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.
Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King weighed in on the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor as the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice Wednesday, saying he is sure she will try to engage in judicial activism, leaving him no choice but to work to ensure she doesn’t try to amend the U.S. Constitution from the bench.
“Judicial activism effectively amends the Constitution,” King said. “The very last nine people on the planet who should be amending the Constitution are Supreme Court Justices. I will watch her decisions carefully, encourage her to adhere to the Constitution and encourage her to reject de facto amendments to it and the unconstitutional preferences that were one of the qualifiers that President Obama used in her selection.”
Despite the House not having a say in judicial nominations, King has been an outspoken critic of Sotomayor’s ascension to the nation’s highest court. King criticized the confirmation process for being about “race and gender rather than jurisprudence,” but later congratulated those who see Sotomayor’s confirmation as an inspiration to “dedicate yourselves to individual achievement based on merit rather than race, ethnicity or gender.”
But ultimately, Sotomayor’s confirmation is a victory for judicial activism, King said.
““Sadly, it is clear that the jurisprudence of Judge Sonia Sotomayor is not the only qualification that placed her on the Supreme Court,” he said. “It is also clear that her judicial activism was a requirement rather than a disqualifier.”
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