Iowa’s two Republican U.S. Senators are praising the president’s choice of Amy Coney Barrett for the vacancy on the Supreme Court.
Senator Chuck Grassley said Barrett is “eminently qualified” and in a written statement issued Saturday Grassley said Barrett doesn’t deserve to the kind of “shenanigans” that happened after President Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh to the court in 2018.
Senator Joni Ernst called Barrett “an experienced jurist” and “a working mom of seven” who joins a growing, but still to small list of women nominated to be judges in the federal court system. Both Grassley and Ernst are members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The panel’s scheduled to start hearings on Barrett’s nomination on October 12.
Doug Emhoff, the husband of vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris, suggested during a weekend appearance in Iowa that Senator Harris would have much to say about Barrett during Senate debate.
“She’ll be squarely in the fight to stop McConnell from jamming through a justice who will overturn the Affordable Care Act, just when we need it most,” he said.
Emhoff spoke at “drive-in” campaign rally in Cedar Rapids Saturday. Jill Biden, the wife of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, spoke at the rally, too, drawing a chorus of honking horns when said she her husband would preserve the Affordable Care Act if elected.
“He has spent his entire career listening, standing up to bullies and bringing people together,” Biden said.
Polls suggest Iowa’s six electoral college votes are up for grabs. Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law, campaigned in Iowa last week and Vice President Mike Pence will campaign here this Thursday, October 1.