Chuck Ernest Grassley

By Nancy Ognanovich (Bloomberg Government) -- Chuck Grassley, one of the most popular and durable politicians in Iowa history, can be highly partisan but has also earned a reputation during his four-decade Senate career for forging bipartisan deals. He hasn’t said whether he will seek an eighth term in 2022 when he will be 89. As the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Grassley helped steer President Donald Trump’s multi-year effort to confirm conservative judges and also led a contentious investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election. But as a former Finance Committee chairman, Grassley also struck many deals with Democrats, including on the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts and the 2003 Medicare prescription drug plan. Grassley has also partnered with Democrats to push bills to revise patent law, make federal sentencing rules fairer, and to make changes to the skilled non-immigrant visa programs. Along with Democrats he’s defended agency whistleblowers and pushed government agencies to be more accountable to Congress. “Controversy gets headlines and partisan controversy gets even more headlines,” Grassley said in a 2016 statement. “Lawmakers with strong partisan views can still find common ground with members across the aisle if they make an effort.” Grassley, who is the oldest male senator, said he’s open to working with President Joe Biden, his former colleague. He said he’ll try to find common ground with Biden wherever possible, saying shortly after the president was sworn in that he has to “engage with the administration of the day if I want to be a responsible senator.” But he also warned the new administration about proposing overly ambitious proposals: “They’d do well to lean in on a bit of Midwestern common sense that’s served me well on my family farm and in Congress: Don’t put the cart before the horse.” Grassley is proud of his record for going the longest length of time without missing a Senate vote. In November, he had cast 8,927 uninterrupted votes since 1993. But his record voting streak came to an end that month when he had to quarantine after contracting Covid-19. One of the keys to his popularity has been his tradition of visiting Iowa’s 99 counties annually, which he’s dubbed “the full Grassley.” With Democrats taking charge of the Senate, Grassley relinquished the position of president pro tempore, the third spot in the presidential line of succession. Republican term limit rules also mean he’s exhausted his time atop the powerful Finance Committee. Instead, he’s reprising his role as the leading Republican on the Judiciary Committee, where he still has time left to serve under GOP rules. At Judiciary, Grassley leads Republicans’ examination of Biden’s picks for the federal courts as well as his nominees for the Justice Department, including Merrick Garland for attorney general. Grassley angered Democrats in 2016 when he refused to schedule Judiciary Committee hearings on President Barack Obama’s nomination of Garland to succeed the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. After Republicans won the White House in the 2016 election, Grassley gave expeditious attention to Neil Gorsuch, who went on to win Senate confirmation to the Supreme Court in 2017. He subsequently also coordinated closely with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the high court in 2018. Grassley’s work with McConnell to get more than 200 other Trump circuit and district court judges confirmed also could be revisited when Biden sends up his own judicial picks. Under Trump, Grassley angered Senate Democrats by sometimes ignoring their “blue slip” prerogatives, in which a home state senator has to submit a blue sheet of paper giving consent before Judiciary considers nominees to the federal bench. Committee & Legislative Highlights * Grassley said his service at the Finance Committee has been one of the highlights of his long Senate career. He first joined it in 1981 and became chairman briefly in 2001 during a switch in party control. He chaired it two times since and still plans to serve on the panel. He is expected to help lead opposition to the increases Biden wants in the top individual income tax rate and the corporate tax rate. * Grassley also serves on the Joint Committee on Taxation and on the Budget Committee. He will have a role in leading Republican opposition to Democrats’ plans to use budget reconciliation to force through changes via simple majorities, including possibly to provide more stimulus funds and raise tax rates. * Besides work on Biden’s nominations, Grassley has other items to pursue on Judiciary. He’ll be in the middle of talks on an immigration overhaul. Grassley said he’s supported efforts to help young immigrants avoid deportation and provide greater border security but said Biden’s plans are “far more radical” than previous efforts that have failed. * Grassley, who represents the nation’s leading corn producer, also sits on the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee. With corn a major component of ethanol, he’s been a longtime advocate for the use of ethanol in vehicles, saying it creates good jobs and helps get the United States off of foreign oil. He told Axios in February 2021 that protecting the Renewable Fuel Standard is a focus for him in the 117th Congress. * Grassley sided with Trump over his firing of FBI director James Comey, saying that critics should “suck it up and move on.” He later rankled fellow Republicans when he said the committee would investigate Comey’s firing. “There should be no improper interference with FBI investigations to favor any elected official or candidate of either party,” he said. * Grassley has a long interest in government agency accountability and transparency. Over the years, he’s taken on the FBI, Food and Drug Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Agriculture Department, Treasury Department and others. His complaints have included the FBI’s management of a computer modernization system, the USDA’s payment of farm subsidies to dead people, Treasury’s oversight of the federal bailout of General Motors Co., and the FDA’s handling of drug approvals. Politics & Personality * While Grassley played a critical role in the enactment of Trump’s tax overhaul and installation of a conservative federal judiciary, he struck many bipartisan deals at the same time. Among others, he worked closely with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), and other Democrats on criminal justice overhaul that became law during Trump’s tenure and with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) on drug pricing changes. * The partisan-bipartisan dichotomy is reflected in the fact that while Grassley has a conservative voting record, earning an 84% lifetime score through 2019 from the American Conservative Union, he was also rated as the tenth most bipartisan senator in the 116th Congress by the Lugar Center, which measures how often a member of Congress sponsors of co-sponsors legislation with colleagues from the other party. * Grassley also has embraced social media to stay in close touch with Iowans, particularly Twitter, where he’s attracted more than 600,000 followers since joining in 2007. He taps out his own tweets to constituents with notices about everything from federal disaster aid help to the delicacies at the Iowa State Fair and Dairy Queen, where he often stops for a Blizzard. Road to Office Grassley grew up on the family farm in north central Iowa, which he still owns. He told middle school students he loved politics when he was their age and said his parents often talked politics at home. Grassley got his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in political science and then entered a Ph.D. program at the University of Iowa with a goal of becoming a teacher. He taught school part time while working as a sheet metal worker and then on a factory assembly line. He was a member of the Machinists union. In 1956, at age 22, Grassley ran for a seat in the Iowa House. In a three-way Republican primary he lost to the incumbent by 81 votes. He tried again in 1958 and won. He served for 16 years, earning a living by working on the assembly line and on the farm. Grassley ran for Congress in 1974, a challenging year for Republicans in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal and President Richard Nixon’s resignation. Grassley still won, but by less than 2 percentage points. He served three terms in the House. In 1980, sharing a ticket with Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan helped Grassley unseat Democratic Sen. John Culver, 54% to 46%, in a year in which Republicans won control of the Senate. Since then Grassley won all of his Senate re-election contests by overwhelming margins. In 2016 he ran against former Iowa Lt. Gov. Patty Judge (D), who made Grassley’s decision to block Garland’s nomination a central part of her campaign. While newspaper editorials harshly criticized his decision, he still drew 60.1% of the vote. Personal Note Although his son and grandson run the day-to-day operations of the family farm of more than 700 acres, Grassley still takes an active role. They grow corn and soybeans and Grassley spends an average of three nights a week there. His grandson Pat Grassley is speaker of the Iowa House and has been mentioned as a potential successor to Grassley in the Senate. Grassley told Axios in February 2021 that he’d be proud if his grandson opted to run to replace him. Grassley also continues to run regularly, enjoying early morning, two-mile jogs around Washington — rain or shine. The lawmaker told Roll Call in 2019 he took up running at age 65 when he was chairing the Senate Aging Committee and became concerned that seniors he saw in nursing homes didn’t get exercise. “I wanted to make sure I was in shape so I didn’t get in that position,” he said. Updated Feb. 9, 2021 To contact the reporter on this story: Nancy Ognanovich in Washington at nognanov@bgov.com To contact the editors responsible for this story: Bennett Roth at broth@bgov.com; Kyle Trygstad at ktrygstad@bgov.com