Abby Finkenauer. (file photo)
U.S. Senate candidate Abby Finkenauer of Cedar Rapids is calling for congressional term limits and pledging to serve just two terms if she’s elected in November.
She is one of four candidates running in the Democrat primary in hopes to challenge incumbent Republican Senator Chuck Grassley. Finkenauer is calling for a 12-year term limit for each chamber of Congress.
“You look at somebody like Senator Grassley who has been harping on term limits for almost the entire time he’s been in office but refuses to term limit himself, this is what is wrong with Washington D.C.,” Finkenauer says. Finkenauer served one term as Iowa’s First District U.S. House representative after losing a bid for re-election.
Finkenauer says she’s in support of two voting rights bills before the U.S. Senate this week — and says Grassley should as well. “If he really cared about bipartisanship he’d be supporting this voting rights act and getting rid of gerrymandering in this country which has created these congressional districts that are so far left or so far right that you’ve got folks who are even afraid to talk to each other because they might get primaried on one side or the other,” Finkenauer says.
Grassley says the voting rights proposals by Democrats are an attempt to federalize elections. Grassley is running for an eighth term to represent Iowa and faces a primary challenge from state senator Jim Carlin from Sioux City.
(By Clay Masters, Iowa Public Radio)