In early 1975, I was a still wet behind the ears, freshly minted congressional staffer, working for a new Congressman from southwest Iowa, Tom Harkin.
One morning - my thick, 1970’s style brown hair “dancing” over my ears in the breeze as I ran up the steps to the Cannon House Office Building - I encountered Chuck Grassley.
Two Iowans, we stopped and chatted briefly.
Like me, Grassley was also just starting his time on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.
But Grassley was no newbie. At that point, I was 21 years old. Grassley had already been in elective public office for three quarters of my life. While I was still pinching myself to make sure I really was working in a congressional office - it had been my dream since high school - Grassley had already logged 16 years in elective office.
Grassley first entered public office in1959, when he started out in the Iowa Legislature. I was 5 years old when he cashed his first legislative pay check.
Fast forward 63 years from the day Grassley went on the state legislature’s payroll in 1959 - or from another perspective, 47 years from that day in 1975 when we ran into each other on the steps of the Cannon House Office Building - to today.
A lot has changed. Some things have not.
Of course, I’m no longer that fresh faced 5 year old trying to learn colors in Kindergarten, or even that still wet behind the ears Capitol Hill newbie just launching his congressional staff career.
I turn 70 next year.
My hair, what’s left of it, is now gray. I retired from a successful 38 year career working in the US House and US Senate a decade ago. I don’t run up the Cannon House Office Building steps - or many other steps - these days, as my body reminds me daily that I have - even if gently - grown older, if not yet old.
Chuck Grassley?
He’s still on Capitol Hill. In my view, he largely spends his days doing what Mitch McConnell tells him to do on things of consequence. As far as major legislative initiatives, he mostly contents himself with co-sponsoring bills other Senators introduce.
At age 89, he is asking Iowans to give him 6 more years in the Senate.
If re-elected, he says he will serve out the full term.
I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings - and I don’t mean to be morbid - but it is a statistical fact that an 89 year old man is in no position to guarantee that he will do anything in six years, including get out of bed in the morning and read the morning newspaper.
Beyond that, most people I know suspect strongly that - at age 89 - Grassley’s current re-election bid is actually intended to simply keep the seat warm until some time into that new term, should he win it, when he can resign and the Republican Governor - if that’s what Iowans still have then - can create a new instant incumbent Republican Senator without the bother of an actual election to choose his successor.
Republicans have grown pretty fond of installing their people in office without the bother of an election.
Many Iowans had the same suspicion about Governor Terry Branstad, you’ll recall, when he sought his final term as Governor. He, too, promised to serve out that full term if re-elected, but then grabbed an Ambassadorship from the new Republican President Donald Trump as soon as it was offered, and before his gubernatorial term ended. He high tailed it off to China where most of us never heard of him again.
His successor, then Lt. Governor Republican Kim Reynolds, was able to succeed Banstad without an election and enjoy the advantage of running in the next election as an incumbent.
So, Iowans have a right to be skeptical of Grassley’s pledge, whether he is going to be age 95 or not at the end of the new term he wants Iowans to give him.
A new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll this week shows that Iowans are more than a little wary about giving Grassley another 6 year contract at age 89.
Grassley’s once substantial lead has shrunk in recent weeks to just 3 percent, which is within the margin of error for the poll. Not the direction an incumbent wants his “big mo’” heading as Election Day approaches.
His disapproval rating and unfavorable ratings are also at all time highs.
His opponent, Admiral Mike Franken, is out-fundraising him with just three weeks to go to Election Day.
All are signs of an incumbent in trouble and all are indicators that often presage an incumbent’s defeat.
The poll found that Grassley’s age is one of the major concerns voters have about him. Nearly two thirds of Iowans think Grassley’s age is a problem.
It’s instructive to reflect for a moment on just how long Grassley has been in public office, because - as with the moss covered statue of the Civil War veteran on the courthouse lawn - we often tend to lose track of just how long it has been there.
Consider the following. When Grassley first entered public office in 1959:
Hawaii was not a state.
The Beatles had never performed in the Star Nightclub in Hamburg Germany. They had never even played in the Cavern Club in Liverpool, England. In fact, the Beatles had not even been formed when Chuck Grassley first entered public office.
Richard Nixon was Vice President of the United States and John F. Kennedy was a second term U.S. Senator.
Alaska had only days before become a state and the flag flying over the Iowa State Capitol when Grassley was sworn in had only 48 stars.
Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander and hero of World War II, was President of the United States. His famous “Farewell Speech” warning about the dangers of the military/industrial complex - a speech now often taught in history classes - was still a year away.
Automobiles manufactured in 1959 are now routinely exhibited at vintage and antique car shows.
Fidel Castro came to power in 1959 in Cuba. The Cuban Missile Crisis was three. years in the future.
The St. Lawrence Seaway was completed that year.
Astronaut Neil Armstrong had not yet taken his “giant leap for mankind” on the moon. Astronaut John Glenn, Jr. had not yet orbited the Earth. In fact, not a single American astronaut had ever flown in space because NASA didn’t even have astronauts until April 1959, four months after Grassley first entered pubic office.
This is the same Chuck Grassley who claims he is a believer in term limits.
Senator Grassley has been out of ideas for some time now. Is it any wonder? Do we really expect a man who entered public office 63 years ago to lead the way to America’s future?
Grassley claims his age is an asset. Two thirds of Iowans disagree.
I suppose it could be an asset, if Grassley were up to making it an asset. But he is not.
As his Republican Party morphed into one that embraces fascism more than the steady Republicanism of years gone by, Grassley has done nothing to get it back on course.
As the longest serving Republican in the US Senate, he is in a position to lead, to counsel a more reasonable, rational, and frankly democratic approach. He hasn’t done it. He has called out no one. He has advised caution to no one. He has remained largely silent in the midst of his party’s - small “d” - anti-democratic crack up.
There is even some question that still needs to be resolved about what Grassley - the US Senate’s President Pro Tempore at the time - - was prepared to do on January 6 to further Donald Trump’s insurrection if Vice President Pence could be removed from the Capitol and the presiding officer’s chair.
The right of a woman to make her own health care decisions is under attack in America. Grassley, again, has done nothing to protect that right. Worse, he instead fanned the flames of that attack. He played a key role in Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell’s theft of the Supreme Court seat that President Barack Obama had a constitutional right to fill, a theft that paved the way for Republicans to stack the court and launch that attack - an attack they could not win at the ballot box.
So much for conservatism these days.
By any means necessary seems to be more the Republican Party’s mantra today. Grassley has never spoken up to oppose it, deflect it, re-direct it, or argue against it. He has largely gone along with it.
He does what Mitch McConnell tells him to do. There is no better example of that than his disgraceful role on recent Supreme Court nominations which have cost women so dearly.
If you’ve seen Senator Grassley on C-SPAN lately, in his committees or on the Senate floor, you know he doesn’t much actually “debate” things any more. He pretty much just reads scripts in committees, and also on the Senate floor. Scripts written by others of course. He doesn’t even read them well.
He reminds me of another elderly Senator I used to see in the halls of the Senate regularly.
Out of respect, I won’t name him, but he was a Senator who didn’t recognize when it was time to leave and stayed until the day he died. He and I apparently has similar schedule because frequently, as I returned from lunch in one of the Senate complex’s cafeterias, I would see him show up in one of the Senate’s administrative support staff offices.
He would insist that office was his office. At first, staff there would gently walk him back to his actual office, but as his confused visits became more frequent, a routine developed where the staff would call the Senator’s office, and someone from his office would come get him.
Eventually, he had a full time escort to make sure he got to where he intended to go, a task which got easier when he transitioned to traveling by wheel chair.
It was sad to see. And his constituents had no idea.
Grassley is obviously not there yet. I don’t mean to suggest that he is.
But his decline is real, and visible, and it affects his job performance. It is also natural, pretty much unavoidable, and predictable. Most of us know from family experience, if not our own, that aging takes a toll. That toll can often accelerate unexpectedly.
That is why there is not a publicly held corporation in America that would extend a six year leadership contract to an 89 year old man without putting them through a battery of regular tests and evaluations.
Senator Grassley?
He consented to just one debate with his opponent Admiral Mike Franken.
So much for tests and evaluations. So much for being willing to demonstrate that you are up to the job - for the next six years. So much for sharing your vision for America’s and Iowa’s future.
If Iowans want to give Senator Grassley a gold watch, and say thank you, by all means do so. But don’t give him another six years in the Senate.
He stayed too long.
The state needs fresh leadership and vision, and voters are right when they suspect that Grassley has run out of both.
Thanks Mr. Piatt. Great writing here.
Barry - Thanks for sharing you thoughts about Senator Grassley and his need to retire.
I voted for Chuck when he ran for the Senate in 1980. I was a young Republican working for the Iowa House Caucus Staff and former Pocahontas County Republican Chairman. While I would have preferred Grassley’s More moderate Primary opponent, Tom Stoner. But at that time in my life I couldn’t imagine anything more horrifying than voting for a Democrat so I blindly voted for Chuck that November. I was at that election night party at the Fort Des Moines Hotel ballroom and watched gleefully as my party took control of the Us Senate for the first time in my lifetime.
But much has changed since that 1980 election night. My former Republican Party is no longer the party I once loved. In fact, I can’t imagine anyone like Bob Ray, Art Neu, Mary Jane Odell,Jim Leach, George H.W. Bush or even Ronald Reagan ever being able to get through a GOP Primary today. There is no longer a place for voices of moderation, no longer a seat at the table for people like me or the elected officials I so for admired.
I was still a Republican when I moved back to Iowa ten years ago and was chatting with the then State Party Chairman a theGOP Fair Booth. When I expressed my concern that the party was working against the retention of an Iowa Supreme Court member who had voted f to allow gay marriage in Iowa, the Chairman said it sounds like you would be happier as a Democrat. So I took him up on his suggestion and walked across the aisle to the Democrats booth and reregister as a Democrat and was welcomed into the fold.
While I will be gladly voting for Democrats up and down the line this number I still long for the days when I worked in the Iowa legislature when Democrats and Republicans were able to put partisan differences aside and work together for a better Iowa. Maybe it’s a pipe dream but one can always hope. Mike Triggs (like you I started kindergarten in 1959)