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Senator Chuck Grassley is the longest serving Republican in congressional history and, when the Senate convenes Friday, Grassley will again have the title of Senate President Pro Tempore.
The post goes to the longest-serving senator from the party that has a majority of seats in the Senate. He served in the same role in 2019 and 2020 and this is how Grassley described it then.
“I’ll be number one in the United States Senate as the most senior member of the Senate,” Grassley said of the position. “I’ll be in a position to accomplish things for the people of Iowa and the nation as a whole.”
Grassley was first elected to the state legislature in 1958. He served 16 years in the Iowa House, then won election the U.S. House in 1974, where he served for six years. He’s been a United States Senator since 1981.
“I very much like serving the people of Iowa,” Grassley said during an appearance on “Iowa Press” on Iowa PBS.
Grassley, who turned 91 in September, has long argued his seniority gives him leverage to use on behalf of Iowa.
“People aren’t going to elect Chuck Grassley if they didn’t think he was competent to do the job,” Grassley said in 2022 when he won reelection to an eighth term in the U.S. Senate with over 56% of the vote.
During his first term as a U,S. Senate, Grassley gained national attention for criticizing wasteful spending in the Pentagon and he has supported legislation to protect whistleblowers in federal agencies. When he ran in 2016, Grassley stressed the importance of providing oversight of the executive branch.
“I believe that we not only pass laws, but we have a responsibility to see that they’re faithfully executed and I think we have to do more of it and I set the pattern for that,” Grassley said. “Now, to the people of Iowa, oversight might not mean anything to them, but if they study checks and balances in government, they know exactly how important that is.”
