Iowa's U.S. Senators and Representatives

We just completed a poll over the past 24 hours asking Iowan's what their gut instinct is in how their own U.S. Senators and Representatives tend to vote. Do they generally lean more Conservative or do they generally lean more Liberal. An overwhelming number of our respondents (3 to 1 compared to other options) indicated that they believe that Iowa's U.S. Senators and Representatives are mostly conservative in their actual voting records.

Well, we have some bad news for you, Iowans! Your U.S. congress persons are actually more liberal than they are conservative. Using the Conservative Scorecard from Conservative Review, the grades for Iowa's finest came out like this...

U.S. Senator Charles E. Grassley D

U.S. Senator Joni Ernst F

U.S. Representative Steve King B

U.S. Representative Rod Blum C

U.S. Representative David Young F

U.S. Representative Dave Loebsack F

If your child brought this report card home, what would your response be? How about, "Nice try, son we will just keep doing what we are doing and hope for better results next time." That is often our response to our politicians, but would be unacceptable in other arenas of life.

In our state, Representative Loebsack is no surprise as he is a liberal politician who runs on a liberal platform. I wish that those who call themselves conservative would vote as consistently within their platform as he votes within his.

Representative King is someone for whom I have great respect and I was not surprised to see him at the top of our state's conservative list. However, he was only one vote away from receiving a C for conservative voting. Areas of weakness in Conservative voting include: Education, Healthcare and Civil Liberties.

Representative Blum received an average ranking. His record is poor in: Moral Issues, Healthcare and Education.

Senator Grassley, what is this all about? Most Iowans think of him as a political giant, leading the way for Iowa values. Perhaps his long term service has caused many voters to go to sleep on the reality of his voting record. The chalk line showed him to be out of line conservatively in Energy & Environment; Education; Taxes, Economy & Trade; Civil Liberties; Immigration; Free Market; Healthcare & Entitlements; Budget, Spending & Debt and Civil Liberties.

Senator Ernst promised to "make them squeal" when she got to Washington. Her flunking grade on Congress' most vital issues makes me wonder whom she has the razor blade pointed at. Most of her voting record is dismal conservatively speaking, but she has been strong on the Second Amendment. Iowa's hogs may not be safe with Joni around but the pork on Capital Hill seems to be secure.

Representative Young votes liberal more often than conservative. I am not for sure why he runs as a Republican except that he is strong on free markets and that the Republican voting block has departed from its conservative values. He is a good one to close on because his politics are more and more becoming the default for what Republican has become.

RINO is the new Republican

#RepublicanInNameOnly