Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
His vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice David Souter in 1990 was a mistake, and voting for Sonia Sotomayor would be repeating that mistake, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley told reporters Tuesday morning.
Calling Souter “the only [Justice] that I voted for who really turned out different than what I anticipated,” Grassley said Sotomayor appears to share the former justice’s judicial philosophy.
Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor takes questions from Senators on the second day of confirmation hearings on Tuesday, July 14, 2009 on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Lauren Victoria Burke/WDCPIX.COM)
“He talked about the Supreme Court filling vacuums in the law if Congress hasn’t acted,” he said. “Well you know how our system works. The legislature makes laws, the Supreme Court interprets laws. Filling a vacuum because Congress hasn’t acted is legislating. I asked her about that, and I got a lot of gobbledygook along the same lines of what the Supreme Court is supposed to do or not do. And I see myself voting for another Souter if I vote for her.”
The Judicial Committee voted 13-6 to confirm Sotomayor on Tuesday, with Sen. Lindsey Graham the lone Republican joining all 12 Democrats on the panel. Grassley, who has served on the committee since 1981, made his opposition to Sotomayor public Monday.
Sotomayor “changed her tune” during her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee when discussing previous statements, Grassley said, engaging in “a confirmation conversion.”
Addressing the Judicial Committee Tuesday morning, Grassley once again layed out his reasoning for opposing Sotomayor’s appointment to the nation’s highest court.
“I’m not convinced that Judge Sotomayor will protect important Constitutional rights, nor am I convinced that she will refrain from creating new rights under the Constitution,” he said. “I’m not convinced that Judge Sotomayor understands the proper role of a judge in our system of checks and balances, and I’m not convinced that she will not allow her own personal beliefs and preferences to dictate the outcome of cases before her.”
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