Sen. Heitkamp takes grief for her red hair

{mosads}She claimed with a wide grin when she first met her colleague from the Prairie State, “He said he didn’t think that a ginger should ever be elected to a United States Senate.”

“This is what you do,” she advised to ITK. “You go ask Sen. Kirk about redheads. Trust me. Just say, ‘Sen. Heitkamp said I’m supposed to ask about your discrimination against redheads.’ He has this whole thing about gingers.”

We had to get to the bottom of Heitkamp’s red-hot accusations.

So ITK reached out to Kirk spokesman Lance Trover about his brunette 54-year-old boss.

“Unfortunately, while in high school, Sen. Kirk asked out and was rejected several times by an attractive red-headed classmate,” Trover explained in an email.

Trover added of Kirk (who’s said to have a good-natured and lighthearted relationship with the affable Heitkamp — despite her red hair), “He’s never quite gotten over the experience.”