Chuck Grassley : Net Worth, Family, Wife, Education, Children, Age, Biography and Political Career

Charles Ernest Grassley is an American politician serving as the president pro tempore emeritus of the us Senate and therefore the senior us senator from Iowa. hes in his seventh term within the Senate, having first been elected in 1980.

A member of the Republican Party, Grassley served eight terms within the Iowa House of Representatives (1959–1975) and three terms within the us House of Representatives (1975–1981). He has served three stints as Senate committee chairman during times of Republican Senate majority. When Orrin Hatchs Senate term ended on January 3, 2019 following his retirement, Grassley became the foremost senior Republican within the Senate, and he served because the president pro tempore of the us Senate within the 116th Congress from 2019 to 2021, also because the portion of the 117th Congress before Joe Bidens inauguration.

Grassley is one among the sole two remaining U.S. Senators to possess served during the Presidency of Carter, the opposite being Patrick Leahy of Vermont.

During his four decades within the Senate, Grassley has chaired the Senate committee, the Senate Narcotics Committee, the Senate Judiciary Committee, and therefore the Senate Aging Committee.

Grassley was born in New Hartford, Iowa, the son of Ruth and Louis Arthur Grassley and raised on a farm. He graduated from the town highschool. At Iowa State normal school (now the University of Northern Iowa), he earned a B.A. in 1955 and an M.A. in politics in 1956. During his time as a student, Grassley joined the social-professional Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity. Also during the 1950s, Grassley farmed and worked in factories in Iowa, first as a sheet shearer then as an production line worker. He pursued a Ph.D. in politics at the University of Iowa, but ultimately didnt complete the degree. From 1967 to 1968, Grassley taught at Charles City College.

Grassley represented parts of Butler County within the Iowa House of Representatives from 1959 to 1975. He then served within the us House of Representatives from 1975 to 1981.

Chuck Grassley and Barbara Ann Speicher married on August 22, 1954. they need five children: Lee, Wendy, Robin, Michele, and Jay. Grassley may be a member of the Family, the organization that organizes the National Prayer Breakfast. His grandson Pat Grassley may be a member of the Iowa House of Representatives. Grassley is additionally known for his widely reported and long-running "feud" with the History Channel; he has consistently accused the network of featuring little actual history programming. On All Saints Day 7, 2020, Grassley announced that he had tested positive for COVID-19.

Chuck Grassley Net Worth

Chuck Grassley Net Worth is $3.8 Million in 2021

Chuck Grassley Family

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

Chuck Grassley and Barbara Ann Speicher married on August 22, 1954. they need five children: Lee, Wendy, Robin, Michele, and Jay.

Chuck Grassley Wife and Children

Chuck Grassley and Barbara Ann Speicher married on August 22, 1954. they need five children: Lee, Wendy, Robin, Michele, and Jay.

Chuck Grassley Career and Achievement

U.S. Senate

Tenure

1980–1989

In November 1981, Grassley was one among 32 senators to sign a letter to Reagan supporting Director of the Office of Management and Budget David Stockman. In August 1982, while the Reagan administration tried persuading senators to approve legislation authorizing the creation of a station for broadcasting to Cuba, Grassley joined fellow Iowa senator Roger Jepsen and Edward Zorinsky in seeking an amendment to the bill barring the Reagan administration from operating Radio Marti thereon frequency or other commercial AM frequencies.

In October 1983, Grassley voted against establishing a national holiday to commemorate Luther King Jr.s birthday. In 2015, an aide to Grassley said that he voted against the vacation thanks to an "economic decision both within the cost to the broader economy in lost productivity, and therefore the cost to the taxpayers with the federal closed." In 2004, Grassley co-sponsored legislation giving King a posthumous award, which became law on October 25 that year.

On November 1, 1984 Grassley signed a one-page citation of contempt of Congress against Attorney General William French Smith thanks to Smiths not turning over files on an investigation into Navy shipbuilding. Assistant Attorney General Stephen S. Trott called the citation "out of place" since Grassley wasnt working at a session of the Judiciary panel he led.

In May 1987, the Senate Appropriations Committee defeated an effort by Grassley to hasten payments of corn and other feed subsidies before the scheduled payment happening after October 1. The Grassley measure was also designed to unravel an accounting device lawmakers used previously to form it appear that they were reducing spending for the incoming financial year . In October, during a press briefing, Grassley accused Reagan of being "asleep at the switch" and botching the handling of Robert Borks Supreme Court nomination, adding that Borks nomination had convinced him that the Reagan administration "has been terribly lucky for the last seven years" in other matters, including the economy and policy.

Later that month, Grassley likened the groups lobbying against Borks nomination to the McCarthyism of the 1950s: "The big lie is standard procedure for a few of those groups. All youve got to try to to is repeat an equivalent outrageous charges, and repeat them so often that folks believe theyre true." 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 reviewing Ginsburgs record. After Ginsburg admitted having smoked marijuana, Grassley said, "You wish to think people that are appointed to the Supreme Court respect the law." Grassley joined Jesse Helms in resisting the nomination of Anthony Kennedy, Reagans next choice for the Supreme Court, saying that he would have preferred another nominee like appellate court justices Pasco Bowman II or John Clifford Wallace. Grassley stated his distaste for "the people that are committed to changing the judiciary" and taking "the path of least effort."

In January 1989, because the Senate voted to schedule a vote within the subsequent month on the pay increase, Grassley questioned how senators would decline federal program increases "come March and April if the primary thing out of the box may be a pay raise?" In February, he was one among six senators to testify against the five hundred pay increase scheduled to require effect the subsequent week. In October, Grassley was one among nine senators to vote against legislation intended to outlaw flag burning and other sorts of flag defacement and joined Bob Dole and Orrin Hatch, the opposite two Republicans to vote against the bill, in voicing a preference for a constitutional amendment.

1990–1999

In January 1991, Grassley was one among only two Republican senators to vote against joining the international coalition to force Iraq out of Kuwait, the opposite being Mark Hatfield of Oregon. In August 1991, he became one among six Republicans on the Select Senate Committee on POW-MIA Affairs that might investigate the amount of usa citizens still missing within the aftermath of the Vietnam War following renewed interest. In July 1998, President Clinton listed Grassley among the members of Congress who had made it possible "for me to sign into law today the interior Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act." On Lincolns Birthday , 1999 Grassley was one among 50 Senators to vote to convict and take away Clinton from office.

2000–2009

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 most elements proposed by the Bush administration and therefore the Senate committee would modify the components of the Bush proposal.

In August 2002, Grassley sent a letter to president and chief executive of the United Way of America Brian Gallagher requesting an in depth explanation on the overseeing of both finances and management of the organizations affiliates. Grassley also wrote to chief executive of the United Way of the capital Area Norman O. Taylor with regard to allegations of affiliates misappropriating money also as withholding information the board needed to permit its conducting of oversight.

As a senior member of the Senate 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 quite US$1 billion in farm subsidies were sent to deceased individuals. Grassley was called a "Taxpayer Super Hero" in 2014 by the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste. He received a one hundred pc rating from the group that year and features a lifetime rating of 78 percent. Grassley was ranked the 5th most bipartisan Senator of the 114th us Congress and therefore the 7th most bipartisan Senator within the first session of the 115th Congress by the Bipartisan Index, a metric created by the Lugar Center for the Lugar Center and Georgetowns McCourt School of Public Policy to rank members of the us Congress by their degree of bipartisanship.

In February 2004, Grassley released an indoor 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. during a letter to the FBI, Grassley called the report "a laundry list of horrors with samples 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 reports findings raised questions on whether the FBI handled agents "soon enough and rigorously enough".

On June 28, 2006, Grassley proposed legislation intended to curb sex trafficking and sexual slavery within the us by means of strict enforcement of tax laws, for instance by requiring a W-2 form be filed for every prostitute managed by a pimp or other employer.

Since 1976, Grassley has repeatedly introduced measures that increase the extent of taxation on americans living abroad, including retroactive tax hikes. Grassley was eventually ready to attach an amendment to a bit 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 in charge of federal taxes, albeit they didnt currently reside within the us . 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.

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 kill . After some criticism, he dismissed the comments as rhetoric.

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

When President Barack Obama and therefore the Democratic Party proposed a health reform bill featuring mandated insurance , Grassley opposed the insurance mandate, saying that it had been a deal breaker. In response to an audience question at an August 12, 2009, meeting in Iowa, about the end-of-life counseling provisions within the House health care bill, H.R. 3200, Grassley said people were right to fear that the govt would "pull the plug on grandma." Grassley had previously supported covering end-of-life counseling, having voted for the Medicare prescription, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, which stated: "The covered services are: evaluating the beneficiarys need for pain and symptom management, including the individuals need for hospice care; counseling the beneficiary with reference to end-of-life issues and care options, and advising the beneficiary regarding advanced care planning." In December 2009, he voted against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. it had been later reported that Grassley had notified Obama that he would vote against the Affordable Care Act even had the bill been modified to incorporate all of the proposed modifications Grassley had proposed.

2010–2020

In January 2010, Grassley was one among 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 thanks to conflicting accounts Southers gave the Senate about his previous tapping of databases for information about his ex-wifes boyfriend within the late 1980s.

In December 2010, Grassley was one among 26 senators who voted against the ratification of latest START, a nuclear arms reduction treaty between the us and Russia obliging both countries to possess no quite 1,550 strategic warheads also as 700 launchers deployed during subsequent seven years along side providing a continuation of on-site inspections that halted when START I expired the previous year. it had been the primary arms treaty with Russia in eight years.

In April 2013, Grassley opposed a regulation amendment authored by Senators Joe Manchin and Pat Toomey, and instead proposed alternative legislation to extend prosecutions of gun violence and increase reporting of psychological state data in background checks.

On March 9, 2015, Grassley was one among 47 senators to sign a letter to Iran led by Tom Cotton to rebuke the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. In June 2015, Grassley introduced legislation to assist protect taxpayers from alleged abuses by the interior 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.

Since first taking office in 1981, Grassley has held public meetings altogether of Iowas 99 counties annually , even after losing honorarium payments for them in 1994. This has led to the coinage of the term "full Grassley," to explain when a us presidential candidate visits all 99 counties of Iowa before the Iowa caucuses.

In 2018, Grassley suggested that no women were serving on the Senate Judiciary Committee due to the heavy workload. the subsequent week, Grassley added that he would "welcome more women" to serve on the Committee "because women as an entire are smarter than most male senators. and that they work real hard, too."

In July 2018, after President Donald Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, Grassley lauded Kavanaugh as "one of the foremost qualified Supreme Court nominees to return 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.

In 2016, Senate Republicans refused to think about Obamas nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. At the time, Grassley said that the "American people should not be denied a voice" within the nomination, which was "too important to urge caught up in politics". In 2020, after a Supreme Court vacancy arose thanks to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburgs death, Grassley supported a prompt vote on Trumps nominee, backing the choice of "the current chairman of the Judiciary Committee and therefore the Senate Majority Leader".

2021

Grassley was participating within the certification of the 2021 us body vote count when Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. He was faraway from the Senate chamber and brought to a secure location when rioters entered the building. within the wake of the attack, Grassley said that Trump "displayed poor leadership in his words and actions, and he must take responsibility." He said efforts to impeach Trump would risk "further disunity" which "the country must take steps to tone down political rhetoric and mend divisions." In response, The Gazette editorial board wrote that Grassley and other Iowa Republicans "must reckon with why they did the incorrect thing for therefore long." He has not said whether he will run reelection within the 2022 us Senate election in Iowa, but a majority of Iowans have said they are doing not want him to.

Senate Record for Consecutive Votes

As of November 2015, Grassley had cast 12,000 votes, and as of July 2012, he had missed only 35 votes in his Senate career. In January 2016, he set a record for the foremost time without a missed roll-call vote, having not missed one since July 1993, when he was touring Iowa with President Clinton to survey flood damage. In November 2020, this streak came to an end after over 27 years and eight ,927 votes when he quarantined after being exposed to COVID-19. Grassley broke Senator William Proxmires record for many time without a missed vote, but Proxmire holds the record for many consecutive roll-call votes, with 10,252.

Political Campaigns

Grassley was elected to his Senate seat in 1980, defeating the Democratic incumbent, John Culver. He was reelected in 1986, 1992, 1998, 2004, 2010 and 2016; hes the longest-serving senator in Iowa history. In 1992, he won a 3rd term with 69 percent of the vote whilst Clinton carried the state within the presidential election.

2010

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

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

Grassley was reelected with 64.5% of the vote, Roxanne Conlin getting 33.2% of the vote. He carried every county within the state except Johnson County, which hosts the University of Iowa. hes only the second Iowan to serve six terms within the Senate; the opposite being Iowas longest-serving senator, William B. Allison.

2016

Grassley sought a seventh term within the 2016 election. Distinct from 2010, he was expected to face a robust challenge from former Democratic elected official Patty Judge, but he won his seventh term with over 60% of the vote because the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump won the state with over 51% of the vote.

2022

Grassley has said he wont decide whether to run reelection until between 8 and 12 months before the election, Given the swing nature of the state and Grassleys strong leads to past elections, many believe that an open seat in Iowa would be better for the Democrats as they might convince many Grassley supporters to vote for his or her nominee. In July 2021, former U.S. Representative Abby Finkenauer announced that she would be running for the seat no matter Grassleys plans and criticized him for being on the brink of Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell. Finkenauer attacked both for being "obsessed with power" and for not taking a robust stance against those that breached the capitol within the 2021 us Capitol attack.

Fundraising

According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics in 2010, the industries that are the most important 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 are Blue Cross Blue Shield (insurance), Amgen (biotech company) and Wells Fargo (bank).

Awards

In 2003, Grassleys school, the University of Northern Iowa, selected him for honoris causa membership in Omicron Delta Kappa, the National Leadership Honor Society. In 2009, the National Center for Health Research gave Grassley the Health Policy Hero award for his 2004 oversight of legislative reforms and accountability of the us Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In 2010, Capitol Hill named Grassley and Max Baucus the hardest-working members of Congress.