Iowa senator wants action on bill banning false use of military medals

A GOP first-year lawmaker with war-zone experience enlisted some fighting words Wednesday in hopes of prodding Senate action on legislation that would make it a crime to make a false claim about receiving a military medal.

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Red Oak, an Iowa Army National Guard member who served as a transportation company commander in Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 and 2004, vented her frustration on the Senate floor over slow action on Senate File 397 – a bill that seeks to crack down on authorized use of military decorations and false representations about medals earned. The measure on the Senate debate calendar creates a criminal offense for falsely claiming the receipt of any military decorations or medals with an enhanced punishment when more-prestigious awards are involved.

“We are calling this the Stolen Valor Act because that is exactly what we are attempting to stop – the theft of honor earned in wartime by everyday Iowans who went above and beyond the call of duty,” Ernst told her fellow senators. “I understand that some of my colleagues from across the aisle are concerned that this act would infringe upon the right to free speech. I cannot begin to comprehend your hesitation in this specific instance.”

Referring to majority Democrats who sit across the Republicans in the 50-member chamber, Ernst added: “I pray my colleagues on the other side of the aisle search deep within them and find the intestinal fortitude to demand that this bill come to the floor of the Senate for consideration.”

Senate File 397 was tentatively set for debate this week, but Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, said the bill, which has bipartisan support, was pulled back temporarily to give backers more time to perfect the bill's wording to ensure that it would pass constitutional muster if challenged in court. A similar federal law currently is working through the judicial process after a federal appeals court last year declared it to be an unconstitutional infringement on free speech rights.

There is concern, Gronstal said, that as currently drafted, “if a kid picked up his father's military medal and pinned it on,” that he could face going to jail.

“People say there are parts of this that a blatantly unconstitutional,” he said, which prompted him to hold off on debating the measure that establishes a serious misdemeanor for falsely representing the award of any U.S. Armed Forces medal, button, ribbon or rosette – an offense carrying a potential fine of at least $315 but not more than $1,875 and up to a year in prison. The crime would be enhanced to an aggravated misdemeanor punishable with a fine of at least $625 but not more than $6,250 and up to two years in prison if the offense involved the Medal of Honor, Purple Heart, Distinguished Service Cross, Navy Cross, Air Force Cross or Silver Star.

Ernst said the courts have declared that other similar “lies” dealing with identity thefts, slander, copyright infringements or intellectual property thefts are not the exercise of free speech, and she would similarly classify “misrepresentation of anyone who wears or claims military awards and honors that are not rightfully theirs” as a theft that does not warrant free-speech consideration.

“For an imposter to wear unearned military badges and medals is, in my opinion, criminal, but to stand idly by and do nothing to protect the honor and significance of our nation's true heroes is, is some opinions, absolute cowardice,” she said.

Ernst told her Senate colleagues “you cannot possibly know the devastation of war simply by watching Platoon or Saving Private Ryan. You cannot know what it feels like to lose a life that you are charged with, or what it is to take a life. Even as a veteran, I do not know those things, and I do not want to know.”

Ernst, who replaced now Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds, R-Osceola, in last year's special election in Senate District 48, recounted her duty in serving as the death notification officer and the “agony” of informing the mother of Army Sgt. Joseph Milledge, a Glenwood soldier who was one of two Americans killed in Iragq in 2007.

“Sgt. Milledge paid for his posthumously awarded Purple Heart with his blood, and the blood of a comrade in arms,” she said during her Senate speech. “Let us not allow his Purple Heart to be cheapened by some Joe Schmoe on the street that tries to pass himself off as a hero to others to gain some personal advantage.”

Gronstal called Ernst's remarks “a bit extreme” and political grandstanding over an issue she could have gotten clarified had she asked him about the bill's status.

“We are trying to craft it in way that will stand constitutional challenge,” said Gronstal, who had a brief discussion with Ernst at her Senate desk after Wednesday's speech.

“I told her if you want to play politics, we're all free to do that. That's the nature of this institution. If you want to know if a bill's coming up for debate, you can also ask,” he said. “She's trying to score political points, we're trying to pass a good piece of legislation.”