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        <title><![CDATA[Chuck Ernest Grassley - Senator: Iowa]]></title>
        <description><![CDATA[
By Nancy Ognanovich
     (Bloomberg Government) -- Chuck Grassley, one of the most
popular and durable politicians in Iowa history, can be highly
partisan but has also earned a reputation during his four-decade
Senate career for forging bipartisan deals. He hasn’t said
whether he will seek an eighth term in 2022 when he will be 89.
     As the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee,
Grassley helped steer President Donald Trump’s multi-year effort
to confirm conservative judges and also led a contentious
investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016
election. But as a former Finance Committee chairman, Grassley
also struck many deals with Democrats, including on the 2001 and
2003 Bush tax cuts and the 2003 Medicare prescription drug plan.
     Grassley has also partnered with Democrats to push bills to
revise patent law, make federal sentencing rules fairer, and to
make changes to the skilled non-immigrant visa programs. Along
with Democrats he’s defended agency whistleblowers and pushed
government agencies to be more accountable to Congress.
     “Controversy gets headlines and partisan controversy gets
even more headlines,” Grassley said in a 2016 statement.
“Lawmakers with strong partisan views can still find common
ground with members across the aisle if they make an effort.”
     Grassley, who is the oldest male senator, said he’s open to
working with President Joe Biden, his former colleague. He said
he’ll try to find common ground with Biden wherever possible,
saying shortly after the president was sworn in that he has to
“engage with the administration of the day if I want to be a
responsible senator.”
     But he also warned the new administration about proposing
overly ambitious proposals: “They’d do well to lean in on a bit
of Midwestern common sense that’s served me well on my family
farm and in Congress: Don’t put the cart before the horse.”
     Grassley is proud of his record for going the longest
length of time without missing a Senate vote. In November, he
had cast 8,927 uninterrupted votes since 1993. But his record
voting streak came to an end that month when he had to
quarantine after contracting Covid-19.
     One of the keys to his popularity has been his tradition of
visiting Iowa’s 99 counties annually, which he’s dubbed “the
full Grassley.”
     With Democrats taking charge of the Senate, Grassley
relinquished the position of president pro tempore, the third
spot in the presidential line of succession. Republican term
limit rules also mean he’s exhausted his time atop the powerful
Finance Committee. Instead, he’s reprising his role as the
leading Republican on the Judiciary Committee, where he still
has time left to serve under GOP rules.
     At Judiciary, Grassley leads Republicans’ examination of
Biden’s picks for the federal courts as well as his nominees for
the Justice Department, including Merrick Garland for attorney
general. Grassley angered Democrats in 2016 when he refused to
schedule Judiciary Committee hearings on President Barack
Obama’s nomination of Garland to succeed the late Supreme Court
Justice Antonin Scalia.
     After Republicans won the White House in the 2016 election,
Grassley gave expeditious attention to Neil Gorsuch, who went on
to win Senate confirmation to the Supreme Court in 2017. He
subsequently also coordinated closely with Senate Republican
Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the
high court in 2018.
     Grassley’s work with McConnell to get more than 200 other
Trump circuit and district court judges confirmed also could be
revisited when Biden sends up his own judicial picks. Under
Trump, Grassley angered Senate Democrats by sometimes ignoring
their “blue slip” prerogatives, in which a home state senator
has to submit a blue sheet of paper giving consent before
Judiciary considers nominees to the federal bench.

               Committee & Legislative Highlights


* Grassley said his service at the Finance Committee has been
one of the highlights of his long Senate career. He first joined
it in 1981 and became chairman briefly in 2001 during a switch
in party control. He chaired it two times since and still plans
to serve on the panel. He is expected to help lead opposition to
the increases Biden wants in the top individual income tax rate
and the corporate tax rate.
* Grassley also serves on the Joint Committee on Taxation and on
the Budget Committee. He will have a role in leading Republican
opposition to Democrats’ plans to use budget reconciliation to
force through changes via simple majorities, including possibly
to provide more stimulus funds and raise tax rates.
* Besides work on Biden’s nominations, Grassley has other items
to pursue on Judiciary. He’ll be in the middle of talks on an
immigration overhaul. Grassley said he’s supported efforts to
help young immigrants avoid deportation and provide greater
border security but said Biden’s plans are “far more radical”
than previous efforts that have failed.
* Grassley, who represents the nation’s leading corn producer,
also sits on the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee.
With corn a major component of ethanol, he’s been a longtime
advocate for the use of ethanol in vehicles, saying it creates
good jobs and helps get the United States off of foreign oil. He
told Axios in February 2021 that protecting the Renewable Fuel
Standard is a focus for him in the 117th Congress.
* Grassley sided with Trump over his firing of FBI director
James Comey, saying that critics should “suck it up and move
on.” He later rankled fellow Republicans when he said the
committee would investigate Comey’s firing. “There should be no
improper interference with FBI investigations to favor any
elected official or candidate of either party,” he said.
* Grassley has a long interest in government agency
accountability and transparency. Over the years, he’s taken on
the FBI, Food and Drug Administration, Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Agriculture Department,
Treasury Department and others. His complaints have included the
FBI’s management of a computer modernization system, the USDA’s
payment of farm subsidies to dead people, Treasury’s oversight
of the federal bailout of General Motors Co., and the FDA’s
handling of drug approvals.
 


                     Politics & Personality


* While Grassley played a critical role in the enactment of
Trump’s tax overhaul and installation of a conservative federal
judiciary, he struck many bipartisan deals at the same time.
Among others, he worked closely with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.),
and other Democrats on criminal justice overhaul that became law
during Trump’s tenure and with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) on
drug pricing changes.
* The partisan-bipartisan dichotomy is reflected in the fact
that while Grassley has a conservative voting record, earning an
84% lifetime score through 2019 from the American Conservative
Union, he was also rated as the tenth most bipartisan senator in
the 116th Congress by the Lugar Center, which measures how often
a member of Congress sponsors of co-sponsors legislation with
colleagues from the other party.
* Grassley also has embraced social media to stay in close touch
with Iowans, particularly Twitter, where he’s attracted more
than 600,000 followers since joining in 2007. He taps out his
own tweets to constituents with notices about everything from
federal disaster aid help to the delicacies at the Iowa State
Fair and Dairy Queen, where he often stops for a Blizzard.
 


                         Road to Office

     Grassley grew up on the family farm in north central Iowa,
which he still owns. He told middle school students he loved
politics when he was their age and said his parents often talked
politics at home.
     Grassley got his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in
political science and then entered a Ph.D. program at the
University of Iowa with a goal of becoming a teacher. He taught
school part time while working as a sheet metal worker and then
on a factory assembly line. He was a member of the Machinists
union.
     In 1956, at age 22, Grassley ran for a seat in the Iowa
House. In a three-way Republican primary he lost to the
incumbent by 81 votes. He tried again in 1958 and won. He served
for 16 years, earning a living by working on the assembly line
and on the farm.
     Grassley ran for Congress in 1974, a challenging year for
Republicans in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal and
President Richard Nixon’s resignation. Grassley still won, but
by less than 2 percentage points. He served three terms in the
House. In 1980, sharing a ticket with Republican presidential
candidate Ronald Reagan helped Grassley unseat Democratic Sen.
John Culver, 54% to 46%, in a year in which Republicans won
control of the Senate. Since then Grassley won all of his Senate
re-election contests by overwhelming margins.
     In 2016 he ran against former Iowa Lt. Gov. Patty Judge
(D), who made Grassley’s decision to block Garland’s nomination
a central part of her campaign. While newspaper editorials
harshly criticized his decision, he still drew 60.1% of the
vote.

                         Personal Note

     Although his son and grandson run the day-to-day operations
of the family farm of more than 700 acres, Grassley still takes
an active role. They grow corn and soybeans and Grassley spends
an average of three nights a week there.
     His grandson Pat Grassley is speaker of the Iowa House and
has been mentioned as a potential successor to Grassley in the
Senate. Grassley told Axios in February 2021 that he’d be proud
if his grandson opted to run to replace him.
     Grassley also continues to run regularly, enjoying early
morning, two-mile jogs around Washington — rain or shine. The
lawmaker told Roll Call in 2019 he took up running at age 65
when he was chairing the Senate Aging Committee and became
concerned that seniors he saw in nursing homes didn’t get
exercise.
     “I wanted to make sure I was in shape so I didn’t get in
that position,” he said.
     Updated Feb. 9, 2021
     To contact the reporter on this story: Nancy Ognanovich in
Washington at nognanov@bgov.com
     To contact the editors responsible for this story: Bennett
Roth at broth@bgov.com; Kyle Trygstad at ktrygstad@bgov.com

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            <title><![CDATA[WTO Needs Reform to Be the World’s Nimble Trade Referee]]></title>
            <description><![CDATA[It’s in American interests to lead the way to a fairer playing field.]]></description>
            <link>https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2020-06-16/wto-reform-is-needed-for-american-free-trade-interests</link>
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            <dc:creator><![CDATA[Chuck Ernest Grassley]]></dc:creator>
            <pubDate>Tue, 16 Jun 2020 15:00:16 GMT</pubDate>
            <media:content url="https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/ivX6Pmoro3hM/v1/piHJkQ_WoLj1E/-1x-1.jpg" type="image/jpeg">
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                <media:description>A logo stands on the wall outside the World Trade Organisation (WTO) headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, on Monday, March 2, 2020. Liz Truss, the U.K.s international trade secretary, will tell WTO members on Tuesday that the nation intends to turn the rise in protectionist measures around.</media:description>
            </media:content>
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        <item>
            <title><![CDATA[Congress Can Act Now to Lower Drug Prices]]></title>
            <description><![CDATA[Bipartisan legislation would redesign Medicare Part D to lower costs for beneficiaries and taxpayers.]]></description>
            <link>https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2019-10-17/congress-can-act-now-to-lower-drug-prices</link>
            <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2019-10-17/congress-can-act-now-to-lower-drug-prices</guid>
            <category><![CDATA[world]]></category>
            <dc:creator><![CDATA[Chuck Ernest Grassley]]></dc:creator>
            <pubDate>Thu, 17 Oct 2019 10:30:26 GMT</pubDate>
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                <media:description>Insulin has gotten way too expensive.</media:description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Congress Has the Tool to Stop Illegal Immigration]]></title>
            <description><![CDATA[Making the E-Verify system mandatory would protect American workers and deter document fraud.]]></description>
            <link>https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-06-27/congress-can-stop-illegal-immigration-with-e-verify</link>
            <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-06-27/congress-can-stop-illegal-immigration-with-e-verify</guid>
            <category><![CDATA[world]]></category>
            <dc:creator><![CDATA[Chuck Ernest Grassley]]></dc:creator>
            <pubDate>Wed, 27 Jun 2018 13:00:20 GMT</pubDate>
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                <media:description>RIO GRANDE CITY, TX - DECEMBER 07: Immigrants walk handcuffed after illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border and being caught by the U.S. Border Patrol on December 7, 2015 near Rio Grande City, Texas. Border Patrol agents continue to capture hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants, even as the total numbers of those crossing has gone down. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)</media:description>
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