Bad week for Iowa Republicans

| 8:30 pm EST December 14, 2022
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It’s shaping up to look like a rough week for Iowa Republicans. First, GQP Senator Joni Ernst and GQP US Rep. Miller-Meeks are now facing some heat from local Iowa Republican parties for voting in favor of the Respect for Marriage Act.

This should come as little surprise as most of the GQP establishment in Iowa actively seeks to deny as many rights as possible for others who don’t look like them, act like them, believe like them, have the disrespect for bodily autonomy they have, or love others like they do. Ernst defended her vote by saying that the Act expanded religious liberty protections not just in Iowa but throughout the country, but local GQP members don’t realize that.

Then, on Monday the Iowa District Court in Polk County said it would not lift its injunction against the anti-abortion legislation CovidKim and her buddies in the GQP legislature had enacted in 2018. The court had previously blocked the law in 2019, but after the events of last summer CovidKim tried to get the courts to reconsider their decision. This was a law that would have pretty much banned abortion in Iowa after six weeks. When it was first challenged the court said the law was unconstitutional and upheld that finding this week by continuing to block the law

It remains to be seen how CovidKim and her GQP buddies will deal with this. No doubt there’ll be plenty of grumbling about “activist” judges while the GQP conveniently ignores conservative judges who wipe themselves with the Constitution and our laws. I don’t know if CovidKim will try to challenge the law to a higher court. It wouldn’t surprise if she did, but for now at least the law banning most abortions can’t be enforced in Iowa.