Greenfield Explains Which Senators She’d Reach Out To First If Elected

During a stop at a Central Iowa farm yesterday, Democratic Senate candidate Theresa Greenfield said that if elected, she’d work closely with Sen. Chuck Grassley and won’t focus on adding seats to the Supreme Court.

While touring a family farm in Boone County Iowa on Tuesday evening as part of her campaign’s RV tour across the state amid a doggedly competitive race against Republican Sen. Joni Ernst, Greenfield was asked about her priorities if voted into office Nov. 3.

David Weaver and his father Gary Weaver led the candidate around parts of their derecho-damaged farm and asked, “What are you going to do when you’re elected in a week?”

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Greenfield answered that she’d begin work immediately with fellow Midwestern senators on hot-button local issues like renewable fuels, health care prices and crop prices.

“I’m going to reach out to Midwestern senators, Tammy Duckworth, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, Amy Klobuchar. Talking to a lot of our Midwestern senators,” Greenfield said on Tuesday evening.

“And I am going to reach out to Chuck Grassley, you bet I will. I’ll work side by side with him. And I think there’s a whole lot more we can agree upon, especially when it comes to our farm economy. And he’s used to working across the aisle.”

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Greenfield also applauded Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley for his work on lowering prescription drug prices, noting that Ernst was slow to sign onto his bipartisan Prescription Drug Pricing Reduction Act this year.

“He seems to be going in the direction of working hard to bring [drug prices] down,” she said. “Joni didn’t sign onto his bill until [later] … Probably because I said I’d support it and work with him on it. And I still will.”

The farmers then asked what Democrats might do about court packing, or expanding the Supreme Court to more than nine seats—a contentious debate following Monday’s confirmation of Republican-appointed Justice Coney Barrett.

“Nothing,” Theresa interjected. “It’s not a priority. People want us to work together again, and I mean, certainly we can continue to keep score. Joni broke her promise out there. She wasn’t going to vote on a Supreme Court justice. We could keep score on that. But I think it doesn’t serve our country well.”

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Instead, Greenfield said she intends to “stay on the issues.”

“If we take back control, we have to start over. We’ve got to rebuild trust, we’ve got to end the divisiveness and we have to stay focused on things, I think, that people want us to get done. Health care. Infrastructure,” she said.

The event, held Tuesday evening in rural Rippey after touring Marshall and Cerro Gordo counties, was one of her last before the Greenfield campaign announced Wednesday morning that their RV tour is now on pause after some members of the campaign were exposed to someone who tested positive for COVID-19.

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“Theresa regularly gets tested for COVID-19 and recently tested negative, but she’s getting tested again to be safe,” her campaign said in a statement. “She is eager to get back on her GOTV tour once we get test results and we’re absolutely certain it’s safe to do so, which is hopefully very soon.”

by Isabella Murray
Posted 10/28/20

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