Gazette endorsement: Franken for U.S. Senate

When Chuck Grassley first ran for the U.S. Senate 42 years ago, in 1980, The Gazette did not endorse the Republican’s campaign to oust then-Democratic Sen. John Culver. In a short endorsement editorial, we noted that Culver ran as a liberal and Grassley as a conservative.

“All we urge is careful scrutiny of the philosophies these candidates reflect,” we wrote, as we declined to endorse either candidate. Not exactly one of our gutsiest moves.

But The Gazette would endorse Grassley in each of his next six Senate runs. In 2004, we wrote, “We endorse him because of his pragmatic, bipartisan leadership in a polarized Washington, D.C.….” That was the theme of multiple endorsements, that Grassley struck an independent profile as a lawmaker.

But by 2016, it became clear that Grassley’s image as an independent, prudent voice in the Senate had largely disappeared. He refused to even hold hearings on former president Barack Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court, arguing it was too close to the 2016 election to act on the nomination.

But we endorsed Grassley, largely because his Democratic opponent, Patty Judge, failed to make a strong case for his ouster.

And now Grassley, 89, is seeking an eighth term in the Senate. And like his first run, Grassley will not be receiving The Gazette’s endorsement. But unlike 1980, we strongly urge voters to support his Democratic challenger retired Navy Admiral Mike Franken.

Simply put, Grassley has served long enough. He was first elected to the Iowa Legislature in 1958 to the U.S. House in 1974 and to the Senate in 1980. Grassley, with a straight face, says he favors term limits.

But our decision to not support Grassley this time is about more than his long stay on the public payroll. Grassley has become a far more divisive partisan figure in recent years.

Not only did Grassley halt the nomination of Merrick Garland in 2016, but he voted to support Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation just days before the 2020 election. He played a key role in placing three conservative justices nominated by former president Donald Trump, creating a conservative majority that struck down reproductive rights, smashed a hole in the separation of church and state and made it harder for states to regulate firearms. With the court in place, other individual freedoms and safeguards are threatened. This is Grassley’s legacy.

Grassley reacted strongly and correctly to the violent attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, seeking to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election. But since then, Grassley has sought to downplay the attack and happily accepted Trump’s endorsement a year ago, on the same stage where the former president went on to spew lies about a stolen election.

Grassley voted against creating a bipartisan commission to investigate the attack and then has criticized the House committee uncovering vast evidence related to Trump’s culpability, mostly coming from Republican witnesses.

Franken, 64, points out that for all Grassley’s claims of being a strong ally of agriculture, the consolidation of farms and both the supply and processing sectors have accelerated while Grassley served in the Senate. Water quality in Iowa, sullied by fertilizer runoff from cropland, remains a severe problem. Franken would bring new ideas and a fresh perspective to agricultural issues, aimed at creating a more resilient and diversified farm economy.

Franken supports abortion rights, and would seek to codify them in federal law. He supports immigration reforms that would address stubborn problems plaguing the nation’s southern border. Franken supports extending the child tax credit that was allowed to expire and providing free school lunches to the nation’s students. He supports new investments in technology, especially in rural Iowa, and would offer Medicare to all Americans, first starting at the age of 50. He would use revenue raised through tax reform measures to help finance his objectives. Franken believes in the reality of the global climate crisis. And his experience in the military and at the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill will be an asset when foreign policy and international crises are front and center issues.

We certainly thank Grassley for his years of public service. But we believe Franken is the best choice to lead us into the future.

(319) 398-8262; editorial@thegazette.com