Time for confederate flag to go, Ernst agrees

CEDAR RAPIDS - As the South Carolina House was debating whether to remove the Confederate flag from the state capitol grounds, U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst said it was time for the flag to go.

'I believe it was time for it to come down,” the Iowa Republican said Thursday, 'but again, that was a decision that had to be made by members of that state legislature.”

Responding to questions during her weekly conference call with Iowa reporters, Ernst said the use of Confederate flags on a Marion County GOP float in two Fourth of July parades was 'maybe not the best judgment (and) certainly not representative of the organization.”

The flags were displayed in Independence Day parades in Pella and Pleasantville on a truck and wagon owned by a Pleasantville couple who, according to news reports, are members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans organization. The flags represented three Confederate soldiers buried in Marion County.

The inclusion of the flags was condemned by the chairs of the Marion County GOP and Republican Party of Iowa. More than 75,000 Iowans served in the Union Army - a higher per capita rate than any other state - and 17,000 of them died as a result of the war.

'Everyone has the right to free speech,” said Ernst, a career Army and Iowa National Guard member, but flying the Confederate flag is 'very contentious.”

'When you're doing it on behalf of another organization, again, you have to have the support of that organization, and they did not,” she said.

Ernst said it's time to 'move ahead and not dwell on what happened many years ago.”

'As far as who is offended and who is not offended, again, every Iowan will have their right to be offended or not be offended by the action or by a certain symbol, whatever that symbol might be,” she said. 'This is a very inclusive nation, and we need to move forward.”