page_title: Joni Ernst
section_title: 115th Congress (2017–2019)
hierarchical_section_title: Joni Ernst / U.S. Senate / Tenure / 115th Congress (2017–2019)
caption_attribution_description: English: President Donald Trump holds up a newly signed House Joint Resolution 321 on Tuesday, February 28, 2017, in the Oval Office of the White House. Also shown is First Lady Melania Trump and Ms. Ivanka Trump. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)
context_page_description: Joni Kay Ernst is an American politician and veteran serving as the junior United States Senator for Iowa since 2015. A Republican, she served in the Iowa State Senate from 2011 to 2014.
  Ernst is the first female combat veteran elected to the United States Senate.
  Ernst served in the Iowa Army National Guard from 1993 to 2015, retiring as a lieutenant colonel. She is the first woman to represent Iowa in Congress. She served a year in Kuwait during the Iraq War. She was elected vice chair of the Senate Republican Conference in November 2018.
  Ernst has been called a "reliable vote for most of President Trump's agenda", and opposes raising the federal minimum wage, Obamacare, internet net neutrality, expanded gun control, cap-and-trade to limit carbon emissions, and the Iran deal negotiated by the Obama administration. She supports abolishing the Department of Education and the Environmental Protection Agency and banning same-sex marriage. She has also said that she doesn't "know the science behind climate change" but believes any governmental involvement addressing the issue should be "very small."
context_section_description: On January 12, 2017, Ernst questioned Secretary of Defense nominee James Mattis on whether he would pledge to prioritize cutting wasteful spending, stopping sexual assault and retaliation in the military, and enhancing national security missions by leveraging the different abilities of "our guard and reserve forces"; Mattis committed to each. Later that month, Ernst announced her intention to introduce legislation that would redirect funding for Planned Parenthood to other women's health care providers and that she already had a bill to overturn an Obama administration policy securing grants from Planned Parenthood to Title X family planning, saying this would be accomplishable with a "pro-life president in the White House and pro-life majorities in the House and Senate". Trump signed the latter bill into law on April 13, 2017.
  In early February, Ernst predicted that Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos would be confirmed and accused Senate Democrats of trying to obstruct her confirmation out of bitterness over the presidential election results. After DeVos was confirmed, Ernst said she had vetted DeVos, who she found to believe that those physically closest to students knew what was best for them, and would hold her accountable during her tenure.
  On March 14, after photographs of nude female soldiers were posted on Facebook, Ernst said that this "type of activity creates a culture that leads to sexual assault." During a March 28 press conference, she asked Congress to pass a law requiring people to immediately report suspected sexual assault at government facilities.
caption: Ernst attending the signing, by President Trump, of the INSPIRE Women Act on Tuesday, February 28, 2017, in the Oval Office of the White House