Ernst is Running For #3 Republican Senate Leadership Post: They Deserve Her

Shortly after Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced he will step down from that post at the end of this Congress, US Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) announced she will seek election to the #3 leadership position in the Republican Caucus.

I hope she gets it. Senate Republicans deserve her.

The Republican Caucus in the Senate is known by many as the “Can’t Govern Caucus.” It is second only to the Republican caucus in the House, which also can’t govern, but manages to throw in a toxic dose of mayhem and sheer, tone deaf incompetence into the mix.

Ernst, is also a charter member of the “Profiles in Surrender” group in the Senate. She brings that with her in her new race as if it were a good thing. Given that the voting universe in this race is sitting Republican US Senators, it may well be.

Let me be clear about a couple of things: When I say Ernst is a member of the “Profiles in Surrender” group in the Senate, I am not referring to her service in the US military where she served honorably. I respect that service and thank her for it.

Nor am I talking about how she was one of the few Senate Republicans who bothered to talk to Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) when he was busy essentially decapitating the US military chain of command by placing holds on literally hundreds of hard earned - and urgently needed - promotions of US military officers which required Senate confirmation.

It is not clear what - if any - role Senator Ernst played in brokering Tuberville’s decision to relent. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) seems to have done the heavy lifting on most of that, persuading Tuberville to let 300 “holds” go through the Senate earlier this year and holds on 11 four star generals to go through in December.

We all should appreciate her gesture, though, and offer our thanks for whatever role her overtures did play in getting a final result.

For Iowans who believe more in the concept of ever vigilant military readiness, and an actually functioning US military chain of command, than they believe in political theater and game playing, it was good to see whether it affected anything or not.

It’s also more than Iowans got from Iowa’s other US Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the longest serving Senator in the chamber.

When I refer to Ernst’s “Profile in Surrender” I am talking about, among other things, her vote to let Donald Trump off the hook for clearly impeachable crimes and escape impeachment twice.

But I am mostly talking right now about something much more recent: her talk about her strong support for the bi-partisan US-Mexico border bill negotiated by a team of Democrats and Republicans, followed by her swift, partisan vote against it.

Folks on both sides of the aisle - including Ernst - applauded the compromise legislation when it was first produced. They praised it as just what the country needed, an historic breakthrough which would deliver the strongest and most effective effort ever to secure the US-Mexico border.

Ernst praised the bill in pretty much those terms - as a strong bill, an “incredible opportunity” to give the next president important new tools to better control the border. She described it as the kind of bi-partisan legislative compromise on a big issue that comes along very rarely

As Chair of the Republican Conference in the Senate, she even asked other Republicans to contact Trump to ask him not to sabotage it by speaking out against it. Which of course, he ignored, blasting the bill even before it had been written.

Trump didn’t want a solution. He wanted a campaign issue to rail against. Sadly, Ernst and other Republican Senators who knew better were willing to give it to him.

They folded like a cardboard scarecrow in an August Iowa rain storm and voted against it. Senator Grassley too. Of course.

All that stuff about an historic opportunity, a real solution, strong plan, bipartisanship at its finest?

Forget all that. Trump’s will be done.

This next part is where things start to get, not only outrageous but really ridiculous.

Following Ernst’s vote against this historic, once in a life time, bi-partisan opportunity to fix the border problem - legislation Joni Ernst believed in - she and the rest of the Senate went on a lengthy recess. The Senator used some of that time to conduct a few Town Meetings in Iowa where she spent much of her time criticizing the failure of the bipartisan bill she voted against.

Here’s what’s really important to know: That bill was defeated in the Senate by vote of a 49-50. Senate rules required 60 votes for it to move forward, but there were enough Senate Republicans who, like Ernst knew better, but chose instead to take Trump’s partisan, selfish orders instead. Had had they voted their conviction, had they voted for what they knew was right, and for their country, not their party, 60 votes were within reach.

Ernst said the bill was undone by a “raging misinformation” swirling throughout the nation and Iowa. And at least she was honest enough to tell Iowans where the lies were originating:

“Even my own colleagues were out there knowingly putting out misinformation about the bill because they wanted to tank it,” she said at a Town Meeting in Boone. “Why? Because we had a former president that even before the bill was written said, “It’s garbage. You don’t need it. I have all the authority I need to shut down the border when I become president.”

Yet she voted as he directed.

Trump is a nice excuse. He certainly played a large role, even in determining Ernst’s own vote, but the reason the historic border bill compromise and solution didn’t pass is because Ernst - and other Republican Senators who also knew better - didn’t have the fortitude to vote on the bill’s merits. They let Trump tell them how to vote. They chose not to take on the lies being told on Trump’s behalf to defeat the bill and they chose not to stand up and fight against his corruption of the legislative process.

They - Ernst and the other members of the Republican “Profiles in Surrender” group in the Senate - surrendered to lies and to Donald Trump.

US Senators are elected to solve problems, not manufacture campaign issues. She chose to do the latter.

Joni Ernst is a US Senator. Her job is to get things done.

To be very clear: Senator Joni Ernst is not a member of a “woulda-coulda-shoulda” club.

She is not a commentator, whose job is to watch things happen in Washington, DC and then complain about them back in Iowa. She’s not a talk radio show or podcast host.

She certainly does not get marching orders from Donald Trump or any other president - current, former, or potentially (God forbid) future.

She is a member of a co-equal branch of government. She has a voice and a vote in the US Senate.

Too bad she didn’t use it to stand up to the biggest and most corrupt bully to ever occupy the White House.

The Republican Party is broken. It shows no inclination to reform itself, in the Senate or anywhere else. It deserves Joni Ernst to help lead it in the Senate to more acts of surrender to the forces of misinformation and corruption and even more failures to govern.

When it comes to that kind of leadership - the kind of leadership Republicans seem to be seeking these days - she’s proving to be a natural.

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