Grassley Visits Oskaloosa On 99 County Tour

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) held a town-hall meeting inside Smokey Row Coffee House Tuesday afternoon with the residents of Mahaska County.

Oskaloosa, Iowa – It’s been coined ‘The Full Grassley” by presidential candidates when they campaign Iowa. The name is used in honor of Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley who every year holds a town hall meeting in every county in Iowa, and Tuesday afternoon he took his turn in Oskaloosa, his fifth stop of the day.

Grassley spent an hour taking questions from the nearly 75 people in attendance. He answered questions about: social security, FAA, Medical Malpractice, The UN small arms treaty, Grassley’s own gun legislation, Homeland Security ammo buy, immigration, profiling, executive orders, and budgets.

A local resident asked about the proposed U.N. Arms Trade Treaty and what chance it would have of passing the U.S. Senate. The Senate would have to ratify the treaty in order for it to take effect.

“My position would be…if it comes to the United States Senate I would vote against it,” Grassley said. He further explained that it would take a two-thirds vote to ratify such a treaty. He said that Sen. Feinstein’s gun bill isn’t going to make it to the floor of the Senate because of a lack of support. “I don’t think it has mucchance getting through the Senate.”

Also related to the topic of guns, one area resident asked, “I believe you are working on the GOP response to the Democratic-led gun control issue. You’re writing that now, I believe?”

Grassley told those in attendance, “Well, we don’t have it written because there aren’t enough Senators back in Washington to sit down and agree to ’em. We’re trying to put together something that doesn’t have anything to do with guns or registration or background checks. We’re trying to do things that would stop trafficking of guns.”

Grassley confirmed that his involvement in investigating ‘Fast & Furious’ is a reason for his desire to write the legislation.

The Grassley town-hall drew nearly 75 visitors to Smokey Row on Tuesday afternoon. (photo by Don Hubbard)

Concerns were raised about the Department of Homeland Security and their purchase of over 1.5 billion rounds of ammunition. A local expressed concern to the Congressman about the lack of ammunition available for purchase. The local resident believes that the bulk purchasing by DHS and the lack of ammunition available to be purchased are connected saying, “it’s an infringement on our Second Amendment right. They are keeping ammunition away from the people. We the people.”

Senator Grassley responded, “I don’t know, and I want to know and I have a right to know.” in regards to why DHS was purchasing the quantity of ammunition they are. In regards to the infringing upon the Second Amendment rights, Grassley continued, “You would think in our open society, that if that’s their motive, they’d be smarter than to do that. That’d be a stupid reason for doing it in an open society we have.”

“Sure looks like that to me sir,” the resident responded.

“Well, and it looks a little bit that way to me, but I’m not going to say for sure until I get an answer,” Grassley responded. He said that this issue has come up at almost every one of his meetings. “In fact, I learned of it from my constituents,” Grassley said.

The debate about taxes and the national debt was brought up by several residents.

Grassley responded with, “Everybody in Washington thinks Washington knows best. Washington is an island surrounded by reality.” Senator Grassley continued by saying,  “Government doesn’t create wealth, it spends wealth. So the wealth of this country is created out in here, [points towards floor representing the people].

After his meeting, I sat down with Senator Grassley and I asked him about his gun legislation.

Grassley said that since the legislation isn’t written yet, there are no details. He explained that the general outline “of what we hope to accomplish.”

“It would include provisions, including mental health, gun trafficking, school violence, also ensure veterans second amendment rights,” Grassley said. He explained the legislation would protect veterans second amendment rights by “protecting them from erroneous determinations restricting the right to own firearms.”

Grassley then explained what it doesn’t do. “It doesn’t ban any guns. It doesn’t have any gun registration. It doesn’t have any more background checks than what is in the present law.”

Guns to taxation were topics asked of Senator Grassley on Tuesday afternoon. (photo by Ginger Allsup)

The Grassley legislation is being labeled as the GOP answer to the Feinstein bill, which Grassley voted against in committee.

Sequestration and how it impacts the average Iowan was my next question for the Congressman. He explained, “If we adopt the House budget, we’re talking about getting to a balance in ten years with no tax increases. We talk about the Senate budget, you’re going to have a trillion dollar tax increase. Six trillion dollars more deficit,” adding to that, no hope of a balanced budget in the foreseeable future.

It’s been announced that Senator Harkin will not seek re-election, and that will mean that Senator Grassley will have a new Iowa partner on the Senate floor. “I would like to serve with a Republican Senator, because that’s only happened four out of the thirty-three years that I’ve been in the Senate.”

Grassley is not taking sides in a primary, and currently isn’t aware of who is interested in running for the Republican nomination.

I closed with Grassley by asking him if he still enjoyed doing the full 99 county tour, which has become a signature part of his time in office.

“It’s absolutely necessary. I don’t know how I could represent the people of Iowa without contact with them. The best contact is face-to-face like we had here in Oskaloosa.” He went on to say that the other forms of contact, such as by phone or mail, are good, but “that’s not quite as personal, but you’ve got to have all those sorts of contacts to know what you’re people are thinking.”

As he’s traveled Iowa recently, Grassley said he’s drawing the conclusion that “Iowan’s don’t want any more guns banned.”