Charles Ernest Grassley (born September 17, 1933) is an American politician serving as the
president pro tempore emeritus of the United States Senate
The president pro tempore of the United States Senate (often shortened to president pro tem) is the second-highest-ranking official of the United States Senate, after the vice president. According to Article One, Section Three of the United S ...
, and the
senior
Senior (shortened as Sr.) means "the elder" in Latin and is often used as a suffix for the elder of two or more people in the same family with the same given name, usually a parent or grandparent. It may also refer to:
* Senior (name), a surname ...
United States senator
The United States Senate is the Upper house, upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives being the Lower house, lower chamber. Together they compose the national Bica ...
from
Iowa
Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to the ...
, having held the seat since 1981. In
2022
File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; 2022 Sri Lankan protests, Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretari ...
, he was reelected to his eighth Senate term, having first been elected in
1980
Events January
* January 4 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter proclaims a grain embargo against the USSR with the support of the European Commission.
* January 6 – Global Positioning System time epoch begins at 00:00 UTC.
* January 9 – ...
.
A member of the
Republican Party
Republican Party is a name used by many political parties around the world, though the term most commonly refers to the United States' Republican Party.
Republican Party may also refer to:
Africa
*Republican Party (Liberia)
* Republican Part ...
, Grassley served eight terms in the
Iowa House of Representatives
The Iowa House of Representatives is the lower house of the Iowa General Assembly, the upper house being the Iowa Senate. There are 100 seats in the Iowa House of Representatives, representing 100 single-member districts across the state, formed ...
(1959–1975) and three terms in the
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the Lower house, lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the United States Senate, Senate being ...
(1975–1981). He has served three stints as
Senate Finance Committee chairman during periods of Republican Senate majority. When
Orrin Hatch
Orrin Grant Hatch (March 22, 1934 – April 23, 2022) was an American attorney and politician who served as a United States senator from Utah from 1977 to 2019. Hatch's 42-year Senate tenure made him the longest-serving Republican U.S. senator ...
's Senate term ended on January 3, 2019 following his retirement, Grassley became the most senior Republican in the Senate and its
president pro tempore
A president pro tempore or speaker pro tempore is a constitutionally recognized officer of a legislative body who presides over the chamber in the absence of the normal presiding officer. The phrase ''pro tempore'' is Latin "for the time being". ...
.
During his four decades in the Senate, Grassley has chaired the
Senate Finance Committee
The United States Senate Committee on Finance (or, less formally, Senate Finance Committee) is a standing committee of the United States Senate. The Committee concerns itself with matters relating to taxation and other revenue measures generall ...
, the
Senate Narcotics Committee, the
Senate Judiciary Committee
The United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, informally the Senate Judiciary Committee, is a standing committee of 22 U.S. senators whose role is to oversee the Department of Justice (DOJ), consider executive and judicial nominations, a ...
, and the
Senate Aging Committee.
Early life and education
Grassley was born in
New Hartford, Iowa
New Hartford is a city in Butler County, Iowa, United States. The population was 570 at the time of the 2020 census.
Geography
New Hartford's longitude and latitude coordinates in decimal form are 42.567189, -92.621435.
According to the United S ...
, the son of Ruth (née Corwin) and Louis Arthur Grassley, and raised on a farm. He graduated from the town high school. At
Iowa State Teachers College
The University of Northern Iowa (UNI) is a public university in Cedar Falls, Iowa. UNI offers more than 90 majors across the colleges of Business Administration, Education, Humanities, Arts, and Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences and gra ...
(now the University of Northern Iowa), he earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1955 and a Master of Arts in
political science
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...
in 1956. During his time as a student, Grassley joined the social-professional
Alpha Gamma Rho
Alpha Gamma Rho (), commonly known as AGR, is a social/professional, agriculture fraternity in the United States, currently with 71 collegiate chapters.
Founding
The fraternity considers the Morrill Act of 1862 to be the instrument of its incepti ...
fraternity. He pursued a Ph.D. in political science at the
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is org ...
, but ultimately did not complete the degree.
Early career
During the 1950s, Grassley farmed and worked in factories in Iowa, first as a
sheet metal
Sheet metal is metal formed into thin, flat pieces, usually by an industrial process. Sheet metal is one of the fundamental forms used in metalworking, and it can be cut and bent into a variety of shapes.
Thicknesses can vary significantly; ex ...
shearer and then as an
assembly line
An assembly line is a manufacturing process (often called a ''progressive assembly'') in which parts (usually interchangeable parts) are added as the semi-finished assembly moves from workstation to workstation where the parts are added in seq ...
worker. From 1967 to 1968, he taught at
Charles City College
Charles City College was a private liberal arts college that operated from 1967 to 1968 in Charles City, Iowa. It was one of several Midwestern colleges established by local civic leaders with the support and encouragement of Parsons College in ...
.
Grassley represented parts of
Butler County in the
Iowa House of Representatives
The Iowa House of Representatives is the lower house of the Iowa General Assembly, the upper house being the Iowa Senate. There are 100 seats in the Iowa House of Representatives, representing 100 single-member districts across the state, formed ...
from 1959 to 1975.
He then served in the
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the Lower house, lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the United States Senate, Senate being ...
from 1975 to 1981.
U.S. Senate
Elections
1980
Grassley was first elected to the Senate in 1980, defeating Democratic incumbent
John Culver
John Chester Culver (August 8, 1932 – December 26, 2018) was an American politician, writer and lawyer who was elected to both the United States House of Representatives (1965–1975) and United States Senate (1975–1981) from Iowa. A memb ...
.
1986
Grassley was reelected in 1986, defeating the Democratic nominee, attorney John P. Roehrick, in a landslide.
1992
Grassley was reelected in 1992, defeating Democratic
State Senator
A state senator is a member of a state's senate in the bicameral legislature of 49 U.S. states, or a member of the unicameral Nebraska Legislature.
Description
A state senator is a member of an upper house in the bicameral legislatures of 49 U ...
Jean Hall Lloyd-Jones
Jean Hall Lloyd-Jones (born October 14, 1929) is an American activist and politician.
Born in Washington, D.C., Lloyd-Jones went to the University of New Mexico. She received her bachelor's degree from Northwestern University and her master's deg ...
.
1998
Grassley was reelected in 1998, defeating former
State Representative
A state legislature is a legislative branch or body of a political subdivision in a federal system.
Two federations literally use the term "state legislature":
* The legislative branches of each of the fifty state governments of the United Sta ...
David Osterberg
David Osterberg (born April 19, 1943) is an American politician who served in the Iowa House of Representatives from 1983 to 1995. He was the unsuccessful Democratic nominee for the United States Senate in 1998
1998 was designated as th ...
, who won the Democratic nomination unopposed.
2004
Grassley was reelected in 2004, defeating former
State Senator
A state senator is a member of a state's senate in the bicameral legislature of 49 U.S. states, or a member of the unicameral Nebraska Legislature.
Description
A state senator is a member of an upper house in the bicameral legislatures of 49 U ...
Arthur A. Small
Arthur Adams Small, Jr. (October 14, 1933 – October 3, 2015) was an American lawyer and politician in the state of Iowa. He served in the Iowa House of Representatives from 1971 to 1979, and in the Iowa State Senate from 1979 to 1987, as a Democ ...
.
2010
Grassley sought a sixth term in the 2010 election. He was challenged by Democrat
Roxanne Conlin
Roxanne Barton Conlin (born June 30, 1944) is an American lawyer who served as United States Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa from 1977 to 1981. A Democrat, she was a candidate for Governor of Iowa in 1982 and for United States Senate i ...
, a former
United States attorney
United States attorneys are officials of the U.S. Department of Justice who serve as the chief federal law enforcement officers in each of the 94 U.S. federal judicial districts. Each U.S. attorney serves as the United States' chief federal c ...
, and
Libertarian
Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's e ...
John Heiderscheit, an attorney.
Grassley was unopposed in the Republican primary, although some conservatives said he had drifted "too far to the left".
Grassley was reelected with 64.5% of the vote to Conlin's 33.2%. He carried every county in the state except
Johnson County, which contains the
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is org ...
. He is only the second Iowan to serve six terms in the Senate, the other being Iowa's longest-serving senator,
William B. Allison
William Boyd Allison (March 2, 1829 – August 4, 1908) was an American politician. An early leader of the Iowa Republican Party, he represented northeastern Iowa in the United States House of Representatives before representing his state in th ...
.
2016
![Chuck Grassley by Gage Skidmore](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Chuck_Grassley_by_Gage_Skidmore.jpg)
Grassley sought a seventh term in the 2016 election. He was expected to face a strong challenge from former Democratic lieutenant governor
Patty Judge
Patty Jean Poole Judge (born November 2, 1943) is an American politician who served as the 45th lieutenant governor of Iowa from 2007 to 2011 and previously the 13th Secretary of Agriculture of Iowa from 1999 to 2007. She unsuccessfully ran for r ...
, but won his seventh term with over 60% of the vote as Republican presidential nomineee
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...
won Iowa with over 51% of the vote.
2022
In May 2021, Grassley said that he would not decide whether to run for reelection in 2022 until between eight and 12 months before the election. Given Iowa's swing nature and Grassley's strong results in past elections, many believed that an open seat in Iowa would benefit the Democrats as they could convince many Grassley supporters to vote for their nominee. In July 2021, former U.S. Representative
Abby Finkenauer
Abby Lea Finkenauer (born December 27, 1988) is an American politician who served as the U.S. representative for Iowa's 1st congressional district from 2019 to 2021. She is a member of the Democratic Party.
Before being elected to Congress, Fink ...
announced that she would run for the seat regardless of Grassley's decision and criticized him and Republican Senate leader
Mitch McConnell
Addison Mitchell McConnell III (born February 20, 1942) is an American politician and retired attorney serving as the senior United States senator from Kentucky and the Senate minority leader since 2021. Currently in his seventh term, McConne ...
for being "obsessed with power" and not taking a strong stance against those who breached the Capitol in the
January 6 United States Capitol attack
On January 6, 2021, following the defeat of then-U.S. President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, a mob of his supporters attacked the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. The mob was seeking to keep Trump in pow ...
.
In September 2021, Grassley announced his intention to run for an eighth term. His announcement was viewed as advantageous to Republicans seeking to hold Grassley's seat and to retake the Senate majority in 2022. He won
the general election, defeating Democratic nominee
Michael Franken
Michael Thane Franken (born November 8, 1957) is an American retired United States Navy vice admiral. His final posting was as deputy director of military operations for the United States Africa Command. Franken was a Democratic candidate in ...
on November 8, 2022.
Tenure
1980–1989
![Reagan Contact Sheet C4794 (cropped)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Reagan_Contact_Sheet_C4794_%28cropped%29.jpg)
In November 1981, Grassley was one of 32 senators to sign a letter to President Reagan supporting Director of the Office of Management and Budget
David Stockman
David Alan Stockman (born November 10, 1946) is an American politician and former businessman who was a Republican U.S. Representative from the state of Michigan (1977–1981) and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (1981–1985) ...
. In August 1982, while the Reagan administration tried persuading senators to approve legislation authorizing the creation of a radio station for broadcasting to Cuba, Grassley joined fellow Iowa senator
Roger Jepsen
Roger William Jepsen (December 23, 1928 – November 13, 2020) was an American politician from the state of Iowa. A Republican, he served in the United States Senate and as Lieutenant Governor of Iowa.
Early life
Jepsen was born on December 2 ...
and
Edward Zorinsky
Edward Zorinsky (November 11, 1928March 6, 1987) was an American politician who served as a Democrat in the U.S. Senate from 1976 until his death in 1987. He represented Nebraska and had previously served as mayor of Omaha, elected as a Republic ...
in seeking an amendment to the bill barring the Reagan administration from operating Radio Marti on that frequency or other commercial AM frequencies.
In October 1983, Grassley voted against establishing a legal holiday to commemorate
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...
's birthday. In 2015, an aide to Grassley said that he voted against the holiday due to an "economic decision both in the cost to the broader economy in lost productivity, and the cost to the taxpayers with the federal government closed." In 2004, Grassley co-sponsored legislation giving King a posthumous award, which became law on October 25 that year.
On November 1, 1984, Grassley signed a one-page citation of contempt of Congress against Attorney General
William French Smith
William French Smith II (August 26, 1917 – October 29, 1990) was an American lawyer and the 74th United States Attorney General. After attaining his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1942, Smith went on to join the law firm of Gibson, Du ...
due to Smith's not turning over files on an investigation into Navy shipbuilding. Assistant Attorney General Stephen S. Trott called the citation "out of place" since Grassley was not acting at a session of the Judiciary panel he led.
In May 1987, the Senate Appropriations Committee defeated an attempt by Grassley to hasten payments of corn and other feed grain subsidies ahead of the scheduled payment taking place after October 1. The Grassley measure was also designed to unravel an accounting device lawmakers used previously to make it appear that they were reducing spending for the incoming fiscal year. In October, during a press briefing, Grassley accused Reagan of being "asleep at the switch" and botching the handling of
Robert Bork's Supreme Court nomination, adding that Bork's nomination had convinced him that the Reagan administration "has been terribly lucky for the last seven years" in other matters, including the economy and foreign policy. Later that month, Grassley likened the groups lobbying against Bork's nomination to the
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism, and especially when done in a public and attention-grabbing manner.
The term origin ...
of the 1950s: "The big lie is standard operating procedure for some of these groups. All you have to do is repeat the same outrageous charges, and repeat them so often that people believe they are true." In November, as party leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee met on the Supreme Court nomination of
Douglas H. Ginsburg
Douglas Howard Ginsburg (born May 25, 1946) is an American jurist and academic who serves as a senior judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He was appointed to that court in October 1986 by President Ro ...
, Grassley released the text of a letter he intended to send to the
American Bar Association
The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of acad ...
suggesting the association was dragging its feet in reviewing Ginsburg's record. After Ginsburg admitted having smoked marijuana, Grassley said, "You like to think people who are appointed to the Supreme Court respect the law." Grassley joined
Jesse Helms
Jesse Alexander Helms Jr. (October 18, 1921 – July 4, 2008) was an American politician. A leader in the conservative movement, he served as a senator from North Carolina from 1973 to 2003. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee ...
in resisting the nomination of
Anthony Kennedy
Anthony McLeod Kennedy (born July 23, 1936) is an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1988 until his retirement in 2018. He was nominated to the court in 1987 by Presid ...
, Reagan's next choice for the Supreme Court, saying that he would have preferred another nominee such as appeals court justices
Pasco Bowman II
Pasco Middleton Bowman II (born December 20, 1933) is an American attorney and jurist serving as a senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
Early life and education
Bowman was born in Har ...
or
John Clifford Wallace. Grassley stated his distaste for "the people who are committed to changing the judiciary" and taking "the path of least resistance."
In January 1989, as the Senate voted to schedule a vote within the following month on the pay increase, Grassley questioned how senators would decline federal program increases "come March and April if the first thing out of the box is a pay raise?" In February, he was one of six senators to testify against the 50% pay increase scheduled to take effect the following week. In October, Grassley was one of nine senators to vote against legislation intended to outlaw flag burning and other forms of flag defacement and joined
Bob Dole
Robert Joseph Dole (July 22, 1923 – December 5, 2021) was an American politician and attorney who represented Kansas in the United States Senate from 1969 to 1996. He was the Republican Leader of the Senate during the final 11 years of his te ...
and
Orrin Hatch
Orrin Grant Hatch (March 22, 1934 – April 23, 2022) was an American attorney and politician who served as a United States senator from Utah from 1977 to 2019. Hatch's 42-year Senate tenure made him the longest-serving Republican U.S. senator ...
, the other two Republicans to vote against the bill, in voicing a preference for a constitutional amendment.
1990–1999
![MAXWH](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/MAXWH.jpg)
In January 1991, Grassley was one of only two Republican senators to vote against
joining the international coalition to force Iraq out of Kuwait, the other being
Mark Hatfield
Mark Odom Hatfield (July 12, 1922 – August 7, 2011) was an American politician and educator from the state of Oregon. A Republican, he served for 30 years as a United States senator from Oregon, and also as chairman of the Senate Appropr ...
of
Oregon
Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...
. In August 1991, he became one of six Republicans on the Select Senate Committee on POW-MIA Affairs that would investigate the number of Americans still missing in the aftermath of the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
following renewed interest. In July 1998, President
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...
listed Grassley among the members of Congress who had made it possible "for me to sign into law today the
Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act." On February 12, 1999, Grassley was one of 50 senators to vote to
convict and remove Bill Clinton from office.
2000–2009
![President George W](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/President_George_W._Bush_and_Vice_President_Dick_Cheney_Attend_a_Meeting_with_Senator_Charles_Grassley_in_the_Oval_Office_%2802%29.jpg)
In May 2001, Grassley met with Democratic senator
Max Baucus
Maxwell Sieben Baucus ( Enke; born December 11, 1941) is an American politician who served as a United States senator from Montana from 1978 to 2014. A member of the Democratic Party, he was a U.S. senator for over 35 years, making him the longe ...
over the allocation of finances in tax cuts and both reported they were making progress in reaching a bipartisan deal, Grassley adding that the bill would contain all four of the main elements proposed by the Bush administration and the Senate Finance Committee would modify the components of the Bush proposal.
In August 2002, Grassley sent a letter to president and chief executive of the
United Way of America
United Way is an international network of over 1,800 local nonprofit fundraising affiliates. United Way was the largest nonprofit organization in the United States by donations from the public, prior to 2016.
United Way organizations raise funds ...
Brian Gallagher requesting a detailed explanation on the overseeing of both finances and management of the organization's affiliates. Grassley also wrote to chief executive of the United Way of the National Capital Area Norman O. Taylor in regards to allegations of affiliates misappropriating money as well as withholding information the board needed to allow its conducting of oversight.
As a senior member of the Senate Finance Committee, Grassley has spearheaded many probes into alleged misuse and lack of accountability of federal money. In July 2007, a Grassley-commissioned report was released claiming that more than US$1 billion in
farm subsidies
An agricultural subsidy (also called an agricultural incentive) is a government incentive paid to agribusinesses, agricultural organizations and farms to supplement their income, manage the supply of agricultural commodities, and influence t ...
were sent to deceased individuals. Grassley was called a "Taxpayer Super Hero" in 2014 by the Council for
Citizens Against Government Waste
Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization in the United States. It functions as a "government watchdog" and advocacy group for fiscally conservative causes. The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste ...
. He received a 100 percent rating from the group that year and has a lifetime rating of 78 percent. Grassley was ranked the 5th most bipartisan Senator of the
114th United States Congress
The 114th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States of America federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C. from Jan ...
and the 7th most bipartisan Senator in the first session of the
115th Congress
The 115th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States of America federal government, composed of the Senate and the House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C., from January 3, 2017, to January 3 ...
by the Bipartisan Index, a metric created by
the Lugar Center
Richard Green Lugar (April 4, 1932 – April 28, 2019) was an American politician who served as a United States Senator from Indiana from 1977 to 2013. He was a member of the Republican Party.
Born in Indianapolis, Lugar graduated from Den ...
for
the Lugar Center
Richard Green Lugar (April 4, 1932 – April 28, 2019) was an American politician who served as a United States Senator from Indiana from 1977 to 2013. He was a member of the Republican Party.
Born in Indianapolis, Lugar graduated from Den ...
and
Georgetown's McCourt School of Public Policy
The McCourt School of Public Policy is one of ten constituent schools of Georgetown University. The McCourt School offers master's degrees in public policy, international development policy, policy management, data science for public policy, and ...
to rank members of the United States Congress by their degree of bipartisanship.
In February 2004, Grassley released an internal report composed by the FBI in 2000 that examined 107 instances of either serious or criminal misconduct by its agents over a 16-year period. In a letter to the FBI, Grassley called the report "a laundry list of horrors with examples of agents who committed rape, sexual crimes against children, other sexual deviance and misconduct, attempted murder of a spouse, and narcotics violations, among many others" and added that the report's findings raised questions about whether the FBI handled agents "soon enough and rigorously enough".
On June 28, 2006, Grassley proposed legislation intended to curb
sex trafficking
Sex trafficking is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. It has been called a form of modern slavery because of the way victims are forced into sexual acts non-consensually, in a form of sexual slavery. Perpetrators of the ...
and
sexual slavery
Sexual slavery and sexual exploitation is an attachment of any ownership rights, right over one or more people with the intent of Coercion, coercing or otherwise forcing them to engage in Human sexual activity, sexual activities. This include ...
in the United States by means of strict enforcement of tax laws, for example by requiring a
W-2 form be filed for each
prostitute
Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, non-penet ...
managed by a
pimp
Procuring or pandering is the facilitation or provision of a prostitute or other sex worker in the arrangement of a sex act with a customer. A procurer, colloquially called a pimp (if male) or a madam (if female, though the term pimp has still ...
or other employer.
Since 1976, Grassley has repeatedly introduced measures that increase the level of
taxation
A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal person, legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regiona ...
on American citizens living abroad, including retroactive tax hikes. Grassley was eventually able to attach an amendment to a piece of legislation that went into effect in 2006, which increased taxes on Americans abroad by targeting housing and living incentives paid by foreign employers and held them accountable for federal taxes, even though they did not currently reside in the United States. Critics of the amendment felt that the move hurt Americans competing for jobs abroad by putting an unnecessary tax burden on foreign employers. Others felt that the move was only to offset the revenue deficit caused by
domestic tax cuts of the
Bush Administration.
In March 2009, amid a scandal that involved
AIG
American International Group, Inc. (AIG) is an American multinational finance and insurance corporation with operations in more than 80 countries and jurisdictions. , AIG companies employed 49,600 people.https://www.aig.com/content/dam/aig/amer ...
executives receiving large salary bonuses from the taxpayer-funded bailout of AIG, Grassley suggested that those AIG employees receiving large bonuses should follow the so-called 'Japanese example', resign immediately or commit
suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and s ...
. After some criticism, he dismissed the comments as rhetoric.
In May 2009, Grassley cosponsored a resolution to amend the
US Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven articles, it delineates the nation ...
to prohibit
flag burning
Flag desecration is the desecration of a flag, violation of flag protocol, or various acts that intentionally destroy, damage, or mutilate a flag in public. In the case of a national flag, such action is often intended to make a political point ...
.
![Chuck Grassley (4088992629)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Chuck_Grassley_%284088992629%29.jpg)
When President
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
and the Democratic Party proposed a health reform bill featuring mandated health insurance, Grassley opposed the health insurance mandate, saying that it was a deal breaker. In response to an audience question at an August 12, 2009, meeting in Iowa, about the end-of-life counseling provisions in the
House health care bill, , Grassley said people were right to fear that the government would "
pull the plug on grandma." Grassley had previously supported covering end-of-life counseling, having voted for the
Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act
The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act, also called the Medicare Modernization Act or MMA, is a federal law of the United States, enacted in 2003. It produced the largest overhaul of Medicare in the public health progr ...
of 2003, which stated: "The covered services are: evaluating the beneficiary's need for pain and symptom management, including the individual's need for hospice care; counseling the beneficiary with respect to end-of-life issues and care options, and advising the beneficiary regarding advanced care planning." In December 2009, he voted against the
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
The Affordable Care Act (ACA), formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and colloquially known as Obamacare, is a landmark U.S. federal statute enacted by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by Presi ...
(commonly called Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act). It was later reported that Grassley had notified Obama that he would vote against the Affordable Care Act even had the bill been modified to include all of the proposed modifications Grassley had proposed.
2010–2020
In January 2010, Grassley was one of seven Senate Republicans to sign a letter warning the White House about their serious reservations with Director of the Transportation Security Administration nominee Erroll Southers due to conflicting accounts Southers gave the Senate about his previous tapping of databases for information about his ex-wife's boyfriend in the late 1980s.
In December 2010, Grassley was one of 26 senators who voted against the ratification of
New START
New START (Russian abbrev.: СНВ-III, ''SNV-III'' from ''сокращение стратегических наступательных вооружений'' "reduction of strategic offensive arms") is a nuclear arms reduction treaty between ...
, a
nuclear arms
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...
reduction treaty between the United States and
Russian Federation
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
obliging both countries to have no more than 1,550 strategic warheads as well as 700 launchers deployed during the next seven years along with providing a continuation of on-site inspections that halted when
START I
START I (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) was a bilateral treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union on the reduction and the limitation of strategic offensive arms. The treaty was signed on 31 July 1991 and entered into force on 5 De ...
expired the previous year. It was the first arms treaty with Russia in eight years.
In April 2013, Grassley opposed a
gun control
Gun control, or firearms regulation, is the set of laws or policies that regulate the manufacture, sale, transfer, possession, modification, or use of firearms by civilians.
Most countries have a restrictive firearm guiding policy, with on ...
amendment authored by Senators
Joe Manchin
Joseph Manchin III (born August 24, 1947) is an American politician and businessman serving as the senior United States senator from West Virginia, a seat he has held since 2010. A member of the Democratic Party, Manchin was the 34th governor of ...
and
Pat Toomey
Patrick Joseph Toomey Jr. (born November 17, 1961) is an American businessman and politician serving as the junior United States senator for Pennsylvania since 2011. A member of the Republican Party, he served three terms as the U.S. representat ...
, and instead proposed alternative legislation to increase prosecutions of gun violence and increase reporting of mental health data in background checks.
![Roast and Ride (29191413552)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/Roast_and_Ride_%2829191413552%29.jpg)
On March 9, 2015, Grassley was one of 47 senators to sign a letter to
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
led by
Tom Cotton
Thomas Bryant Cotton (born May 13, 1977) is an American politician, attorney, and former military officer serving as the junior United States senator for Arkansas since 2015. A member of the Republican Party, he served in the U.S. House of R ...
to rebuke the
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA; fa, برنامه جامع اقدام مشترک , barnāmeye jāme'e eqdāme moshtarak (, ''BARJAM'')), commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal or Iran deal, is an agreement on the Iranian nuclear ...
. In June 2015, Grassley introduced legislation to help protect taxpayers from alleged abuses by the
Internal Revenue Service
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory ta ...
. The legislation was proposed in response to recent events involving alleged inappropriate conduct by employees at the IRS but was opposed by Democrats.
Since first taking office in 1981, Grassley has held public meetings in all of Iowa's 99 counties each year, even after losing honorarium payments for them in 1994. This has led to the coinage of the term "full Grassley," to describe when a United States presidential candidate visits all 99 counties of Iowa before the
Iowa caucuses
The Iowa caucuses are biennial electoral events for members of the Democratic and Republican parties in the U.S. state of Iowa. Unlike primary elections in most other U.S. states, where registered voters go to polling places to cast ballots, ...
.
In 2018, Grassley suggested that no women were serving on the Senate Judiciary Committee because of the heavy workload. The following week, Grassley added that he would "welcome more women" to serve on the Committee "because women as a whole are smarter than most male senators. And they work real hard, too."
In July 2018, after President
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...
nominated
Brett Kavanaugh
Brett Michael Kavanaugh ( ; born February 12, 1965) is an American lawyer and jurist serving as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President Donald Trump on July 9, 2018, and has served since Oc ...
to the Supreme Court, Grassley lauded Kavanaugh as "one of the most qualified Supreme Court nominees to come before the Senate", and said that critics of Kavanaugh should lessen their confidence in how he would vote given past surprises in voting by members of the Court.
In 2016, Senate Republicans refused to consider Obama's nomination of
Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. At the time, Grassley said that the "American people shouldn't be denied a voice" in the nomination, which was "too important to get bogged down in politics". In 2020, after a Supreme Court vacancy arose due to Justice
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg ( ; ; March 15, 1933September 18, 2020) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death in 2020. She was nominated by President ...
's death, Grassley supported a prompt vote on Trump's nominee, backing the decision of "the current chairman of the Judiciary Committee and the Senate Majority Leader".
2021–present
![Joe Biden and Chuck Grassley Shaking Hands February 2, 2022](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/Joe_Biden_and_Chuck_Grassley_Shaking_Hands_February_2%2C_2022.jpg)
Grassley was participating in the certification of the
2021 United States Electoral College vote count
The count of the Electoral College ballots during a joint session of the 117th United States Congress, pursuant to the Electoral Count Act, on January 6–7, 2021, was the final step to confirm President-elect Joe Biden's victory in the 20 ...
when Trump supporters
stormed the U.S. Capitol. He was removed from the Senate chamber and taken to a secure location when rioters entered the building. In the wake of the attack, Grassley said that Trump "displayed poor leadership in his words and actions, and he must take responsibility." He said efforts to impeach Trump would risk "further disunity" and that "the country must take steps to tone down political rhetoric and mend divisions." In response, ''
The Gazette
The Gazette (stylized as the GazettE), formerly known as , is a Japanese visual kei Rock music, rock band, formed in Kanagawa Prefecture, Kanagawa in early 2002.''Shoxx'' Vol 106 June 2007 pg 40-45 The band is currently signed to Sony Music Recor ...
'' editorial board wrote that Grassley and other Iowa Republicans "must reckon with why they did the wrong thing for so long."
Senate record for consecutive votes
As of November 2015, Grassley had cast 12,000 votes, and as of July 2012, he had missed only 35 votes in his Senate career. In January 2016, he set a record for the most time without a missed roll-call vote, having not missed one since July 1993, when he was touring Iowa with President Bill Clinton to survey flood damage.
In November 2020, this streak came to an end after over 27 years and 8,927 votes when he quarantined after being exposed to
COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...
. Grassley broke Senator
William Proxmire
Edward William Proxmire (November 11, 1915 – December 15, 2005) was an American politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a United States Senator from Wisconsin from 1957 to 1989. He holds the record for being the longest-servi ...
's record for most time without a missed vote, but Proxmire holds the record for most consecutive roll-call votes, with 10,252.
[
]
Committee assignments
* Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry
* Committee on Finance
* Committee on the Budget
* Committee on the Judiciary Committee on the Judiciary may mean:
* United States House Committee on the Judiciary
* United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary
The United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, informally the Senate Judiciary Committee, is a standi ...
(ranking)
* Joint Committee on Taxation
The Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) is a Committee of the U.S. Congress established under the Internal Revenue Code at .
Structure
The Joint Committee is composed of ten Members: five from the Senate Finance Committee and five from the House W ...
(vice chair)
* United States Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control (vice chair)
Caucus membership
* Senate Republican Conference
The Senate Republican Conference is the formal organization of the Republican Senators in the United States Senate, who currently number 50. Over the last century, the mission of the conference has expanded and been shaped as a means of informi ...
Political positions
Abortion
Grassley has said that he considers himself pro-life
Anti-abortion movements, also self-styled as pro-life or abolitionist movements, are involved in the abortion debate advocating against the practice of abortion and its legality. Many anti-abortion movements began as countermovements in respons ...
and has expressed concern about the potential for abortions to be paid for with federal funds. In December 1981, he voted for a proposed constitutional amendment by Orrin Hatch
Orrin Grant Hatch (March 22, 1934 – April 23, 2022) was an American attorney and politician who served as a United States senator from Utah from 1977 to 2019. Hatch's 42-year Senate tenure made him the longest-serving Republican U.S. senator ...
that would allow both Congress and the states to ban or regulate abortion. In 2019, he co-sponsored reintroducing the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. Grassley approved of the 2022 overturning of ''Roe v. Wade'', saying it empowered people through their elected representatives to make "commonsense policy decisions."
Agriculture
In April 2019, Grassley was one of seven senators to sign a letter led by Debbie Stabenow
Deborah Ann Stabenow ( ; née Greer, born April 29, 1950) is an American politician serving as the senior United States senator from Michigan, a seat she has held since 2001. A member of the Democratic Party, she became the state's first female ...
and Joni Ernst
Joni Kay Ernst (née Culver; born July 1, 1970) is an American former military officer and politician serving as the Seniority in the United States Senate, junior United States Senate, United States senator from Iowa since 2015. A member of the ...
to United States secretary of agriculture
The United States secretary of agriculture is the head of the United States Department of Agriculture. The position carries similar responsibilities to those of agriculture ministers in other governments.
The department includes several organi ...
Sonny Perdue
George Ervin "Sonny" Perdue III (born December 20, 1946) is an American veterinarian, businessman, politician, and university administrator who served as the 31st United States Secretary of Agriculture from 2017 to 2021. He previously served as t ...
urging the Agriculture Department to implement conservation measures in the 2018 Farm Bill "through a department-wide National Water Quality Initiative, which would build off the existing initiative housed at the Natural Resource Conservation Service."
Antitrust
In October 2021, Grassley and Senator Amy Klobuchar
Amy Jean Klobuchar ( ; born May 25, 1960) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the senior United States senator from Minnesota, a seat she has held since 2007. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), Minne ...
introduced the American Innovation and Choice Online Act
The American Innovation and Choice Online (AICO) is a proposed antitrust bill in the United States Congress. The legislation was introduced by David Cicilline ( D- RI) in the House of Representatives as the American Choice and Innovation Online A ...
(S.2992) . The legislation aims to prevent Big Tech companies
Big Tech, also known as the Tech Giants, refers to the most dominant companies in the information technology industry, mostly located in the United States. The term also refers to the four or five largest American tech companies, called the Big ...
from engaging in anti-competitive behavior
Anti-competitive practices are business or government practices that prevent or reduce competition in a market. Antitrust laws differ among state and federal laws to ensure businesses do not engage in competitive practices that harm other, usuall ...
by "self-preferencing" their products. Grassley voted to confirm Jonathan Kanter
Jonathan Seth Kanter (born July 30, 1973) is an American antitrust attorney who has served as assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division since November 16, 2021. Prior to this, Kanter worked as an antitrust ...
as Assistant Attorney General
Many of the divisions and offices of the United States Department of Justice are headed by an assistant attorney general.
The president of the United States appoints individuals to the position of assistant attorney general with the advice and ...
for the Department of Justice
A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a v ...
Antitrust Division
The United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division is a division of the U.S. Department of Justice that enforces U.S. antitrust law. It has exclusive jurisdiction over U.S. federal criminal antitrust prosecutions. It also has jurisdic ...
.
Energy and environment
Grassley has expressed concern about the impact of regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency
A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scale f ...
on farming. He stated that it has a "public relations problem" with "the ethanol industry, corn farmers and imself. He also stated that the EPA has "screwed" farmers with 31 biofuel exemptions. On December 19, 2019, after the EPA withdrew a new Renewable Fuel Standard
The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) is an American federal program that requires transportation fuel sold in the United States to contain a minimum volume of renewable fuels. It originated with the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and was expanded and exten ...
(RFS) rule, Grassley criticized the EPA for "playing games and not helping President Trump with farmers".
In 1992, Grassley authored EPACT 1992, which created the federal wind energy tax credit.
In 2005, Grassley authored the tax title of EPACT 2005 when he was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee
The United States Senate Committee on Finance (or, less formally, Senate Finance Committee) is a standing committee of the United States Senate. The Committee concerns itself with matters relating to taxation and other revenue measures generall ...
. On June 28, 2005, he voted for the bill. On June 19, 2007, Grassley helped expand tax incentives that produces energy from alternative sources including ethanol, wind, biomass, and biodiesel.[ On June 21, 2007, Grassley voted for the ]Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007
The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007Pub.L. 110-140, originally named the Clean Energy Act of 2007, is an Act of Congress concerning the energy policy of the United States. As part of the Democratic Party's 100-Hour Plan during the ...
, which expanded other energy tax incentives through 2013.[
In September 2015, Grassley received the Dr. Harold D. Prior "Friend of Iowa Wind Energy" award from the Iowa Wind Energy Association for his commitment to supporting wind energy development in Iowa.
In 2017, the ]Environmental Working Group
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is an American activist group that specializes in research and advocacy in the areas of agricultural subsidies, toxic chemicals, drinking water pollutants, and corporate accountability. EWG is a nonprofit ...
stated that Grassley received $367,763 in grain commodity subsidies over 21 years.
Grassley supports federal ethanol
Ethanol (abbr. EtOH; also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, drinking alcohol, or simply alcohol) is an organic compound. It is an Alcohol (chemistry), alcohol with the chemical formula . Its formula can be also written as or (an ethyl ...
subsidies.
In 2017, regarding the Paris Agreement
The Paris Agreement (french: Accord de Paris), often referred to as the Paris Accords or the Paris Climate Accords, is an international treaty on climate change. Adopted in 2015, the agreement covers climate change mitigation, Climate change a ...
, Grassley stated that "unequal terms put the U.S. economy at a significant disadvantage while letting large economies like China’s and India’s off the hook." Grassley also stated that he didn't like that the agreement was never voted upon by the Senate.
Estate taxes
Grassley is in favor of repealing the estate tax
An inheritance tax is a tax paid by a person who inherits money or property of a person who has died, whereas an estate tax is a levy on the estate (money and property) of a person who has died.
International tax law distinguishes between an es ...
, which is a tax on inherited assets above $5.5 million for individuals and $11 million for couples. He has argued that the estate tax is potentially ruinous for farmers and small business owners. According to the ''Des Moines Register
''The Des Moines Register'' is the daily morning newspaper of Des Moines, Iowa.
History Early period
The first newspaper in Des Moines was the ''Iowa Star''. In July 1849, Barlow Granger began the paper in an abandoned log cabin by the junction ...
'', Grassley's argument does not "match the reality found in federal tax data – particularly for Iowa. The estate tax applies to around 5,000 taxpayers across the entire country each year, and very few of them come from Iowa. Of the Iowans subject to the tax, only a fraction are actually farmers, and a vanishingly small number of them face a tax bill requiring them to sell off farmland or other assets... The number of small businesses impacted by the estate tax is similarly small."
Gun law
In 2010, Grassley had an "A" rating from the National Rifle Association
The National Rifle Association of America (NRA) is a gun rights advocacy group based in the United States. Founded in 1871 to advance rifle marksmanship, the modern NRA has become a prominent Gun politics in the United States, gun rights ...
(NRA). According to a source from Splinter News
Splinter was an American left-leaning news and opinion website owned by G/O Media. It launched in July 2017 and ceased publication in November 2019.
Content
The site was a news and opinion website. According to direct owner Fusion Media Group, t ...
, Grassley received $9,900 from the NRA during his 2016 election.
Grassley is a staunch believer that gun laws will not prevent gun deaths or gun-related violence without improved mental health care. Grassley opposed the Manchin-Toomey gun control amendment, and instead proposed alternative legislation to increase prosecutions of gun violence and increase reporting of mental health data in background checks.
In 2016, one month after the Orlando nightclub shooting
On , 2016, Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old man, killed 49 people and wounded 53 more in a mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, United States. Orlando Police officers shot and killed him after a three-hour standoff.
In a 9- ...
, Grassley proposed legislation to expand state-to-state access to background check data and to make it illegal for government officials to sell criminals guns as part of sting operations. Both proposals were rejected by the Senate. Additionally, he voted against the Democrats' Feinstein Amendment, which would make it illegal to sell guns to individuals on the terror watchlist and a Republican-sponsored bill that expanded funding for background checks.
In early 2017, Grassley sponsored legislation that expanded access to mentally disabled individuals, claiming that the previous ban against mentally ill individuals purchasing guns "mistreats disabled Americans." In response to the 2017 Las Vegas shooting
On October 1, 2017, Stephen Paddock, a 64-year-old man from Mesquite, Nevada, opened fire on the crowd attending the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in . From his 32nd-floor suites in the Mandalay Bay hotel, he fired ...
, Grassley stated that it was unlikely that gun laws would change in the wake of the shooting due to Congress being Republican-dominated. A day after the Douglas High School shooting
On February 14, 2018, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz opened fire on students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in the Miami suburban town of Parkland, Florida, United States, murdering 17 people and injuring 17 others. Cruz, a former ...
in Parkland, Florida
Parkland is a suburban city, 42 miles northwest of Miami, in northern Broward County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of Parkland was 34,670. Parkland is part of the Miami metropolitan area, which was home to 6,166 ...
, Grassley said the government had not done enough to prevent individuals with a mental illness from obtaining firearms.
Health care
Grassley opposes the Affordable Care Act
The Affordable Care Act (ACA), formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and colloquially known as Obamacare, is a landmark U.S. federal statute enacted by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by Presid ...
and has voted to repeal it. Before its passage, he had supported the individual mandate in health care reform. Grassley engaged in lengthy negotiations with the Obama administration, as it sought health care reform with support from Republican members of Congress. These negotiations produced nothing that Grassley would support, leading Democrats to characterize Grassley's efforts as intended to delay or scupper health care reform rather than produce compromise legislation. In Obama's memoir, he describes an exchange between him and Grassley in the Oval Office as he sought to reach a compromise with Grassley. Obama asked, "If Max ">aucustook every one of your latest suggestions, could you support the bill?... Are there ''any'' changes—any at all—that would get us your vote?", to which Grassley responded, "I guess not, Mr. President."
In July 2017, Grassley stated that Senate Republicans should be ashamed of not having repealed the ACA, and said this could result in a loss of their majority in the 2018 elections.
In August 2018, Grassley was one of ten Republican senators to cosponsor legislation intended to protect ACA provisions for people with preexisting conditions. Health experts said the bill did not prevent insurers from excluding coverage for people with preexisting conditions.
Marijuana legalization
In 2015, Grassley voiced his opposition to a bipartisan senate bill, the Compassionate Access, Research Expansion, and Respect States Act, that would move cannabis
''Cannabis'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae. The number of species within the genus is disputed. Three species may be recognized: ''Cannabis sativa'', '' C. indica'', and '' C. ruderalis''. Alternatively ...
from Schedule I to Schedule II. This bill would allow states with medical cannabis
Medical cannabis, or medical marijuana (MMJ), is cannabis and cannabinoids that are prescribed by physicians for their patients. The use of cannabis as medicine has not been rigorously tested due to production and governmental restrictions ...
laws to legally prescribe it and allow for more research into its medical efficacy. In 2019, along with Democratic U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein ( ; born Dianne Emiel Goldman; June 22, 1933) is an American politician who serves as the senior United States senator from California, a seat she has held since 1992. A member of the Democratic Party, she was ...
and Brian Schatz
Brian Emanuel Schatz (; born October 20, 1972) is an American educator and politician serving as the senior United States senator from Hawaii, a seat he has held since 2012. A member of the Democratic Party, Schatz served in the Hawaii House o ...
, Grassley introduced the Cannabidiol and Marijuana Research Expansion Act, which would expand research into medical marijuana.
Military
Grassley has voiced objections to the Special Immigrant Visa program, which resettles translators and their family members who face risks to their lives due to their work with the U.S. Military.
Israel Anti-Boycott Act
In April 2017, Grassley co-sponsored the Israel Anti-Boycott Act
The Israel Anti-Boycott Act (IABA) (; ) was a proposed anti-BDS law and amendment to the Export Administration Act of 1979 designed to allow U.S. states to enact laws requiring contractors to sign pledges promising not to boycott any goods from I ...
(s. 720), which would make it a federal crime for Americans to encourage or participate in boycotts against Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
and Israeli settlement
Israeli settlements, or Israeli colonies, are civilian communities inhabited by Israeli citizens, overwhelmingly of Jewish ethnicity, built on lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. The international community considers Israeli se ...
s in the West Bank
The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
if protesting actions by the Israeli government. In 2019, Grassley was one of 14 Republican senators to sign a letter from Marco Rubio
Marco Antonio Rubio (born May 28, 1971) is an American politician and lawyer serving as the senior United States senator from Florida, a seat he has held since 2011. A member of the Republican Party, he served as Speaker of the Florida Hous ...
that involved condemning the BDS movement
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) is a Palestinian-led movement promoting boycotts, divestments, and economic sanctions against Israel. Its objective is to pressure Israel to meet what the BDS movement describes as Israel's obligations u ...
.
Retirement planning
In 2019, Grassley was one of the lead Senate co-sponsors of the SECURE Act of 2019. This bill, which became law as part of the fiscal year 2020 federal appropriations law signed in late December 2019, was intended to incentivize retirement planning, diversify the options available to savers, and increase access to tax-advantaged savings programs including 529 plans.
Russian interference in 2016 elections
In February 2017, Grassley said that while Russian interference in U.S. elections was "bothersome", the United States did not have clean hands and had, for instance, interfered with the 1948 Italian election. In May 2017 after Trump fired FBI director James Comey, Grassley advised people suspicious of the Trump administration
Donald Trump's tenure as the List of presidents of the United States, 45th president of the United States began with Inauguration of Donald Trump, his inauguration on January 20, 2017, and ended on January 20, 2021. Trump, a Republican Party ...
to "Suck it up and move on."
On October 31, 2017, while a group of Republicans were facing questions from reporters concerning recent indictments, Grassley ignored the questions and left the room.
In January 2018, and in the first known congressional criminal referral
A criminal referral or criminal recommendation is a notice to a prosecutory body, recommending criminal investigation or prosecutor, prosecution of one or more entities for crimes which fall into that body's jurisdiction.
In the Federal governmen ...
in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, Grassley, along with Lindsey Graham
Lindsey Olin Graham (born July 9, 1955) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the senior United States senator from South Carolina, a seat he has held since 2003. A member of the Republican Party, Graham chaired the Senate Committee ...
, recommended charges against Christopher Steele, one of the people who sought to expose Russian interference. Grassley and Graham said that they had reason to believe that Steele had lied to federal authorities. According to ''The New York Times'', "It was not clear why, if a crime is apparent in the F.B.I. reports that were reviewed by the Judiciary Committee, the Justice Department had not moved to charge Mr. Steele already. The circumstances under which Mr. Steele is alleged to have lied were unclear, as much of the referral was classified."
In January 2018, when Grassley and Judiciary Committee Republicans were refusing to release the full transcript of an August 2017 ten-hour interview that the Judiciary Committee had conducted with Glenn Simpson, Senator Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein ( ; born Dianne Emiel Goldman; June 22, 1933) is an American politician who serves as the senior United States senator from California, a seat she has held since 1992. A member of the Democratic Party, she was ...
, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, released the full transcript unilaterally. Simpson is the co-founder of the political opposition research firm Fusion GPS
Fusion GPS is a commercial research and strategic intelligence firm based in Washington, D.C. The company conducts open-source investigations and provides research and strategic advice for businesses, law firms and investors, as well as for ...
, which produced the so-called Steele Dossier
The Steele dossier, also known as the Trump–Russia dossier, is a controversial political opposition research report written from June to December 2016, containing allegations of misconduct, conspiracy, and cooperation between Donald Trump ...
on alleged connections between Trump and Russia. Grassley condemned Feinstein, saying that her decision was "confounding" and that it deterred future witnesses in the Russia 2016 investigation. Simpson himself had requested that the full transcript of his interview be released, saying that Republicans had selectively leaked portions of the testimony to conservative media outlets in order to portray Simpson in a negative light and discredit the Steele dossier.
Trade
In January 2018, Grassley was one of 36 Republican senators to sign a letter to President Trump requesting he preserve the North American Free Trade Agreement
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA ; es, Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte, TLCAN; french: Accord de libre-échange nord-américain, ALÉNA) was an agreement signed by Canada, Mexico, and the United States that crea ...
by modernizing it for the economy of the 21st century.
Whistleblowers
The author of the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989, Grassley has campaigned to increase protection and provide support for "whistleblowers
A whistleblower (also written as whistle-blower or whistle blower) is a person, often an employee, who reveals information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe or fraudulent. Whi ...
". He has supported a number of FBI whistleblowers, including Coleen Rowley
Coleen Rowley (born December 20, 1954) is an American former FBI special agent and whistleblower, and was a Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) candidate for Congress in Minnesota's 2nd congressional district, one of eight congressional distri ...
, Sibel Edmonds
Sibel Deniz Edmonds is a former contract translator for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the founder and editor-in-chief of the independent news website NewsBud.
The FBI hired her as a translator shortly after September 11 attacks ...
, and Jane Turner
Jane Turner (born 1 December 1960) is an Australian actress, comedian and Logie Award-winning comedy series creator and screnwriter.
Career
Turner, although best known as a comedy performer, made her acting debut in the internationally ren ...
, although not supporting Department of Defense whistleblower Noel Koch.
Grassley received a lifetime achievement award on May 17, 2007 from the National Whistleblower Center The National Whistleblower Center (NWC) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, tax exempt, educational and advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1988 by the lawyers Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto, LLP. As of March 2019, John Kostyack is th ...
.
In April 2014, Grassley announced plans to create a caucus in the Senate dedicated to strengthening whistleblower protections.
Grassley defended the whistleblower in the Trump–Ukraine scandal
The "Trump–Ukraine scandal" refers to efforts by U.S. President Donald Trump to coerce Ukraine and other countries into providing damaging narratives about 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden, and giving misinformatio ...
, breaking with his party line, when he declared on October 1, 2019 that the whistleblower "appears to have followed the whistleblower protection laws and ought to be heard out and protected."
After whistleblowers Colonel Alexander Vindman
Alexander Vindman (Ukrainian: Олекса́ндр Семенович Ві́ндман; born June 6, 1975) is a retired United States Army lieutenant colonel who was the Director for European Affairs for the United States National Security Coun ...
and Ambassador Gordon Sondland
Gordon David Sondland (born July 16, 1957) is an American businessman. He is the founder and chairman of Provenance Hotels. He also served as the United States Ambassador to the European Union from 2018 to 2020. In November 2019, Sondland testi ...
testified against Donald Trump and were subsequently fired, Grassley defended Trump's firing of both whistleblowers on the grounds that their firing was not retaliatory.
Donald Trump
On May 28, 2021, Grassley voted against creating an independent commission to investigate the January 6 United States Capitol attack
On January 6, 2021, following the defeat of then-U.S. President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, a mob of his supporters attacked the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. The mob was seeking to keep Trump in pow ...
. Later that year, Grassley campaigned with Donald Trump.
Investigations
Religious organizations
On November 5, 2007, Grassley announced an investigation into the tax-exempt status of six ministries under the leadership of Benny Hinn
Toufik Benedictus "Benny" Hinn (born 3 December 1952) is an Israeli Christian televangelist, best known for his regular "Miracle Crusades"—revival meeting or faith healing summits that are usually held in stadiums in major cities, which are l ...
, Paula White
Paula Michelle White-Cain (née Furr; born April 20, 1966) is an American televangelist and a proponent of prosperity theology.
White became chair of the evangelical advisory board in Donald Trump's administration. She delivered the invocation a ...
, Eddie L. Long
Eddie Lee Long (May 12, 1953 – January 15, 2017) was an American pastor who served as the senior pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, a megachurch in unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, from 1987 until his death in 2017.
When Lon ...
, Joyce Meyer
Pauline Joyce Meyer (née Hutchison; June 4, 1943) is an American Charismatic Christian author, speaker and president of Joyce Meyer Ministries. Joyce and her husband Dave have four grown children, and live outside St. Louis, Missouri. Her min ...
, Creflo Dollar
Creflo Augustus Dollar, Jr., (born January 28, 1962) is an American pastor, televangelist, and the founder of the non-denominational Christian World Changers Church International based in College Park, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. Dollar also he ...
, and Kenneth Copeland by the United States Senate Committee on Finance. In letters to each ministry, Grassley asked for the ministries to divulge specific financial information to the committee to determine whether or not funds collected by each organization were inappropriately utilized by ministry heads. By the December 6, 2007 deadline, only three of the ministries had shown compliance with the Finance Committee's request. On March 11, 2008, Grassley and Finance chairman Max Baucus
Maxwell Sieben Baucus ( Enke; born December 11, 1941) is an American politician who served as a United States senator from Montana from 1978 to 2014. A member of the Democratic Party, he was a U.S. senator for over 35 years, making him the longe ...
sent follow-up letters to Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar and Eddie Long, explaining that the Senate reserved the right to investigate the finances of their organizations under federal tax laws.
Medical research
Grassley also began an investigation about unreported payments to physicians by pharmaceutical companies. Grassley led a 2008 Congressional Investigation which found that well-known university psychiatrists, who had promoted psychoactive drugs, had violated federal and university regulations by secretly receiving large sums of money from the pharmaceutical companies which made the drugs. ''The New York Times'' reported that Joseph Biederman of Harvard University had failed to report over a million dollars of income that he had received from pharmaceutical companies. Weeks later, Business Week reported that Grassley alleged that Alan Schatzberg, chair of psychiatry at Stanford University, had underreported his investments in Corcept Therapeutics, a company he founded. Schatzberg had reported only $100,000 investments in Corcept, but Grassley stated that his investments actually totalled over $6 million. Schatzberg later stepped down from his grant which is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Similarly, Charles Nemeroff resigned as chair of the psychiatry department at Emory University after failing to report a third of the $2.8 million in consulting fees he received from GlaxoSmithKline. At the time he received these fees, Nemeroff had been principal investigator of a $3.9 million NIH grant evaluating five medications for depression manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline.
In 2008, for the first time, Grassley asked the American Psychiatric Association to disclose how much of its annual budget came from drug industry funds. The APA said that industry contributed 28% of its budget ($14 million at that time), mainly through paid advertising in APA journals and funds for continuing medical education.
Fundraising
According to the nonpartisan OpenSecrets, in 2010, the industries that have been the largest contributors to Grassley during his political career are health professionals ($1 million in contributions), insurance industry ($997,674), lawyers/law firms ($625,543) and pharmaceuticals/health products ($538,680). His largest corporate donors have been Blue Cross Blue Shield (insurance), Amgen (biotech company) and Wells Fargo (bank).
Electoral history
1978 Iowa 3rd District United States Congressional Election
1976 Iowa 3rd District United States Congressional Election
1974 Iowa 3rd District United States Congressional Election
1974 Iowa 3rd District United States Congressional Republican Primary Election
1972 Iowa House of Representatives 37th District Election
1970 Iowa House of Representatives 10th District Election
1966 Iowa House of Representatives Butler District Election
1964 Iowa House of Representatives Butler District Election
1962 Iowa House of Representatives Butler District Election
1960 Iowa House of Representatives Butler District Election
1958 Iowa House of Representatives Butler District Election
Personal life
Grassley and Barbara Ann Speicher married on August 22, 1954. They have five children: Lee, Wendy, Robin, Michele, and Jay. Grassley is a member of The Family (Christian political organization), the Family, the organization that organizes the National Prayer Breakfast. His grandson, Pat Grassley, is a member of the Iowa House of Representatives
The Iowa House of Representatives is the lower house of the Iowa General Assembly, the upper house being the Iowa Senate. There are 100 seats in the Iowa House of Representatives, representing 100 single-member districts across the state, formed ...
. Grassley is also known for his widely reported, long-running "feud" with the History (American TV network), History channel; he has consistently accused the network of featuring little actual history programming.
According to OpenSecrets, Grassley's net worth was more than $7.5 million as of 2018.
Awards
In 2003, Grassley's alma mater, the University of Northern Iowa, selected him for ''honoris causa'' membership in Omicron Delta Kappa, the National Leadership Honor Society. In 2009, the National Center for Health Research gave Grassley the Health Policy Hero award for his 2004 oversight of legislative reforms and accountability of the Food and Drug Administration (United States), United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In 2010, The Hill (newspaper), ''The Hill'' named Grassley and Max Baucus
Maxwell Sieben Baucus ( Enke; born December 11, 1941) is an American politician who served as a United States senator from Montana from 1978 to 2014. A member of the Democratic Party, he was a U.S. senator for over 35 years, making him the longe ...
the hardest-working members of Congress.
Notes
References
Further reading
* Eve Fairbanks
"Earnest Goes to Washington"
''The New Republic'', September 10, 2007
External links
*
Senator Chuck Grassley
official United States Senate site
Grassley for Senate
*
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Grassley, Chuck
1933 births
21st-century American politicians
Baptists from Iowa
Intelligent design advocates
Living people
Republican Party members of the Iowa House of Representatives
People from Butler County, Iowa
Presidents pro tempore of the United States Senate
Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Iowa
Republican Party United States senators from Iowa
University of Iowa alumni
University of Northern Iowa alumni
Grand Cordons of the Order of the Rising Sun
American Freemasons