Elected 1980, seat up 2004 Born: Sep. 17, 1933, New Hartford Home: New Hartford Education: U. of N. IA, B.A. 1955, M.A. 1956, U. of IA, 1957-58 Religion: Baptist Marital Status: married (Barbara)

Career:

• Political: IA House of Reps., 1958-74; U.S. House of Reps., 1974-80.
• Professional: Farmer.

DC Office: 135 HSOB 20510, 202-224-3744; Fax: 202-224-6020; Web site: www.senate.gov/~grassley

State Offices: Cedar Rapids, 319-363-6832; Council Bluffs,712-322-7103; Davenport,319-322-4331; Des Moines,515-284-4890; Sioux City,712-233-1860; Waterloo,319-232-6657.

Committees:

• Finance (RMM): Health Care; International Trade.
• Judiciary: Administrative Oversight & the Courts; Crime & Drugs (RMM); Immigration.
• Joint Committee on Taxation (3d of 5 Sens.).

Charles Grassley is an unquestionably honest and preternaturally thrifty Republican who was first elected to the Senate in 1980. He grew up on a farm in Butler County near Waterloo; his parents switched parties when Franklin Roosevelt ran for a third term in 1940, and Grassley ran for the state legislature in 1956 and lost by 70-some votes. While in graduate school he ran for the state House in the Democratic year of 1958 and was elected, at 25; he won an U.S. House seat in the Democratic year of 1974 and a Senate seat by beating a strong incumbent, John Culver, in 1980. Grassley combines political shrewdness with a seeming naivete that at some level is surely genuine. He describes himself as "just a hog farmer from New Hartford," and says, "I don't know how you're going to have a strong farm economy if we don't have some farmers in Congress. I can't tell you how many people I have to tell that food doesn't grow on grocery shelves." Starting in 1997 he led the Senate in consecutive roll call votes; the last one he missed came when he was inspecting flood damage in Iowa in 1993. He goes back home to Iowa every weekend, helps his son run the family farm and holds open meetings in every one of Iowa's 99 counties each year.

Grassley's early record in Congress was guided by three issues: thrift, agriculture and dovishness on defense; he is ever alert for abuse of power. His first major legislation was the 1986 Federal False Claims Act, which authorizes suits for fraud on behalf of the government; he says it has brought in $1.8 billion. He long sponsored the bill to apply to Congress the laws it applies to others, and was the chief sponsor of the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995. He is a strong supporter of free trade and has worked from Washington to Seattle to open up markets for agricultural products; he strongly supported permanent normal trade relations with China. Grassley supported both the Freedom to Farm Act of 1996 and subsequent emergency payments and loan provisions for farmers. In 1991 he was one of two Republicans to vote against the Gulf war resolution. He does not echo other Republicans' calls for more defense spending and is quick to seize on Pentagon outrages. In 1999 he held up the nomination of UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke because he thought the State Department unfairly reassigned a whistleblower at the UN Mission. With Ron Wyden, he has sought disclosure of the heretofore anonymous holds senators have been able to put on legislation and appointments; they have not gotten that, but in 1999 Trent Lott and Tom Daschle agreed that senators putting on holds must notify committee chairmen and the sponsor of the measure or nomination.

Grassley ascended to the top Republican spot in Finance after William Roth was defeated in 2000. There he had worked for the child care tax credit, enacted in 1997, and to reinstate the deductibility of interest on student loans. He was chief sponsor of the wind energy production tax credit of 1992 and seeks favorable treatment for ethanol and biomass. In 1998 he got the ethanol tax credit extended to 2007. He spent years highlighting abuses by the IRS and helped pass the IRS reforms of 1998. In 1999, with Judd Gregg, John Breaux and Bob Kerrey, he presented a Social Security reform bill with individual investment accounts. He sponsored or co-sponsored measures in the 2000 tax cut bill, including increasing portability of pensions, tax-deferred savings accounts for farmers to allow them to weather changes in crop prices, a deduction for long-term care insurance and a credit for costs assumed by family caregivers of the elderly, and--long a Grassley preoccupation--changing the Medicare reimbursement rates for rural hospitals and promoting telemedicine. In 2000 he also passed the breast and cervical cancer treatment bill sought by the late John Chafee. With Edward Kennedy, he sponsored a bill to retain Medicaid eligibility for families with disabled children.

On the Judiciary Committee Grassley was the chief sponsor of bankruptcy reform, which passed with a veto-proof majority in December 2000 but was never signed into law by Bill Clinton. The legislation was criticized by some as unduly harsh on debtors, but its reauthorization of Chapter 12, applying to farmers, would allow them to reorganize without creditors' consent. On the issue that seems to be agitating increasingly white-collar Iowa even more than farm prices--airline competition--he worked successfully with colleague Tom Harkin to provide more competition by eliminating grandfathered slots at O'Hare and other airports and opening them up to smaller, budget and startup airlines. He has also worked to stop agribusiness mergers, and for requiring the Agriculture Department to review them. Grassley has criticized federal judges for what he considers lavish spending and called for full disclosure of their financial interests. With Charles Schumer, he has tried to bring television to federal courts. They urged Chief Justice Rehnquist to let in the cameras when the court was considering the Florida cases in December 2000; the Court said no, but did release audiotapes immediately after oral argument.

From 1997 to 2001 Grassley chaired the Aging Committee. He conducted extensive hearings, often with witnesses from Iowa--"I have come to the conclusion that I will never have to visit Iowa in order to meet half of Iowa," said ranking Democrat John Breaux. Grassley highlighted such issues as nursing home quality, hospice care, Medicare reimbursement rules, rural health care and funeral home practices.

For more than 20 years Grassley has been the most popular politician in Iowa. As he once said, "I think I've established credibility with the people of Iowa that they know I'm going to use a common-sense approach to government." In 1986 he became the first Iowa senator to win re-election in 20 years, with a record 66%. In 1992 he broke the record when he won 70%-27%, carrying all 99 counties. In 1998, against a Democrat who campaigned by taking trips down Iowa rivers, he fell back to 68%-30%, carrying all 99 counties again, from Johnson County and its college town Iowa City (53%-45%) to heavily Dutch-American Sioux County (91%-9%). A January 2001 poll showed him with a 73% positive job rating. In August 1999 he said he expected to run again in 2004. At that point, he will have tied Bourke Hickenlooper for the second-longest tenure of an Iowa senator; he will beat the record set by William B. Allison if he serves until June 2016, three months before he turns 83.

Group Ratings
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2000	0	29	0	0	11	100	74	100	96	97	92
1999	0	--	0	11	36	--	78	94	92	--	--

National Journal Ratings
	1999 LIB	--	1999 CONS		2000 LIB	--	2000 CONS
Economic	19%	--	75%		32%	--	64%
Social	41%	--	58%		10%	--	81%
Foreign	10%	--	84%		27%	--	67%

Key Votes of the 106th Congress
1. Educ. Savings Accts. Y 2. Prescrip. Drug Benefit N 3. Delay Ergonomic Standards Y 4. Phase Out Estate Tax Y 5. Review Movie Violence Y 6. Gun Show Bckgrnd. Checks N		7. Ban Part.-Birth Abortion Y  8. Broaden Hate Crimes List N  9. NATO War in Serbia N 10. Table Cuba Travel Ban Y 11. Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty N 12. Perm. Trade with China Y

Election Results
1998 general	Charles Grassley (R)	648,480	(68%)
	David Osterberg (D)	289,049	(30%)
	Other	10,378	(1%)
1998 primary	Charles Grassley (R)	unopposed
1992 general	Charles Grassley (R)	899,761	(70%)
	Jean Lloyd-Jones (D)	351,561	(27%)
	Other	40,879	(3%)

Campaign Finance
1998	Receipts	Receipts from PACs	Expenditures
Charles Grassley (R)	$3,291,469	$1,339,266	$2,781,940
David Osterberg (D)	$165,655	$25,200	$165,429