REGISTER ENDORSEMENT

Endorsement: Bruce Braley is better choice

The Register’s Editorial Board
The Des Moines Register editorial board endorses Bruce Braley for U.S. Senate

The campaign between Bruce Braley and Joni Ernst for the U.S. Senate has been an exhibition of American politics at its worst. It has been a $28 million parade of dismal attack ads that have reduced the candidates to evil caricatures.

Which is sad because both candidates competing to succeed retiring Sen. Tom Harkin are decent and honorable with strong credentials and compelling biographies.

Braley has served eight years in the U.S. House representing Iowa's 1st District. He grew up in Brooklyn and worked his way through Iowa State University and the University of Iowa law school and practiced law in Waterloo before running for the House in 2006.

Ernst grew up on a family farm near Red Oak, attended Iowa State University with the help of scholarships and money earned working summers with her father's construction business. She is a lieutenant colonel in the Iowa Army National Guard and served as Montgomery County auditor before being elected to the Iowa Senate.

Despite comparable individual strengths, however, there are clear differences between the two on important issues. Based on those differences, we believe Braley is clearly better suited to represent Iowa in the U.S. Senate.

The Register endorsed Ernst in the June Republican primary. We described her then as a smart, well-prepared candidate who can wrestle with the details of public policy from a conservative viewpoint without seeming inflexible. Over the months of campaigning against Braley, however, Ernst has taken and defended positions that we do not believe are right for Iowa or the country.

She has said she would abolish the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Education and the federal minimum wage. She suggested partial privatization of Social Security. She calls for nearly unfettered rights to buy and carry weapons. And she would eliminate the Affordable Care Act without offering a serious alternative to provide for those without health care coverage.

Braley, by contrast, supports a federal role in education to help states improve schools and to make college more affordable. He supports enforcement of the Clean Water Act that was signed into law by a Republican president. He reads both a "right to bear arms" and "well regulated" in the Second Amendment. He would maintain the federal minimum wage and raise it. He rightly defends the Affordable Care Act that now provides health care for millions of previously uninsured Americans.

Braley has a solid record of accomplishment in Congress. He has a demonstrated ability to work with Republicans to get legislation passed. Those legislative achievements range from job training programs at Iowa community colleges to tax credits for families adopting children and helping Iowa military veterans get help with education and housing.

We have long been impressed with Braley's intelligence, passion and hard work in the House. He is unlike too many members of Congress who see the job as throwing sand in the gears of not only Congress but the judiciary and the administrative branch. Braley believes he was elected to go to Washington to work to improve Iowa and the nation.

The nation needs lawmakers like Braley who will work on a long list of unmet challenges this country faces. Among them: dealing with the indisputable consequences of climate change; getting the national debt under control; and taking courageous action to preserve Social Security and Medicare for future generations. Congress must find revenue to build and maintain highways, bridges and other national infrastructure. Education from preschool to post-graduate should be excellent and affordable. The economy should create meaningful jobs and living wages for all, and future generations should have the same economic opportunities as previous generations.

This is a crucial election for Iowa, which will be losing a veteran member of Congress with the retirement of Tom Harkin. Over the past four decades Harkin amassed a remarkable record, including a civil rights act for persons with disabilities, landmark conservation programs that preserve soil and water quality and protecting middle class Americans.

In a recent interview, Harkin said work on these issues is not finished, but he is confident others will take up the cause. Braley is an ideal candidate to carry on Harkin's work in the Senate and to build his own Senate legacy.