INDIANOLA, Iowa — Republicans have offered a number of reasons why they oppose the Violence Against Women Act. Some think it’s unconstitutional. Others argue that it’s just a meaningless bill with a patriotic title.

On Wednesday, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) added a new one: Native Americans supposedly aren’t capable of holding fair trials.

Last week, Grassley was one of just 22 senators—all Republican men—who voted against reauthorizing VAWA. During a town hall meeting in Indianola on Wednesday, a woman asked him to explain his vote. Grassley responded that the legislation is unconstitutional, a belief shared by at least five of his colleagues.

Since the Constitution guarantees citizens the right to a trial among a jury of peers, Grassley reasoned that white men would be deprived of their rights if those who were accused of violence against Native American women had to appear in a tribal court. “On an Indian reservation, it’s going to be made up of Indians, right?” Grassley said. “So the non-Indian doesn’t get a fair trial.”

GRASSLEY: One provision that non-Native Americans can be tried in tribal court. And why is that a big thing? Because of the constitutionality of it, for two reasons. One, you know how the law is, that if you have a jury, the jury is supposed to be a reflection of society. [...] So you get non-Indians, let me say to make it easy, you get non-Indians going into a reservation and violating a woman. They need to be prosecuted. They aren’t prosecuted. So the idea behind [VAWA] is we’ll try them in tribal court. But under the laws of our land, you got to have a jury that is a reflection of society as a whole, and on an Indian reservation, it’s going to be made up of Indians, right? So the non-Indian doesn’t get a fair trial.

Watch it:

There is actually no requirement that juries reflect “society as a whole.” The Sixth Amendment requires juries to be drawn from the “State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed,” and Supreme Court decisions establish that criminal defendants also have a right to a jury which is “drawn from a fair cross section of the community,” where the trial court convenes to hear their case. But this does not entitle anyone to be tried by a jury that reflects the whole of American society.

A person who is tried in Vermont is likely to have an all-white jury because over 95 percent of Vermont is white. Similarly, a person who commits a crime in the Navajo Nation will face a jury of Native Americans because the population of the local community is made up of Navajo people. There is no reason to believe that Navajo jurors are any less impartial than white Vermonters, and Grassley is wrong to suggest otherwise.

Grassley went to great lengths to tell attendees that he had supported VAWA in the past. “I support 98 percent of what’s in the bill,” he said. If it weren’t for his belief that Native Americans’ are incapable of conducting a fair trial, perhaps he would have voted for it again.

If you want Congress to reauthorize VAWA, sign ThinkProgress’ petition here.

CHARITON, Iowa — During a town hall on Wednesday, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee embraced the reasoning behind the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing a woman’s choice to get an abortion, although he did not appear aware of the significance of his statement.

Speaking to a small group of constituents in rural Chariton, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) was asked about a Facebook rumor that the government would soon be implanting microchips in children and government workers in order to track their health records. After informing the constituent that the claim had no merit, Grassley continued by endorsing the same “right to privacy” that was the backbone of Roe v. Wade and similar decisions.

CONSTITUENT: They’re saying that they’re going to start, in 2013, putting microchips in government workers and then any kid that enrolls in school, starting in pre-school, will have a microchip implanted in them so that they can track them. [...] Is that true?

GRASSLEY: No. First of all, nothing can be done to your body without your permission. It’d be a violation of the constitutional right to privacy if that were to happen.

Watch it:

The constitutional right to privacy that Grassley refers to is not explicitly stated in the Constitution, but Roe concluded that it is one of the liberties protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, which provides that states many not “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Anti-choice advocates, such as Justice Antonin Scalia, former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA), and former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), all contend that women should be stripped of their ability to get an abortion because, in Scalia’s words, “there’s no right to privacy in the Constitution — no generalized right to privacy.”

Of course, Grassley remains a staunch opponent of a woman’s right to choose, receiving a “0” pro-choice score from NARAL in 2011. But for the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee to confirm that the Constitution does, indeed, include a right to privacy is a major concession undercutting conservatives’ legal argument for overturning Roe.

When Secretary of State Matt Schultz attempted to purge voters from the rolls in advance of the November 2012 election, a county judge temporarily blocked the move, finding that the rules issued by Schultz created fear and uncertainty and could deter legitimate voters. But that risk of voter suppression hasn’t stopped Schultz from proposing a new slightly tweaked rule to remove registered voters in the name of alleged voter fraud.

The rule would allow Schultz’s office to challenge the legitimacy of registered voters who are listed as noncitizens in the Department of Transportation database. Citing a DOT list of some 3,000 registered voters labeled noncitizens, Schultz said, “I have to do something. I can’t just sit back and do nothing when we know people are taking advantage of the system.”

But Schultz’s testimony just last month before the Senate Judiciary Committee shows that he doesn’t know people are taking advantage of the system. When probed by Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) for evidence of voter fraud, Schultz cited just six arrests — not convictions – out of 1.6 million votes cast. And this was after a special agent was designated to specifically target voter fraud.

As for the list of 3,000 people, that claim was easily dismissed by the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund’s Nina Perales during the same hearing:

Secretary Schultz … said he had identified 3,500 noncitizens using the driver’s license rolls. He did not. He identified 3,500 people who were noncitizens at the time that they obtained their driver’s licenses. And we know that since that time and before they registered to vote, the overwhelming majority and perhaps all of them have become naturalized citizens. So at this point, anyone who undertakes to accuse people of non-citizenship based on driver’s licenses should be on notice that this is not correct and should not be done. It’s fundamentally unfair.

Attempts to prove voter fraud nationwide have fallen similarly short, with less than 20 instances of fraud charges offered in most states. Florida GOP officials have even publicly admitted voter suppression was the goal of that state’s aggressive and inaccurate purge.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups are also arguing that Schultz cannot implement a purge without going through the state legislature. The ruling that blocked Schultz’s last attempt said that, at the very least, Schultz should have gone through the proper rulemaking procedure that allows for public input instead of going forward on his own. Schultz is now going through that procedure, but the court could still hold this process insufficient.

The Iowa transportation department announced late last month that it will not issue driver’s licenses to young undocumented immigrants who benefit from deferred action, which allows them to legally remain in the U.S. temporarily. About 5,000 undocumented immigrants are eligible for deferred action in Iowa, and at least one person, Omar Del Jesus Mex Valle, had received his license after being granted deferred action in October.

Valle told the Des Moines Register that he received his license within a week after finding out he had been granted deferred action. “I hope they don’t take it from me. I need it to go to my job, and to do stuff for my family,” he said.

Paul Trombino, Iowa transportation director, said department officials will inform anyone with deferred action status who received a license that their license is no longer valid.

Iowa is one of six states to prevent deferred action beneficiaries from receiving driver’s licenses. Seventeen states, including California and Illinois, have said that undocumented immigrants with temporary legal status from the program can apply for driver’s licenses, and three states — Washington, New Mexico and Utah — do not require proof of citizenship to receive a driver’s license.

So far, the ACLU has filed lawsuits against Arizona and Michigan from blocking young undocumented immigrants who have been granted temporary legal status from being issued driver’s licenses. Randall Wilson, Iowa ACLU’s legal director, said he was surprised by the state’s decision. “These people have been granted status to stay in the United States for a period of time, and whether you want to call it illegal, legal or indeterminate, it doesn’t matter,” Wilson told the Des Moines Register. “They are here, so this issue needs to be addressed, either legislatively or in the courts.”

Two years ago, a coalition of anti-gay groups spent nearly $800,000 to exact revenge against three justices who joined their court’s unanimous opinion supporting marriage equality — turning them out of office in their 2010 retention election. Last night, they attempted to do the same to a third justice, Justice David Wiggins. They lost. Wiggins will remain a justice.

Americans for Prosperity, a tea party group chaired by infamous energy billionaire David Koch, backed a similar revenge campaign against three Florida justices who kept an unconstitutional attempt to nullify the Affordable Care Act off the 2010 ballot. This campaign failed as well. All three justices won their retention races by comfortable margins.

Lest there be any doubt, these two campaigns were nothing less than a rejection of the idea that judges are bound by the law. The Iowa Constitution provides that “[a]ll laws of a general nature shall have a uniform operation; the general assembly shall not grant to any citizen or class of citizens, privileges or immunities, which, upon the same terms shall not equally belong to all citizens.” These words unambiguously require gay couples to be granted the same marriage rights as straight couples. Similarly, the Koch-backed effort to remove the Florida justices centered around the dangerously wrongheaded notion that a state can nullify a federal law it does not want to follow. This notion simply cannot be squared with the U.S. Constitution, which provides that duly enacted federal laws “shall be the supreme law of the land.”

So yesterday’s retention elections were more than a victory for four justices who have, at times, gone against the whims of the right. It was a victory for the rule of law itself.

Earlier this week, ThinkProgress released internal documents from the Romney campaign detailing how it is training poll watchers to mislead voters in Wisconsin. Now, according to new documents, Wisconsin may not be the only state where Romney’s campaign is equipping volunteers with deceptive information.

A new ThinkProgress investigation has found that in Iowa, Romney poll watchers are being trained to watch for voters who show up without a photo ID, even though no voter ID law exists in the state.

In a training video for Romney poll watchers in Iowa, the narrator tells volunteers to be on the lookout for anytime “a voter fails to show a voter ID and they are still permitted to vote.” If that happens, he says, “alert the legal team so they can handle the problem.” The text of the campaign’s slide, however, says something contradictory, instructing volunteers when poll workers should check the voter’s ID. Despite the mixed messages, the slide ends with: “If an election worker is not checking photo ID, please call the legal hotline immediately.”

NARRATOR: Naturally, you’re probably wondering what irregularities may come up throughout the day. We’ll walk you through some quick examples. First, there may be an instance where a voter fails to show a voter ID and they are still permitted to vote. If you notice this, use the legal help button to alert the legal team so they can handle the problem and you can get back to checking voters.

Watch it:

The text on the video notes that utility bills and other government documents are acceptable forms of ID, but that section is contradicted by the narrator’s decree to be on the lookout for anyone who tries to vote without a photo ID and text at the bottom warning poll watchers to be on the lookout for voters who lack photo ID. In sum, the training material is, at best, highly misleading.

Iowa in not a voter ID state. ThinkProgress asked a representative at the Iowa Secretary of State’s office whether it would be incorrect to say that voter ID is required in Iowa. “That’s right,” she confirmed. Voters do not need ID on Election Day; they can show a current utility bill (including cell phone bill), bank statement, paycheck, or other government document, but are not required to do so.

This video is part of Romney’s massive nationwide poll-watcher effort on Election Day. The campaign is training 34,000 volunteers to fan out in swing states across the country and monitor for voter fraud. Romney personally touted Project ORCA in a video released Wednesday evening, telling poll watchers that they’ll “be the key link in providing critical, real-time information to me.” Because of the program, Romney said, “our campaign will have an unprecedented advantage on Election Day.”