The Des Moines Register| May 8, 2021

"At a bare minimum, we expect our elected officials to take positions on important questions of public policy. That’s how representative government works, after all. Yet, when it comes to court packing — perhaps the most consequential matter currently before the United States Congress — U.S. Rep. Cindy Axne from West Des Moines has chosen to remain silent. Iowans deserve to know whether their representatives in Washington plan to enact a radical proposal that would destroy any semblance of an independent federal judiciary. Axne’s calculated silence on this issue is simply unacceptable.

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Such equivocation is not only a dereliction of the duties of her office, it is a betrayal of the voters who sent her to Washington. The people of Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District elected Axne — not a group of academics selected by the president — to represent them. They are entitled to know her position on court packing.   

Even more egregious than punting to the Biden commission is Axne’s claim that the House of Representatives has no authority over the proposed legislation. Responding to a caller on Iowa Public Radio, Axne stated that “as a member of the House, too, I’d let folks know that we have no jurisdiction over this. This falls directly to the Senate, so I’m going to let them, you know, deal with this.” That canard — which is indisputably false — earned the congresswoman “four Pinocchios” from the Washington Post. As Axne surely knows, the House of Representatives has had authority to pass legislation altering the size of the Supreme Court since the founding of the Republic. Indeed, the Judiciary Act of 2021 — the very piece of legislation on which Axne refuses to opine — is pending in the House.

That Axne would rather mislead her constituents than provide a simple answer should concern all Iowans."

Read the full story here.

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