U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) joined America’s Newsroom this morning to discuss her work to pass police reform legislation in the Senate. Ernst called movements to defund the police a “liberal talking point” and urged her colleagues to support the JUSTICE Act, a police reform package Ernst is cosponsoring.
On vandalism of statues, violent protests:
“This has gone far enough. We need to restore law and order here in the United States. And, of course we support protests and there are still some folks that are out there protesting police brutality, racial injustice—but peaceful protests is what we are looking for—dialogue.”
On calls to defund the police:
“We here over and over again the calls to defund police and that’s just a liberal talking point. It’s out there to be a very provocative statement, but it’s not solving the issues that we have in the United States today. Again, that’s done through peaceful dialogue and actually finding solutions.”
On police reform in Iowa:
“Iowa has led the way. Our Iowa legislature passed police reform a number of weeks ago and they did it bipartisan—it was unanimously supported through both houses and signed into law by our Governor. That’s what I would expect to see here in the United States Senate and House.”
On reports Democrats plan to block a debate on the JUSTICE Act:
“When they agree to 80% of what’s in a bill why on earth would they simply say we’re not going to do it? They’re standing in the way of progress. And certainly we want to work through this. We want to come together. We want to do the right thing for our nation. So be it, if they’re going to block it, allow them to block it, and explain why they don’t want to see police reform—why they don’t want to see transparency, why they don’t want to see us educating our police force to do a better job out there. I want to hear their thoughts on that.”
