Des Moines Register: Joni Ernst Is Too Extreme For The U.S. Senate

Friday morning we were wondering whether or not Joni Ernst's decision to hide from the Des Moine's Register's editorial board endorsement process would matter. Since then, she has also decided to skip editorial board endorsement meetings of the Cedar Rapids Gazette, the Dubuque Telegraph-Herald and the Quad-City Times-- all the major newspapers of Iowa, except for the far right-wing Sioux City Journal, which embraces her outside-the-mainstream, extremist world view. [The Journal's endorsement of Ernst: "Because our vision matches the conservative vision of Ernst in more ways than it does the vision of Braley, the Journal today endorses Ernst to replace retiring Tom Harkin."] Remember, during the primary, she said she opposes even the idea of a minimum wage, supports a personahood amendment that would ban all abortions for any reason-- and would force women who had miscarriages to face trials (yes, she's clearly deranged), called for privatizing Social Security, said she would vote to impeach President Obama, who she called a dictator, voiced crackpot Hate Talk Radio conspiracy theories about the UN confiscating everyone's wealth and advocated arresting any federal officials who tried to implement the Affordable Care Act, which, needless to say, she wants to repeal. Going in fromt of the editorial boards of the state's major newspapers might have caused her to have to account for her strange views. So she told them all the go to hell.

Today the Des Moines Register, which had endorsed Ernst in the primary and had endorsed Mitt Romney against President Obama in 2012, endorsed Braley, calling him a "better choice" than Ernst.

The campaign between Bruce Braley and Joni Ernst for the U.S. Senate has been an exhibition of American politics at its worst. It has been a $28 million parade of dismal attack ads that have reduced the candidates to evil caricatures.

Which is sad because both candidates competing to succeed retiring Sen. Tom Harkin are decent and honorable with strong credentials and compelling biographies.

Braley has served eight years in the U.S. House representing Iowa's 1st District. He grew up in Brooklyn and worked his way through Iowa State University and the University of Iowa law school and practiced law in Waterloo before running for the House in 2006.

Ernst grew up on a family farm near Red Oak, attended Iowa State University with the help of scholarships and money earned working summers with her father's construction business. She is a lieutenant colonel in the Iowa Army National Guard and served as Montgomery County auditor before being elected to the Iowa Senate.

Despite comparable individual strengths, however, there are clear differences between the two on important issues. Based on those differences, we believe Braley is clearly better suited to represent Iowa in the U.S. Senate.

The Register endorsed Ernst in the June Republican primary. We described her then as a smart, well-prepared candidate who can wrestle with the details of public policy from a conservative viewpoint without seeming inflexible. Over the months of campaigning against Braley, however, Ernst has taken and defended positions that we do not believe are right for Iowa or the country.

She has said she would abolish the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Education and the federal minimum wage. She suggested partial privatization of Social Security. She calls for nearly unfettered rights to buy and carry weapons. And she would eliminate the Affordable Care Act without offering a serious alternative to provide for those without health care coverage.

Braley, by contrast, supports a federal role in education to help states improve schools and to make college more affordable. He supports enforcement of the Clean Water Act that was signed into law by a Republican president. He reads both a "right to bear arms" and "well regulated" in the Second Amendment. He would maintain the federal minimum wage and raise it. He rightly defends the Affordable Care Act that now provides health care for millions of previously uninsured Americans.

Braley has a solid record of accomplishment in Congress. He has a demonstrated ability to work with Republicans to get legislation passed. Those legislative achievements range from job training programs at Iowa community colleges to tax credits for families adopting children and helping Iowa military veterans get help with education and housing.

We have long been impressed with Braley's intelligence, passion and hard work in the House. He is unlike too many members of Congress who see the job as throwing sand in the gears of not only Congress but the judiciary and the administrative branch. Braley believes he was elected to go to Washington to work to improve Iowa and the nation.

The nation needs lawmakers like Braley who will work on a long list of unmet challenges this country faces. Among them: dealing with the indisputable consequences of climate change; getting the national debt under control; and taking courageous action to preserve Social Security and Medicare for future generations. Congress must find revenue to build and maintain highways, bridges and other national infrastructure. Education from preschool to post-graduate should be excellent and affordable. The economy should create meaningful jobs and living wages for all, and future generations should have the same economic opportunities as previous generations.

This is a crucial election for Iowa, which will be losing a veteran member of Congress with the retirement of Tom Harkin. Over the past four decades Harkin amassed a remarkable record, including a civil rights act for persons with disabilities, landmark conservation programs that preserve soil and water quality and protecting middle class Americans.

In a recent interview, Harkin said work on these issues is not finished, but he is confident others will take up the cause. Braley is an ideal candidate to carry on Harkin's work in the Senate and to build his own Senate legacy.

UPDATE: Another Big Braley Endorsement

The Cedar Rapids Gazette just endorsed Braley as well.

We’ve been troubled by several of the issue positions Ernst has taken on the campaign trail. This editorial board has, for instance, been supportive of stepped up efforts to clean up dozens of impaired waterways, with an eye on flood mitigation and soil conservation. But Ernst has said she favors not just curtailing but fully eliminating the federal Environmental Protection Agency, while relying on states to police pollution. As we’ve learned in recent years, watersheds and water quality problems don’t respect state boundaries. Ernst’s position strikes us as politically motivated and environmentally unsound.

We’ve favored a modest, incremental, increase in the minimum wage, while Ernst has suggested that there should be no federal minimum at all. In a 2012 questionnaire, Ernst said she favored state action to nullify the federal Affordable Care Act and arrest federal officials who sought to implement it. It’s one thing to oppose the Affordable Care Act as bad policy, but Ernst’s view would seem to fall far beyond the mainstream.

We would have liked to ask Ernst about these and many other positions. It’s possible that the Republican’s views have been misunderstood. But we weren’t given that chance.

So we’re left to conclude that Ernst’s views would make her a poor choice to carry on Iowa’s pragmatic senatorial legacy.

We’re far more familiar with Braley, who has represented much of Eastern Iowa in Congress since 2007. That’s how we know, contrary to TV attack ads, that Braley’s record on veterans’ issues has been solid, regardless of which meetings he did nor did not attend. And we appreciate Braley’s cautious approach to reintroducing ground troops to Iraq.

The congressman also has compiled a positive record on rural issues, from helping dairy farmers to sticking up for renewable fuels, despite his opponents’ efforts to cast him as an urban elitist. He’s called for a national manufacturing strategy, which strikes us as prudent here in a city where the continuing success of manufacturing and processing are vital.

Braley was swift in his response to the 2008 flood, when his district included Waterloo-Cedar Falls but not the Cedar Rapids metro. Since Cedar Rapids became part of his district, Braley has pushed for federal recovery assistance, including funding for Cedar Rapids flood protection. He disagrees with Ernst’s call for eliminating federal environmental oversight, pointing out that President Richard Nixon formed the EPA because states were doing little to protect the environment.

On immigration, Braley favors bipartisan legislation that passed the U.S. Senate, providing more resources to secure the nation’s borders while also creating a long pathway to legal status for millions of undocumented immigrants living and working in the U.S. We’ve supported that legislation, and reject attempts by Ernst and others to simply label it as “amnesty.” We also agree with Braley that although the Affordable Care Act needs significant changes, its overall effort to provide health coverage to millions of Americans is worth continuing.

Braley has demonstrated the ability to work across party lines and make the compromises necessary to govern the country, which is sorely needed in the Senate. He’s experienced, and demonstrates a deep understanding of important issues beyond sound bites, attacks and talking points.

We see Braley as the best choice to carry on Iowa’s bipartisan Senate tradition.