In this episode of On Iowa Politics, we break down the latest Iowa Poll results showing a record high of Iowans supporting abortion rights and opposition to the new state law restricting abortions at six weeks.

We also hear Sen. Chuck Grassley’s response to the recent report on the first assassination attempt on former President Trump.

Lastly, we discuss the legal battle over Iowa’s new immigration law, which is currently being reviewed by a Federal appeals court. Join Erin Murphy, Tom Barton, Sarah Watson, and Jared McNett for an in-depth analysis of these important issues.

Welcome everyone to the Friday, September 27 2024

episode of On Iowa Politics this week on the podcast. More

noteworthy Iowa poll results, this time on abortion. Chuck

Grassley on a new report about the first Trump assassination

attempt and Iowa's state immigration laws considered by a

federal appeals court. Hello, everyone. I'm Erin Murphy, the

Des Moines bureau chief for the Gazette in Cedar Rapids with me

this week are Gazette deputy bureau chief Tom Barton, Hello,

Tom. Hello. Sarah Watson of the Quad City Times is here. Hello,

Sarah. Greetings, Aaron. And finally, we have Jared McNally,

the Sioux City Journal, with us. Hello, Jared, Bill Royals,

Aaron, are the Royals in it?

Yes, at least as of right now, we're going to be

facing the Baltimore Orioles. So

I got it. I'm such a national league focused guy

with my brewers that I'm not even aware of, what's going on

over there in the senior circuit or the junior the junior

circuit. Yeah, all right, first up this week, we returned to the

Des Moines Register slash Mediacom Iowa poll, which this

week published the results of a survey of Iowans feelings about

abortion laws. According to the latest Iowa poll, nearly two

thirds of Iowans, 64% say abortion should be legal in all

in most cases, which is a new high since the gold standard

poll began asking that specific question, in 2008 and a majority

of Iowans, 59% said they oppose the new state law that restricts

abortions once cardiac activity can be detected, which is

typically around the sixth week of pregnancy, usually before the

parent is aware of the pregnancy. And I have written

that sentence so many times in the last two years I can recite

it in my sleep. Jared, those poll results very certainly

noteworthy, given a million different reasons, but honestly,

they did not surprise me. The historical polling on abortion

in Iowa and across the US has been remarkably steady and

clear. A majority of Americans favor abortion being legal in at

least some or most cases, that has been clear in polling for

decades. Again, both in Iowa and nationally. Were you surprised

by this, Jerry?

I mean, I am always somewhat surprised when you see

the results of a poll on legislation and policy that is

in such a sharp contrast with the legislators that a state has

elected. So that part is always surprising to me with any of

these policy or legislative polls. But you know, even with

that voters are a lot of them are not coherent in terms of

like, what they their attitudes are, and then what they what

they vote on, ultimately. So I guess I shouldn't be entirely

surprised, even by my surprise, on that. Um,

yeah, and we've talked about that in the past.

You know what the reasons people actually pull the levers they

do? Right? Yes,

the mind of a voter, your average voter, is a complex

web, without a doubt. Um, the the poll itself, as you were

saying, though, isn't entirely surprising, and part of that is

because of attitudes we've, you know, seen in the Midwest over

the past few years, since Roe v Wade was overturned. There's the

Kansas abortion referendum from 2022 that would have said that

the state constitution doesn't guarantee the right to an

abortion that failed by 20 points. Nebraska voters are

going to have competing measures to either expand or limit

abortion rights. And polling there, although it's a little

old, I think it was like two years ago, has shown a majority

opposes more restrictive abortion bans in the state, even

in Florida, which has swung dramatically toward Republicans

in the past decade, plus, they're going to be voting on a

ballot initiative to protect abortion. And the limited

polling that there's been on that has shown a majority of

respondents saying they would vote for the amendment. So

you're seeing that kind of support in all kinds of states,

battleground states, you know, solidly red states, Midwest, you

know, any part of the state you want to look at.

Yeah, so true. And that is such a good point you

raised, too to circle back on. You know the you hear often at

the state house when you see a number like 59% and you'll hear

people say, I'd love to have 59 support in any election that I

go into. And here you have 59% opposition to a law that was

just passed by the majority party. It's always fascinating

stuff through a political science lens, I guess.

Yeah, and going back to the Iowa poll in particular,

there was were things I was legitimately surprised about

with not really any caveats, and that was the poll found. I'm

just reading from the demographic story. Now, the poll

found widespread disapproval of the new law among many groups of

Iowans, including 71% of all suburban adults, which is the

type of constituency you would need to win in swing states. And

the other thing that I was surprised by, you know, maybe a

little biased on this, but 50% of residents of the fourth

district, which is the district that I'm in favor Iowa six week

ban. Given how red the district is, I was surprised that that

number wasn't significantly higher.

Yeah, that's a great one. Jared, thanks for

that. I'm with you. That's given the makeup of that district,

that that number seems low, that that's that is a surprising

number to me. That's a good one. Thanks for that. All right,

we'll see. I think they might be done with this Iowa poll, so

we're going to have to come up with something else to talk

about next week, but maybe they got one left in the tank that

we'll see yet. Moving on. In the meantime, the US Senate this

week received a new report on the assassination attempt on

former President Donald Trump at a campaign event in

Pennsylvania. It is remarkable at this point that I need to

clarify that we're talking about the first of two separate

assassination tips on Trump, and in the last couple of months,

Sarah, you talked to Iowa's Republican US Senator Chuck

Grassley this week to get his reaction to that report, the

have to say about it and and forgive me, I I can't remember

if your story said, was there any new information that that we

didn't know that came out of This report?

Um, so the report really addressed that secret

service. There were several radio malfunctions that happened

that it had extensive interviews with the Secret Service staff

that were that were involved. And one thing that Senator

Grassley told reporters was one of his takeaways from reading

about the report was that there was one person who one counter

sniper, who saw law enforcement running with guns drawn toward

the building that Thomas crooks was was on, and could have, at

that point, alerted the Trump's detail, but it He told the

panel, it just didn't cross his mind to do so. So that was, that

was what, when I asked Senator Chuck Grassley, what his

takeaways, where that was his, his main takeaway from that as a

as a critical shortcoming. And so he's also asked about

funding, what, what kind of funding? He thinks that the US

Secret Service needs to address these the security of

presidential candidates and presidents, people in public

office. And so he said that he supports a 230, $1 million boost

in funds for the US Secret Service. And that is part of a

US House measure to fund the government and avert a shutdown.

So he supports that, but he wasn't ready to commit to any

more or less funding until there's more information and a

greater review done on what resources the US Secret Service

needs. But he did say that he wants more more accountability

for the Secret Service personnel involved in that incident. He

said, quote, there's been no action taken against those

people who screwed up. And I always say in this town, if

heads don't fall, nothing changes. Unquote. So it seems

like Grassley and others still want to see more accountability

and more people, you know, I miss, I'm paraphrasing here, but

more people to lose their jobs, essentially after this, this

failure so and yeah, just background as a reminder. This

was the July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The gunman was

able to climb onto a roof of a nearby building to where Trump

was having his outdoor rally. He had a rifle. He shot eight

rounds, grazed Trump's ear, killed one attendee and injured

three others, before a counter sniper shot and killed him. And

so the report really laid out in detail, some of those failures

by the Secret Service to take command of the situation,

failure of their radios to communicate information about

threats, and then a failure to secure that that building and

that site. Yeah.

Did Grassley give any Well, I mean, I guess I was

going to ask that he. Have any indication, because the Senate

passed a similar bill regarding expanded Secret Service

protection, but you said the one that they were talking about is

in the avert of shutdown package. Is that right? Sarah,

that was

the funding portion? Yeah, he was asked

specifically about what funding the Secret Service needed, and

so he talked about that, that boost in funding in the in the

continuing resolution to avert a shutdown. And then he said, just

kind of generally, that he thought that the Secret Service

should review their policies, protocols and how they attend

events and attend to security.

This is, forgive me for putting you on the spot

here. And I don't know if it came up that. What is our latest

at Thursday, at three o'clock on the shutdown, the continuing

resolution? Is that going to get done? Do we? Do we? Do we know,

has anybody been following that? Did he talk about that during

the call? Sir,

no, he

did. Okay, okay, okay.

I'll do some checking on the next person's

question, yeah,

there you go. Look that up for us while I talk to

Tom. Thanks for that, Sarah. Moving on to Tom, we head back

to the courtroom, where we just haven't spent enough time

lately. So it's good to be back in the courtroom. Tom's taking

his term. He listened in on federal appeals court hearing

again Thursday afternoon. So earlier Thursday, hearing on

arguments over Iowa's new state immigration law. The federal

judge blocked that law before it went into effect. That decision

was appealed. Tom, you you heard the arguments earlier today.

Earlier Thursday, what were you able to glean from that?

Yeah, so there wasn't a whole lot to glean

from. Maybe where the three panel, the panel of three judges

from the Eighth Circuit Court, where they might be leaning on

whether or not to affirm or uphold the lower court ruling

keeping in place the preliminary injunction. The judges didn't

ask a lot of questions, and the questions they did ask not much

can really be kind of extrapolated from, again, where

they might what their position might be as they're looking at

Iowa's law and the the judicial lens that they might be using to

to view Iowa's law and whether or not, again, to allow it to be

blocked from taking effect, whether to allow that

preliminary injunction that halted its enforcement, or to to

lift that and kind of let further legal proceedings play

out. So just a bit a bit of background. So this is over a

state law that was passed earlier this year. It would have

taken effect July 1, but as you mentioned, the federal district

court enjoined it from being enforced. The law would allow

the arrest to enforce removal of immigrants in Iowa if they had

previously been denied entry into the country, the US

department of justice and civil rights organizations sued to

stop the law, arguing that it's unconstitutional because it

tramples on federal sovereignty over immigration, ensnares those

with legal status and creates chaos in orderly immigration

enforcement. So today we heard arguments. Oh, and then Iowa

Republican attorney general Brenna bird appealed the lower

court's decision on on the state's behalf, arguing that

Iowa's law simply mirrors federal law, which they claim is

not being enforced by federal authorities. So today we heard

arguments from Iowa's Solicitor General, representing the

Attorney General's Office and the state of Iowa. We also heard

from an attorney for the US Department of Justice, and then

a attorney for the and now I'm blanking on the name of the

organization, the Iowa migrant movement for justice, which is

Representing a couple of plaintiffs in this suit so Iowa

Solicitor General Eric Wesson said that Iowa is responding to

a unprecedented immigration crisis by creating this state

crime of illegal reentry. He told the panel of judges that

the plaintiffs in this case have failed to demonstrate that they.

Be harmed by enforcement of the law, and that unless every

application of the law is unconstitutional, states should

be allowed to demonstrate that the law can be applied

consistent with federal laws in the Constitution before a facial

injunction is entered by the court. He gave the example of a

person previously deported, deported, who reenters the

United States, kills someone and is charged with both murder and

the crime of illegal reentry. He said that it seems odd that the

foreign policy interests of the United States would be affected

by the illegal reentry lesser charge, but not by the murder

charge. And it also seems odd that you know, assuming that

there's no lawful reason for that person to be in the United

States, that charging that person and convicting him of

legal, illegal reentry would itself be a violation or a

conflict with federal law. You know, if such a person, after

serving a sentence was issued an order to return and was

presented at a port of entry, you know, it's, it's hard to

believe that that person is going to be turned away and that

federal authorities would be unwilling at that point to

cooperate. Wesson also argued, Iowa law doesn't touch on

removal or entry. I think this gets a little bit technical in

the weeds, but rather illegal reentry and refusal to comply

with an order to return, which he argued is separate from

removal orders. The attorney for the US Department of Justice

countered saying that entry and removal are core of what has

long been held for almost 150 years to be the exclusive

federal power to control immigration. The attorney

representing the Iowa migrant movement for justice argued that

the law puts even those immigrants who are authorized to

be in the United States at risk of being deported, and gives

local rather than federal, law enforcement the near impossible

job of figuring out the complex documentation status of those

with whom they interact. And she gave the example of an Iowa high

school student who they used a pseudonym and a four they used

the pseudonym in order to protect her identity. She was

born in Honduras, where her father was murdered and her

sister kidnapped and was brought to the United States as a child

by her mother, fleeing persecution. They were deported

in 2020 shortly after, still fearing for her life, Anna

returned unlawfully as a child. She applied for and received

asylum and is living in Iowa lawfully with an Iowa family and

attending high school. But the attorney argued under Senate

file 2340 she could be arrested, prosecuted and ordered to return

to Mexico, not her native country.

Yeah, and that was one example they gave at the

initial the first federal hearing is, is, well, it's going

to be interesting, and we don't typically have a timeline on

these things, right? So,

yeah, the appellate court typically issues decisions

within three to six months, but could take longer, but you are

right. There is no deadline for the court to respond to the

state's request to lift the injunction. It should also be

mentioned that should the appellate court uphold the

injunction, the case could then be appealed to the US Supreme

Court. And I asked attorneys representing these civil rights

groups, including an attorney for the American Civil Liberties

Union who said that, you know, it seems very likely that, if

it's not the Iowa law that gets kicked up to the Supreme Court,

it's likely that one of These other state laws that are very

similar to Iowa's law, including the Texas law, and Oklahoma, I

believe, recently passed the summer law that in Iowa,

Attorney General Brenna bird told reporters earlier this

summer that she too, thinks that Iowa's law, or a summer law in

another state, is likely to make it to the nation's highest court

to kind of settle this question of, do states have the right,

the ability, the authority, to, you know, enact these type of

laws?

There you go. So that's obviously something we'll

be following along for. And. See what happens, Sarah, what's,

what's our what's our shutdown prospect look like?

Yes, so the House passed it yesterday, and then

the Senate passed it last night.

Oh, there we go, hot off the press. So I get so I

have such bad tunnel vision on this beat that I sometimes

struggle to remember to pick up the paper and read what's going

on outside of Iowa too. So there we go. Thanks, Sarah. When we

come back for next week's show, we will be just more than a

month out from the November election, as I say that to a

group of political reporters, How's everybody feeling about

that, I see gritted smiles, is that the consensus like, yeah,

it's it's going to be an interesting four plus weeks to

the finish here, and we got so much to talk about still in

these, especially These congressional races, so we'll

get into that more in the for the homestretch here in the

future. Episodes. That's it for this one, though. Thank you for

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