Grassley, Blackburn celebrate legislation benefiting women

WEST DES MOINES — Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley said his work on women's health care and legislation helping survivors of sexual assault shows a record of working for women, as he and his party face attacks over support for abortion restrictions.

Grassley was joined Wednesday by Republican U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, of Tennessee, in a West Des Moines rally. Blackburn and Grassley are both co-sponsors of the Speak Out Act, a bipartisan bill that would prohibit the enforcement of nondisclosure agreements when workers report sexual misconduct.

“Women, like everybody else, must be respected, and I’m fighting for justice for women who have been sexually assaulted and harassed,” Grassley said.

He pointed to bills he sponsored relating to how reports of sexual assault are handled in the military and on college campuses. Grassley also said he wrote a bill, the Healthy Moms and Babies Act, that would improve postpartum care in women, especially in rural America. The bill “will help reduce infant and maternal mortality by increasing access to prenatal and postpartum care, no matter where they live,” he said.

Blackburn said Grassley, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, helped get the Speak Out Act get through the committee. The committee passed the bill in September.

“This is something so important to women in the workplace, and I am absolutely so pleased that Senator Grassley stepped up, took the lead, and helped us to get this bill across the finish line,” she said.

The rally followed the Grassley campaign’s announcement of a “Women for Grassley Coalition,” a group of women from Iowa’s 99 counties supporting his re-election. Grassley has attempted to draw a distinction between himself and his Democratic challenger Milke Franken, who he accused of disrespecting women.

Franken, a former Navy admiral, faces an allegation that he kissed his former campaign manager without consent, according to an April police report. He denies the allegation and pointed to the fact that the report was closed as “unfounded.”

“Senator Grassley has a problem with women that’s based on his voting record,” Franken’s campaign manager, Julie Stauch, said in an interview. “Our latest ad shows that his voting record on things that add to women’s autonomy, he is opposed to.”

Franken has kept his focus on Grassley’s long career of opposing abortion rights. In a debate with Grassley, he said the senator has routinely voted against women’s interests.

Grassley co-sponsored a 2019 bill that would have outlawed abortion at 20 weeks with exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother. As a former chair of the Judiciary Committee, he had a major hand in building the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court that overturned the federal right to an abortion in June.

Since the Supreme Court allowed states to restrict abortion, Grassley has suggested abortion restrictions should be left to the states. He said in the October debate he would vote "no" on a bill that would outlaw abortion at 15 weeks nationally.

“This is a guy who has made it his career to ban abortion, to support unequal pay, to do nothing for paid family leave, to many times vote against the Violence Against Women Act,” Franken said in the debate. “I don't have a problem with this issue. He has a problem with women.”