Chuck Grassley interview

The Daily Iowan: I think our first question is going to be, obviously top of mind this week, is Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearings. And I know you gave a pretty lengthy answer yesterday as to why you’re choosing not to vote for her confirmation. And Senator Durbin talked a lot about how she’s supremely qualified for the court and even Republicans on the committee aren’t disagreeing with that. So, why do her judicial philosophies or, what you’re seeing us her judicial philosophies, why did those differences outweigh what her qualifications seem to be for the court?

Sen. Chuck Grassley: Probably the same answer that Democrats would give you, because they voted against Gorsuch and Barrett and Kavanaugh, nobody said they weren’t qualified to be on the Supreme court. But it’s how some senators approached the Constitution and what judges ought to do versus other members of the Senate. So I look at it, how do they look at the original interpretation of the Constitution as meant for by the Constitution writers, how they look at laws passed by Congress, if Congress hasn’t made the statute plain, or whether there’s been judges or plaintiffs or defendants have some holes in the law that they are trying to get the court to look at, should the courts make that more plain or is that a job for us to do in the Congress of the United States?

And I use this example in my speech yesterday, but I’m the author of the First Step Act, the first criminal justice reform act of a generation. That was signed in 2018 I believe. She saw she could apply it retroactively, and we dealt with this when we were writing the legislation, and there wasn’t enough support for what we call retroactivity, but she saw an opportunity that it could be used for that, and so she used it to sentence people to a much lighter sentence. And it shouldn’t even apply. And just to show you how that’s a justified statement to make about just one of her 500 cases is because she was overturned on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals when she was a district judge, you know, as an example.

So it’s kind of how you views what I’d call a strict constructionist versus legislating from the bench, and I see her as somebody that would legislate from the bench. And then what’s wrong with that is, if you’re assuming some of the responsibilities of Congress, you can’t vote a judge with a lifetime appointment out of office. But if you don’t like bills that Congressmen vote for or against, here at the next election you can vote against the congressman or senator.

The DI: You brought up back in 2003 when Senator Schumer brought up looking at judicial philosophy in votes, and you used the words that he “poisoned the water” on judicial nominees —

Grassley: I made that same statement to the press today, I was interviewed at the bottom of the escalators as you go up into the Capitol. I made the very same point again.

The DI: And that was almost 10 years ago, and there’s been these very partisan nomination processes since then. Do you think there could ever be a nonpartisan, especially Supreme Court judicial process, from now on? And how do we get to that point?

Grassley: It might not even be possible if this happened. Nobody’s gonna think about changing things, I think until everybody realizes that what Schumer and Lawrence Tribe, the Harvard law professor, said was the right thing to start doing — unless they admit they were wrong and trying to bring everybody together, so we get back to where Ginsburg was approved by 90 to 10 and Brian was approved 90 to 10. That was the environment that I worked in, and I liked best.

And then you come along with what happened in 2003. You have a situation where until then, no judges were ever filibustered and it’s obvious judges weren’t filibustered because Clarence Thomas is still a controversial justice. He was more controversial when he was up for nomination. He only won 52 to 48. So, if it had been filibustered, he wouldn’t be on the Supreme Court because at that time it took 60 votes to move somebody. So it was never an issue. So somebody might bring up to you, “Hey, before this in 1968…” But he didn’t even have 48 votes, let alone — but some people use that as an example of maybe somebody being filibustered. So anyway, the significance of it is from 1789 to 2003. This wasn’t even an issue. And then since 2003, it’s been an issue and it’s been downhill ever since.

The DI: You have three Republican colleagues who are going to join Democrats in voting to confirm Judge Jackson. They, I’m sure, have philosophical differences as well in her judicial process, but don’t you think it would be a show of bipartisanship to join them in taking that vote?

Grassley: If 10 Republicans voted for 25 of them, each Senator’s got to decide for themselves and I decided my position. It’s got nothing to do with the fact that I got 46 friends voting with me. I don’t plan things that way.

The DI: And then, it is looking like, especially with those Republican support, she will be confirmed if everything goes as planned in the Senate, so what do you think of, regardless of your thoughts on judicial philosophy, of the historic nature of her being the first Black woman on the court?

Grassley: Well, there’s already two, maybe two and a half people like that on the court already. So I wouldn’t, this is just the way our system works. People were worried, you hear it today and maybe you heard it 25 years ago from Republicans, about, “There’s not enough balance in the court.” But the way you get balance is, you elect a president today of one political philosophy, they choose a certain amount of people and then you got another president come along later, and he chooses a different type of person. The political system brings balance to the Supreme Court.

The DI: Do you think it’s important to have — as you said, there have been Black justices, there have been women justices. Do you think it’s important to have that representation on the court of a Black woman?

Grassley: Oh, it is going to do good having it, but it’s more from a position of how it looks to the public, because each person there, whether they’re man, woman, Hispanic, any ethnic group, you want to name, man, woman, et cetera. All those things that you play into it, they’re going to have a look at the case. It doesn’t matter whether man or woman, Black or white, whatever.

I mean, people make a lot of a case that there’s too many Catholics on the Supreme Court, what difference does that make? They aren’t going to let their religion interfere with it. If they are, they shouldn’t be on the Supreme Court.

The DI: As the [Democratic National Committee] is reconsidering the presidential nomination process for the party, how would Iowa losing its first-in-the-nation status for the Democrats affect Iowa as a whole in the political scenes and bringing so much attention to the state?

Grassley: Well, obviously, there’s a little economic advantage and a lot of attention that Iowa gets, but that’s a minor situation. I think that number one, it’s an opportunity for people that don’t want to spend much money or don’t have the capabilities to spend a lot of money coming to Iowa, like Jimmy Carter did — lived in everybody’s home for two years and carried Iowa by only 22 percent, but it made him president of the United States. I think you could make a case that Obama would not be president of the United States, he didn’t do it on the cheap like Carter did, but Obama had to prove to the Democrats that an African American could be elected. And he proved that by going to a state that’s about 90 percent white, and the other 10 or 15 percent that’s minority, that he could get elected. And I think that was a big thing.

If he couldn’t prove that, he wouldn’t be president of the United States, and Iowa being first in the nation gave him that opportunity to prove that. And then I guess the other — maybe I better stop there. I think those are the two main points that I often make.

The DI: What would it mean for that to change?

Grassley: Oh let me comment on that. I think for Republicans, we’re going to still be first in the nation because Jeff Kaufmann, Iowa’s Republican chairman, is head of whatever commission the [Republican National Committee] set up to determine these things, he’s head of it.

And then the Democratic Party of Iowa still wants to be first in the nation. So as long as you keep Republicans and Democrats cooperating here, and then in a bi-state way, cooperating with New Hampshire, Republicans and Democrats cooperating there, we can be first-in-the-nation caucus, they can be first-in-the-nation primary. But, if the Democrats want to go into a different direction, it might not hurt Republicans being first in the nation, but it could down the road, ’28 or ’32, affect Iowa being first in the nation on either party, but right now, I’m happy that the Democrats or Republicans were sticking together on that. So, we Republicans are pretty cautious about criticizing the Democrats for wanting to make a change because we don’t want to discourage the Iowa Democrats from keeping the fight out.

The DI: Speaking of upcoming elections, are you thinking about the 2022 election any differently than your previous seven Senate races? Just any different perspective on this race especially?

Grassley: Well, not any differently. In fact, I want to emphasize how it isn’t different because I’ve approached reelection from this standpoint: just continue doing the very best job you can, where you are, and what you’re doing, and continue to do it as the best evidence for the voters to return you.

The DI: And how do you feel about your chance, and the rest of your party’s chance, in Iowa in 2022?

Grassley: It looks very good for the governor. We got three of the four congressional races that there’s some hope of winning the three that are so close. It’s not based on party registration, because I think in all three of these the Democrats out-register Republicans but in each one of them, Trump carried by one or two percentage points. So, there’s a tendency of people there to look to the other party, must be for Democrats or at least independents, to look to the Republican Party. So I think that we have, I think those three races are going to be very close.

The DI: Districts 1, 2, and 3?

Grassley: That would be everything except Feenstra, yeah.

The DI: And how do you feel more generally about the chances of Republicans taking back the House or the Senate in the midterm elections as well?

Grassley: You know, if the election were held today, I believe that we would control both houses but it’s eight months away, or seven months away. So I don’t get to, I don’t, it’s just very difficult to predict. What’s it going to look like after Labor Day? If it looks the same way after Labor Day, as it looks today, I think we could take over both. I don’t think there’s any doubt about taking over the House. I think it’s touch and go in the Senate.

The DI: And speaking of the election, and I’m sure you get this question a lot. You’ll be 94 at the end of your term should you be elected, what do you say about people who have concerns about your age and running for another Senate term?

Grassley: You know, I faced the same question six years ago, when I was 81 or 82, and I’m still alive.

The DI: You mentioned Governor Reynolds. I wondered, what has been the national response to her as a voice in the GOP after she delivered the rebuttal to the State of the Union.

Grassley: I probably have only heard from Iowans on that point. If I’ve heard from other people, I suppose they’re colleagues, but I don’t remember what they said, but I only draw this conclusion: that I’ve never heard anything negative about her presentation. So, I think it was a very much a success.

The DI: Could you see her looking towards a higher office as she’s kind of becoming more of a national voice in the GOP?

Grassley: I never heard her even, even have that thought in her mind.

The DI: Since you’ve had so many years in your Senate seat, and in Congress in general, how have you seen political discourse change over your tenure?

Grassley: Less civil. If your question is just about the Congress of the United States, I gotta give you a little bit different answer. But if you expect Congress to be reflective of society as a whole, and I hope you do, because otherwise representative government doesn’t mean much, in other words, what you folks think at the grassroots are gonna be reflected here.

So I kind of answer your question indirectly, but it affects civility in the Congress of the United States. I think I’ve seen in the last 20 years, society, as a whole, being less civil.

And there’s, for instance, I don’t think this is the case in Iowa, but recently at Yale University Law School, there was a liberal and a conservative come to just have a discussion, and I don’t know what the subject was, if one of them was the Federalist Society, so I suppose it dealt with politics, but I don’t know for sure. They got together, so a whole bunch of, I don’t know whether they would be liberal, conservative, socialists, left wing or right wing, but a whole bunch of people came in and just raised cane with it and they couldn’t have this discussion. This is sometimes how I say it to high schools, because I go to about 15 high schools a year because I never get people under 18 to come to my meetings, I usually say, people proudly say to me, too often, I wish they’d never say this, but they say, “There’s two things I probably never talk about, politics and religion.” You know, and what two things have more of an impact on your life except maybe your family?

I don’t know what your politics are, and I don’t care, but we’re sitting down here having a friendly discussion. And you can, you aren’t expressing your views to me, but you could and I ought to listen to you and respect them. Or I give a speech on free speech on the floor of the Senate, you go to my website look up a couple of these speeches, I’ve given some this year and last year on the free speech at universities, And I say, you know, what’s a university all about? My definition of university is where contraries ought to run rampant. Why do you go to a university? You go to school to get an education. Can’t you get an education by saying something to people that you just disagree with. You can learn from them, they can learn from you. What’s wrong with that? But somehow, like at Yale University, you can’t have that discussion. Did I answer enough of your questions?

The DI: Senator Ernst has been advocating for sending fighter jets to Ukraine. So I wanted to know what your position on that is. And do you think the Biden administration should be sending more lethal aid to Ukraine?

Grassley: Yeah, you’re talking about the MiG jets, yes. Yes. I support her. And I’m in favor of that. Yeah.

The DI: So, the war in Ukraine has impacts for Americans, especially with gas prices. What do you think Congress should do to help Americans burdened by these fuel costs?

Grassley: Undo everything that [Biden] did his first year, maybe the first few months in office. You cut down the XL pipeline, you stop it, you stop drilling on the north shore of Alaska, offshore. North Slope of Alaska, offshore Alaska, drilling on public plans, drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, off the Atlantic coast, put regulations on fracking, and then tell the banks not to owe money to energy companies. So why do you think the price of gas went up a dollar? Now it went up another 30 or 40 cents because of Ukraine. But yeah, it’s not right for Biden to blame Ukraine for all of it. It’s his own energy policy, and then he wants to go to get Venezuela and Saudi Arabia to ship in their dirty oil to us because they don’t have greenhouse gas regulation like we do. So, you’re not only importing oil, but you’re importing the pollution that comes with it. So why shouldn’t we be drilling here where we got good regulations on the production of energy?