90 Facts About Chuck Grassley

Charles Ernest Grassley was born on September 17,1933 and is an American politician serving as the president pro tempore emeritus of the United States Senate, and the senior United States senator from Iowa, having held the seat since 1981.

Chuck Grassley is the longest serving Republican in US Senate history, having overtaken Orrin Hatch's record in January 2023.

Chuck Grassley has served three stints as Senate Finance Committee chairman during periods of Republican Senate majority.

When Orrin Hatch's Senate term ended on January 3,2019, following his retirement, Chuck Grassley became the most senior Republican in the Senate and its president pro tempore.

Chuck Grassley was born in New Hartford, Iowa, the son of Ruth and Louis Arthur Chuck Grassley, and raised on a farm.

Chuck Grassley represented parts of Butler County in the Iowa House of Representatives from 1959 to 1975.

Chuck Grassley then served in the United States House of Representatives from 1975 to 1981.

Chuck Grassley was first elected to the Senate in 1980, defeating Democratic incumbent John Culver.

Chuck Grassley was reelected in 1992, defeating Democratic State Senator Jean Hall Lloyd-Jones.

Chuck Grassley was reelected in 1998, defeating former State Representative David Osterberg, who won the Democratic nomination unopposed.

Chuck Grassley was challenged by Democrat Roxanne Conlin, a former United States attorney, and Libertarian John Heiderscheit, an attorney.

Chuck Grassley was unopposed in the Republican primary, although some conservatives said he had drifted "too far to the left".

Chuck Grassley carried every county in the state except Johnson County, which contains the University of Iowa.

Chuck Grassley is only the second Iowan to serve six terms in the Senate, the other being Iowa's longest-serving senator, William B Allison.

In May 2021, Chuck Grassley said that he would not decide whether to run for reelection in 2022 until between eight and 12 months before the election.

In September 2021, Chuck Grassley announced his intention to run for an eighth term.

Chuck Grassley's announcement was viewed as advantageous to Republicans seeking to hold Grassley's seat and to retake the Senate majority in 2022.

Chuck Grassley won the general election, defeating Democratic nominee Michael Franken on November 8,2022.

In November 1981, Chuck Grassley was one of 32 senators to sign a letter to President Reagan supporting Director of the Office of Management and Budget David Stockman.

In October 1983, Chuck Grassley voted against establishing a legal holiday to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr.

On November 1,1984, Chuck Grassley signed a one-page citation of contempt of Congress against Attorney General William French Smith due to Smith's not turning over files on an investigation into Navy shipbuilding.

In May 1987, the Senate Appropriations Committee defeated an attempt by Chuck Grassley to hasten payments of corn and other feed grain subsidies ahead of the scheduled payment taking place after October 1.

The Chuck Grassley measure was designed to unravel an accounting device lawmakers used previously to make it appear that they were reducing spending for the incoming fiscal year.

In January 1991, Chuck 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 of Oregon.

In May 2001, Chuck 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, Chuck 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.

Chuck Grassley 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.

In July 2007, a Chuck Grassley-commissioned report was released claiming that more than US$1 billion in farm subsidies were sent to deceased individuals.

Chuck Grassley was called a "Taxpayer Super Hero" in 2014 by the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste.

Chuck Grassley received a 100 percent rating from the group that year and has a lifetime rating of 78 percent.

Chuck 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.

In February 2004, Chuck 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.

Since 1976, Chuck Grassley has repeatedly introduced measures that increase the level of taxation on American citizens living abroad, including retroactive tax hikes.

Chuck 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.

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

When President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party proposed a health reform bill featuring mandated health insurance, Chuck Grassley opposed the health insurance mandate, saying that it was a deal breaker.

In January 2010, Chuck 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, Chuck Grassley was one of 26 senators who voted against the ratification of New START, 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.

On March 9,2015, Chuck Grassley was one of 47 senators to sign a letter to Iran led by Tom Cotton to rebuke the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

In June 2015, Chuck Grassley introduced legislation to help protect taxpayers from alleged abuses by the Internal Revenue Service.

Since first taking office in 1981, Chuck Grassley has held public meetings in all of Iowa's 99 counties each year, even after losing honorarium payments for them in 1994.

In 2018, Chuck Grassley suggested that no women were serving on the Senate Judiciary Committee because of the heavy workload.

In July 2018, after President Donald Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, Chuck 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.

At the time, Chuck 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's death, Chuck 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".

Chuck Grassley was participating in the certification of the 2021 United States Electoral College vote count when Trump supporters attacked the US Capitol.

Chuck Grassley was removed from the Senate chamber and taken to a secure location when rioters entered the building.

Chuck Grassley broke Senator William Proxmire's record for most time without a missed vote, but Proxmire holds the record for most consecutive roll-call votes, with 10,252.

Chuck Grassley has said that he considers himself pro-life and has expressed concern about the potential for abortions to be paid for with federal funds.

Chuck Grassley voted to confirm Jonathan Kanter as Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice Antitrust Division.

Chuck Grassley has expressed concern about the impact of regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency on farming.

Chuck Grassley stated that it has a "public relations problem" with "the ethanol industry, corn farmers and [himself]".

Chuck Grassley stated that the EPA has "screwed" farmers with 31 biofuel exemptions.

On December 19,2019, after the EPA withdrew a new Renewable Fuel Standard rule, Chuck Grassley criticized the EPA for "playing games and not helping President Trump with farmers".

In 1992, Chuck Grassley authored EPACT 1992, which created the federal wind energy tax credit.

In 2005, Chuck Grassley authored the tax title of EPACT 2005 when he was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

On June 19,2007, Chuck Grassley helped expand tax incentives that produces energy from alternative sources including ethanol, wind, biomass, and biodiesel.

On June 21,2007, Chuck Grassley voted for the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, 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 stated that Chuck Grassley received $367,763 in grain commodity subsidies over 21 years.

Chuck 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.

Chuck Grassley has argued that the estate tax is potentially ruinous for farmers and small business owners.

In 2010, Chuck Grassley had an "A" rating from the National Rifle Association.

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

Chuck 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, Chuck 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.

Chuck Grassley opposes the Affordable Care Act and has voted to repeal it.

Chuck Grassley engaged in lengthy negotiations with the Obama administration, as it sought health care reform with support from Republican members of Congress.

In July 2017, Chuck 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 2015, Chuck 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.

In 2019, along with Democratic US Senators Dianne Feinstein and Brian Schatz, Chuck Grassley introduced the Cannabidiol and Marijuana Research Expansion Act, which would expand research into medical marijuana.

Chuck 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 US Military.

In 2019, Chuck Grassley was one of 14 Republican senators to sign a letter from Marco Rubio that involved condemning the BDS movement.

In 2015, after the Supreme Court ruled same-sex marriage bans unconstitutional in Obergefell v Hodges, Grassley released a statement saying he believed marriage was between one man and a woman and criticized the court for not leaving the issue up to the states.

In 2019, Chuck Grassley was one of the lead Senate co-sponsors of the SECURE Act of 2019.

In February 2017, Chuck Grassley said that while Russian interference in US elections was "bothersome", the United States did not have clean hands and had, for instance, interfered with the 1948 Italian election.

Chuck Grassley condemned Feinstein, saying that her decision was "confounding" and that it deterred future witnesses in the Russia 2016 investigation.

In January 2018, Chuck Grassley was one of 36 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.

The author of the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989, Chuck Grassley has campaigned to increase protection and provide support for "whistleblowers".

Chuck Grassley has supported a number of FBI whistleblowers, including Coleen Rowley, Sibel Edmonds, and Jane Turner, although not supporting Department of Defense whistleblower Noel Koch.

Chuck Grassley received a lifetime achievement award on May 17,2007, from the National Whistleblower Center.

On May 28,2021, Chuck Grassley voted against creating an independent commission to investigate the January 6 United States Capitol attack.

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.

In letters to each ministry, Chuck 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.

Chuck Grassley began an investigation about unreported payments to physicians by pharmaceutical companies.

Chuck 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.

Schatzberg had reported only $100,000 investments in Corcept, but Chuck Grassley stated that his investments actually totalled over $6 million.

In 2008, for the first time, Chuck Grassley asked the American Psychiatric Association to disclose how much of its annual budget came from drug industry funds.

Chuck Grassley is a member of the Family, the organization that organizes the National Prayer Breakfast.

Chuck Grassley's grandson, Pat Grassley, is a member of the Iowa House of Representatives.

Chuck Grassley is known for his widely reported, long-running "feud" with the History channel; he has consistently accused the network of featuring little actual history programming.