath placed on the Institute. He said in November that the institute should coordinate research with another research institute at the University called the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development.

Leath told the Register that Ruth Harkin shouldn't have voted on the issue and that she might not even be on the board.

As president, Leath names the advisory board members and said to the Register that Ruth Harkin isn't on it and that he told her that he didn't think she was on the board in the past.

However he told the Tribune that he doesn't plan to “investigate her role on the board.”

“The confounding factor in this is Ruth Harkin is a regent. She’s theoretically welcome at any university meeting,” Leath said to the Register.

Sen. Tom Harkin was so upset with the restriction that he has suggested he would remove his name from the institute and may not turn over his papers, according to a recent Des Moines Register exclusive.

Harkin said in a call with reporters that his wife did not behave unethically, according to a report in the Ames Tribune.

Leath is currently working on an agreement between Harkin Institute of Public Policy and Center for Agricultural and Rural Development, according to the Ames Tribune and said that if he cannot negotiate an agreement with both research centers that he will send the issue back to the Board of Regents.

“If I can’t reach a compromise that everyone can live with,” Leath said to the Tribune, “and I have regents on both sides of the debate disagreeing, then I will request the regents consider it as a full board and weigh in on what they want to happen.”