US Senator Grassley and State Rep Grassley visit Oskaloosa

US Senator Grassley and State Rep Grassley

Oskaloosa, Iowa- United States Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and State Representative Pat Grassley (R-New Hartford) both visited Oskaloosa this past weekend stopping at a private residence for a reception. Senator Grassley and his grandson Pat Grassley both were seen speaking with residents at the reception. I had an opportunity to catch up with both Representative Grassley and Senator Grassley at the reception.

Pat Grassley is a three term Republican seeking re-election to his fourth term. Grassley current represents House District 17 however because of redistricting, Grassley will now run in the new House District 50. I asked Grassley why he had taken time to stop in Oskaloosa. “Well actually, had the opportunity, Tami Wiencek, good friend of mine who I served in the legislature with, when I told her I was going to be running in a new district, I told her ‘some time we should have an event or something down there’ and she kind of, not jokingly, said ‘yeah that’s a good idea’ and then she ran into the Noahs and brought it up to them and they actually were interested in doing something like that and I said ‘yeah let’s go for it.’”

I also asked Grassley what his thoughts were on the Cedar Rapids State Senate Race. “Well, I haven’t thought a whole lot about it. As far as I know, somebody that comes from my area, Liz Mathes, is the candidate for the Democrats. I don’t know if she technically is yet but it sounds like she is going to be if shes not already. So shes obviously going to have huge name ID. I think the candidate, Cindy Golding, we Republicans have running, i’ve heard very well known in the community, Speaker Paulsen from Cedar Rapids lives in that area said shes been very active, and I can only take his word obviously from not being from there, but said shes been very active in the community and owning a small business and being involved in the party, so it’s gonna be a lot of focus on that race. You know it’s already October so the race isn’t too far away but I think it’s really going to be in the news a lot this month because there’s so much riding on it.”

After speaking with Representative Grassley, I had an opportunity to catch up with Senator Grassley. Grassley is Iowa’s Senior Senator from New Hartford. He was re-elected in 2010.

I asked Senator Grassley why he was in Oskaloosa that evening. “Well obviously I come to this part of the state for two reasons. I had a Pella engagement, kind of a town hall type meeting over there, but it worked in very well to come here to Patrick Grassley’s event because quite frankly, I’m Grandpa, my name’s Grassley, his name’s Grassley. I never thought that there would be another Grassley interested in Politics because my five kids were not interested in it because I spent too much time with it, so I was really surprised when I found out that Pat was interested in running for the legislature six years ago. So I felt that since my kids supported me, I should support him, and I think he’s doing a very good job as a state legislator and the reason why we might come to Oskaloosa is because of his friendship with Tami Wiencek because they worked together in the state legislature when she was a member of the state legislature.”

I also asked Senator Grassley what his thoughts were on President Obama’s recent jobs plan proposal. “It’s not going to come up not because Chuck Grassley is against it, but Dick Durbin today, the Senate Majority Whip, said in an interview in Chicago it wasn’t going to come up because so many Democrats were against it. So I think if the Democrats don’t think it’s a very good program, then I think I have even better reasons for thinking it’s not a good program but I think the real reason why I would oppose it, although there might be one or two parts of it that I would agree with, like for instance the payroll tax thing as an example, but just overall, it looks too much like the stimulus bill of 2009 which he just had to pass, as you recall, to keep unemployment under 8% and it’s never kept unemployment under 8% since then and it’s going to be along time before it gets under 8% so if you learn that what you’ve done in the past isn’t working, why would you try it again?”