(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, a Republican from Red Oak, is not pleased with Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s action to tear up a copy of the President’s speech right after he finished the State of the Union. “I’ll put it diplomatically — I thought it was very disrespectful…Just truly unbelievable really that the Speaker of the House would act out in such as way,” Ernst says. Ernst says it was not appropriate. “I know that she and the president have disagreements and we are obviously going through a very trying time in the last several weeks and months — but that does not excuse her behavior,” Ernst says.

Some of the trying times that Ernst refers to is the impeachment hearings. She says she will vote not against impeachment when it comes before the U-S Senate. “Bottom line, the articles of impeachment that were sent over from the House clearly do not define anything that the president has done that rises to the level of impeachment,” according to Ernst. Ernst was also asked about the issues with the Iowa Caucuses during her weekly conference call with reporters. She doesn’t buy into any conspiracy theories about what happened. “I think it was technology. And we all know that certainly technology needs to be rigorously tested,” Ernst says. “And so I don’t want to go into any of the political side conversations. So, I do think that it was simply a failure of technology.”

She says the Iowa Caucuses are still important in the selection of the president. “The process itself — you know I still believe in it and think the grassroots way that we do business in Iowa is very, very helpful. Not only to our citizens, but also very helpful to all of those candidates,” according to Ernst. “Iowa is a great testing grounds — it doesn’t matter who you are — whether you are a campaign with the least amount of money, or a campaign with the most amount of money.”

Ernst says she will continue to defend the process because she believes it puts the candidates through a rigorous test with all the questions they face in the state.