Chair Smith: “Senator Ernst is trying to ram through a lifetime appointment who could cast the deciding vote to gut coverage protections for pre-existing conditions and dismantle Medicaid expansion after the election”

DES MOINES – Instead of working to pass urgent COVID-19 relief, Republicans in the Senate are rushing to confirm a lifetime appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2016 and 2018, Senator Joni Ernst repeatedly argued that an election-year vacancy should be left to the voters to decide. Now – with GOP Senators Collins and Murkowski opposed to filling the vacancy – Ernst’s hypocritical reversal means she’s likely to be the deciding vote in confirmation. 

Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s previous criticism of a Supreme Court decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act strongly indicates her willingness to cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of the Ernst-supported GOP lawsuit to repeal the ACA and gut coverage protections for pre-existing conditions.

“With complete disregard of the voice of Iowans, Senator Ernst is trying to ram through a lifetime appointment who could cast the deciding vote to gut coverage protections for pre-existing conditions and dismantle Medicaid expansion after the election,” said Iowa Democratic Party Chair Mark Smith. “Instead of hypocritically rushing to fill an election-year vacancy, Senator Ernst should be working to urgently pass a Phase 4 COVID-19 relief package with meaningful support for small businesses and families. In this character-defining moment, Senator Ernst is once again putting partisan politics and her corporate donors ahead of Iowans.”

Senator Ernst’s hypocritical support for filling an election-year vacancy on the Supreme Court has been strongly condemned by editorial boards of the Des Moines Register, Cedar Rapids Gazette, and Dubuque Telegraph Herald, and from The Storm Lake Times’ Art Cullen and the Cedar Rapids Gazette’s Todd Dorman.