Chuck Grassley

Grassley with President Ronald Reagan in 1981

In November 1981, Grassley was one of thirty-two senators to sign a letter to President Reagan supporting Director of the Office of Management and Budget David Stockman.[9] 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 and Edward Zorinsky in seeking an amendment to the bill so the Reagan administration would be barred from operating Radio Marti on that frequency or other commercial frequencies under the AM band.[10]

In October 1983, Grassley voted against establishing a legal holiday to commemorate the birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.[11] 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."[12] In 2004, Grassley co-sponsored a legislation that awards a posthumous award to King, which would become a law on October 25 that year.[13][14]

On November 1, 1984, Grassley signed a one-page citation of contempt of Congress against Attorney General William French Smith due to the latter 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 that he led.[15]

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 as though they were reducing spending for the incoming fiscal year.[16] In October, during a press briefing, Grassley accused President Reagan of being "asleep at the switch" and botching the handling of Robert Bork's Supreme Court nomination, adding that the Bork nomination had convinced him the Reagan administration "has been terribly lucky for the last seven years" in other matters including the economy and foreign policy.[17] Later that month, Grassley likened the groups lobbying against Bork's nomination with the era of McCarthyism during 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."[18] In November, as party leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee met on the Supreme Court nomination of Douglas H. Ginsburg, Grassley released the text of a letter he intended to send to the American Bar Association suggesting the association was dragging its feet in its review of Ginsburg's record.[19] After Ginsburg admitted to previously smoking marijuana, Grassley said, "You like to think people who are appointed to the Supreme Court respect the law."[20] Grassley joined Jesse Helms in resisting the nomination of Anthony Kennedy, President Reagan's next choice for the Supreme Court, admitting that he would have preferred another candidate such as appeals court justices Pasco Bowman II or J. Clifford Wallace. Grassley stated his distaste for "the people who are committed to changing the judiciary" taking "the path of least resistance."[21]

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?"[22] In February, Grassley was one of six senators to testify against the 50% pay increase scheduled to take effect the following week.[23] 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 and Orrin Hatch, the other two Republicans to vote against the bill, in voicing a preference for a constitutional amendment.[24]

In August 1991, Grassley 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 following renewed interest.[25] In July 1998, President Bill Clinton 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."[26] On February 12, 1999, Grassley was one of 45 Senators that voted to convict and remove Bill Clinton from office.[27]

In May 2001, Grassley met with Democratic senator Max Baucus 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.[28]

In August 2002, Grassley sent a letter to president and chief executive of the United Way of America 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.[29]

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 were sent to deceased individuals.[30] Grassley was called a "Taxpayer Super Hero" in 2014 by the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, for his efforts to protect taxpayers. He received a 100 percent rating from the group that year and has a lifetime rating of 78 percent.[31] Grassley was ranked the 5th most bipartisan Senator of the 114th United States Congress and the 7th most bipartisan Senator in the first session of the 115th Congress by the Bipartisan Index, a metric created by the Lugar Center for the Lugar Center and Georgetown's McCourt School of Public Policy to rank members of the United States Congress by their degree of bipartisanship.[32][33]

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".[34]

On June 28, 2006, Grassley proposed legislation[35][36] intended to curb sex trafficking and sex slavery 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 managed by a pimp or other employer.

Senators Grassley and Max Baucus (D-MT), and Representative E. Clay Shaw (R-FL) (left to right) address the media after a meeting at the White House with President Bill Clinton

Since 1976, Grassley has repeatedly introduced measures that increase the level of taxation 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.[37][38][39]

In March 2009, amid a scandal that involved AIG 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. After some criticism, he dismissed the comments as rhetoric.[40][41][42]

In May 2009, Grassley cosponsored a resolution to amend the US Constitution to prohibit flag burning.[43]

Chuck Grassley in 2009

When President Barack Obama 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.[44] 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, H.R. 3200, Grassley said people were right to fear that the government would "pull the plug on grandma."[45][46][47][48] Grassley had previously supported covering end-of-life counseling, having voted for the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act 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."[49] In December 2009, he voted against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (commonly called ObamaCare or the Affordable Care Act).

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.[50]

In December 2010, Grassley was one of twenty-six senators who voted against the ratification of New START,[51] a nuclear arms reduction treaty between the United States and Russian Federation 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 expired the previous year. It was the first arms treaty with Russia in eight years.[52]

In April 2013, 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.[53] As of December 2013, Grassley had cast 6,806 consecutive roll call votes,[54] placing him second behind the all-time consecutive vote record holder, Senator William Proxmire (D-Wis). Grassley has not missed a roll call vote since 1993, when he was touring Iowa with President Bill Clinton to survey flood damage. He has, as of July 2012, cast almost 11,000 votes and had at that time only missed 35 votes in his Senate career.[55]

Senator Grassley in 2016

On March 9, 2015, Grassley was one of 47 senators to sign a letter to Iran led by Tom Cotton to rebuke the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.[56] In June 2015, Grassley introduced legislation to help protect taxpayers from alleged abuses by the Internal Revenue Service. The legislation was proposed in response to recent events involving alleged inappropriate conduct by employees at the IRS but was opposed by Democrats.[57]

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.[58] 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.[59]

In July 2018, after President Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh for Associate Justice,[60] Grassley lauded Kavanaugh as "one of the most qualified Supreme Court nominees to come before the Senate",[61] 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.[62]

• Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry
  • Subcommittee on Rural Revitalization, Conservation, Forestry and Credit
  • Subcommittee on Energy, Science and Technology
  • Subcommittee on Production, Income Protection and Price Support
• Committee on Finance (Chairman)
  • Subcommittee on Health Care
  • Subcommittee on Energy, Natural Resources, and Infrastructure
  • Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness
• Committee on the Judiciary
  • Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights
  • Subcommittee on Immigration and The National Interest
  • Subcommittee on Oversight, Agency Action, Federal Rights and Federal Courts
• Committee on the Budget
• Caucus on International Narcotics Control
• Joint Committee on Taxation

• Senate Republican Conference

Grassley has stated that he considers himself to be pro-life and has expressed concern regarding the potential for abortions to be paid for with federal funds.[63] In December 1981, Grassley voted for a proposed constitutional amendment by Orrin Hatch that would allow both Congress and the states to ban or regulate abortion.[64] In 2019, he co-sponsored reintroducing the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.[65]

In April 2019, Grassley was one of seven senators to sign a letter led by Debbie Stabenow and Joni Ernst to United States secretary of agriculture Sonny Perdue 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."[66]

Grassley has expressed concern about the impact of regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency on farming.[67] He stated that it has a "public relations problem" with Iowa industry leaders and farmers.[68] He also stated that the EPA has screwed farmers with 31 biofuel exemptions.[69] On December 19, 2019, after the EPA withdrew a new RFS rule, Grassley criticized the EPA for "playing games and not helping President [Donald] Trump with farmers".[70]

In 2005, Grassley authorized the tax title for the Energy Policy Act as a member of the United States Senate Committee on Finance.[71] On June 28, 2005, he voted for the bill.[72] On June 19, 2007, Grassley helped proceed tax incentives that produces energy from alternative sources including ethanol, wind, biomass, and biodiesel.[71] On June 21, 2007, Grassley voted for the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which expands other energy tax incentives through 2013.[73][71]

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. Also in 1992, Grassley authored the federal wind energy tax credit.[74] According to the Environmental Working Group, Grassley received $370,000 from commodity subsidies for the past 21 years.[75] Grassley supports federal ethanol subsidies.[76]

In 2017, Grassley praised Trump for withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. He stated that the agreement had no approval and that it putted the U.S economy at a "significant disadvantage". In addition, he also stated that the agreement allowed the economies of China and India "off the hook".[77] However, Grassley also stated that the agreement should have been voted in the Senate.[78]

Grassley is in favor of repealing the estate tax, which is a tax on inherited assets above $5.5 million for individuals and $11 million for couples.[80][81]

Grassley during his time in the U.S. House of Representatives

Grassley has an "A" rating from the National Rifle Association (NRA) for his consistent support of NRA-supported gun-related laws and ongoing sponsoring and authoring of legislature.[82] According to a source from Splinter News, Grassley received $9,900 from the NRA during his 2016 election.[83]

Grassley is a staunch believer that gun laws will not prevent gun deaths or gun-related violence without improved mental health care.[84] 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.[53]

In 2016, one month after the Orlando nightclub shooting, 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.[85] 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.[86]

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."[87] In response to the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, Grassley stated that it was unlikely that gun laws would change in the wake of the shooting due to Congress being Republican-dominated.[88] A day after the Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, Grassley claimed the government had not done enough to prevent individuals with a mental illness from obtaining firearms.[89] On March 1, 2018, Grassley announced that there would be an oversight hearing on March 14.[90]

Grassley has been critical of the Affordable Care Act but does not believe the law can be completely repealed. He believes some degree of bipartisanship will be necessary to make changes to the law. He believes a solution will likely involve removing unpopular aspects of the law, like the individual mandate, while keeping popular aspects of it that deal with pre-existing conditions and the ability for children to remain on their parents' plans longer.[91] Grassley believes that the Senate's version of the AHCA (the repeal of the ACA passed by the House), will provide health insurers certainty. Asked if not passing legislation would also provide certainty, he replied that it would, but at higher premiums. He said that with the proposed legislation premiums "maybe wouldn't go up or would go up a heck of a lot less than they would without a bill."[92]

In July 2017, Grassley stated that Senate Republicans should be ashamed for not having passed their healthcare bill and this could translate to a loss of their majority in the 2018 elections.[93]

In August 2018, Grassley was one of ten Republican senators to cosponsor legislation intended to protect ObamaCare provisions for people with pre-existing conditions.[94] Health experts said that the bill did not prevent insurers from excluding coverage for individuals with preexisting conditions.[94]

In 2015, Grassley voiced his opposition to a bipartisan senate bill, the Compassionate Access, Research Expansion, and Respect States Act, that would move cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule II. This bill would allow states with medical cannabis laws to legally prescribe it and allow for much easier research into its medical efficacy.[95]

In April 2017, Grassley co-sponsored the Israel Anti-Boycott Act (s. 720), which would make it a federal crime for Americans to encourage or participate in boycotts against Israel and Israeli settlements in the West Bank if protesting actions by the Israeli government.[96][97] In 2019, Grassley was one of 14 Republican senators to sign a letter from Marco Rubio that involved condemning the BDS movement.[98]

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.[99]

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.[100] In May 2017 after Trump fired FBI director James Comey, Grassley advised people suspicious of the Trump administration to "Suck it up and move on."[101] 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.[102]

In January 2018, and in the first known congressional criminal referral in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, Grassley, along with Lindsey Graham, recommended charges against Christopher Steele, one of the people who sought to expose Russian interference.[103] Grassley and Graham said that they had reason to believe that Steele had lied to federal authorities.[103] 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."[103]

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, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, released the full transcript unilaterally.[104] Simpson is the co-founder of the political opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which produced the so-called Steele Dossier 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.[104] 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.[104][105]

In January 2018, Grassley was one of thirty-six Republican senators to sign a letter to President Trump requesting he preserve the North American Free Trade Agreement by modernizing it for the economy of the 21st Century.[106]

The author of the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989, Grassley has campaigned to increase protection and provide support for "whistleblowers". He has supported a number of FBI whistleblowers, including Coleen Rowley, Sibel Edmonds, and Jane Turner, although not supporting Department of Defense whistleblower Noel Koch.[107]

Grassley received a lifetime achievement award on May 17, 2007 from the National Whistleblower Center. In April 2014, Grassley announced plans to create a caucus in the Senate dedicated to strengthening whistleblower protections.[108][109]

Grassley defended the whistleblower in the Trump–Ukraine scandal, breaking up 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."[110][111]

In 2018, Grassley suggested that no women were serving on the Senate Judiciary Committee because of the heavy workload.[112] 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."[113]

On November 5, 2007, Grassley announced an investigation into the tax-exempt status of six ministries under the leadership of Benny Hinn, Paula White, Eddie L. Long, Joyce Meyer, Creflo Dollar, and Kenneth Copeland by the United States Senate Committee on Finance.[114] 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.[115] 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 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.[116]

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.[117] 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.[118] 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.[119] 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).[120]

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.[121]

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.[122]

Grassley sought a sixth term in the 2010 election. He was challenged by Democrat Roxanne Conlin, a former United States attorney, and Libertarian John Heiderscheit, an attorney.

Grassley was unopposed in the Republican primary, although some conservatives said he has drifted "too far to the left".[123] Among those is conservative activist Bill Salier, who said "Grassley was the dominant force and had an enormous amount of loyalty. That has so eroded out from underneath him" during an interview on WHO-AM radio.[124]

Grassley was reelected with 64.5% of the vote, Roxanne Conlin getting 33.2% of the vote. He carried every county in the state except Johnson County,[125] which hosts the University of Iowa. He is only the second Iowan to serve six terms in the Senate; the other being Iowa's longest-serving senator, William B. Allison.

Grassley speaking at the 2016 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C.

Grassley sought a seventh term in the 2016 election. Distinct from 2010, he was expected to face a strong challenge from former Democratic lieutenant governor Patty Judge,[126] but he won his seventh term with over 60% of the vote as the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump won the state with over 51% of the vote.[127]

According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics 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.[128]

In 2009, Grassley received the Health Policy Hero award from the National Center for Health Research[140] for his 2004 oversight of legislative reforms and accountability of the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA).[141] Grassley was also named the hardest working member of Congress by The Hill newspaper in June 2010, tied with Max Baucus.[142]