A judge rated “Not Qualified” by the American Bar Association (ABA) was confirmed with a tie-breaking vote by Vice President Mike Pence. One of the 50 senators who voted to confirm Jonathan Kobes on the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals was Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). He tells KCII News why he has voted to support a nominee even without the support of the ABA, “So, I’ll take the view of local lawyers as well. And in this case we probably did the same thing, because we, we, when we vet things we don’t just take the word of the ABA. We rely on a lot of recommendations that come from other people. Then when you get an ABA negative rating you probably work a little harder to see is this guy is as bad as the ABA thinks he is. Once in a while we agree with the ABA and sometimes we don’t.” The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals covers Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska, and Minnesota, and it has two locations, St. Louis, Missouri, and St. Paul, Minnesota.