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Sen. Grassley takes questions from West Marshall High School students Thursday

By Robert Maharry 5 min read

STATE CENTER -- The oldest current member of Congress, 92-year-old U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), took some time to connect with the younger generation on Thursday afternoon as he swung by West Marshall High School for an open-ended question and answer session with students in the auditorium for approximately 40 minutes.

Grassley, a farmer from New Hartford, has held his current seat since 1981 and is the sixth-longest serving Senator in U.S. history. After participating in a law enforcement roundtable in Toledo earlier that day, he said his intent in hosting the State Center event was to hear about the issues on the minds of young people and connect with people who may otherwise reach out to him.

The first question came from West Marshall senior and FFA chapter President Jackson Walker, who commended Grassley for supporting farmers during the 1980s crisis and working across the aisle with former Sen. Tom Harkin, a Democrat. Walker did, however, raise concerns about livestock production amidst the Trump administration's move to import tariff-free beef from South America in an attempt to lower prices.

"In my eyes, I'm just a little disappointed Congress hasn't stood up more and tried to get more young farmers (up and running)… We're the next generation, and we want to see a little bit more from Congress in supporting our younger farmers and getting them into agriculture," he said.

In response, Grassley noted that the American cattle herd is at its lowest number since 1950, and he did not feel the imports and the instability they create are good for producers. He also touted efforts to use more Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) land for cattle grazing as part of the Farm Bill, limit subsidies to larger farming operations, and improve on the Young Farmers Program.

Rebecca Cole asked Grassley a question on a topic he frequently hears and receives criticism about: term limits. He reminded her that imposing term limits would require a constitutional amendment, and she wondered why he continues to stay in office if he would support such a change.

"The reason why is because people have re-elected me eight times to the United States Senate, and the reason I haven't given up after two terms is because I think Iowa oughta play by the same rules as the other 49 states," he said. "A lot of influence comes from serving in the Senate, and we shouldn't deprive Iowa of something that some other states have gotten."

The next question covered the topic dominating most conversations in Marshall County at the moment: data centers. Grassley, however, claimed that the "only place" they were currently an issue in Iowa was around Cedar Rapids, and he pointed out that large data centers operated by companies like Meta and Google have existed in Iowa for 15 to 20 years. He acknowledged the controversy over AI data centers due to the high electricity and water usage.

According to Grassley, state and local governments should be thoughtful in where they allow data centers to be built, and the developers should pay for their own electricity and recycle their water. Another student asked a simple, direct question: what do you think is the biggest problem in America?

The senator responded that affordability and the national debt are the two that come to mind, and he described the ever-increasing debt as "a moral issue."

"What we spend today and borrow for is gonna affect you folks and people (who are) unborn, and it's kind of like, it's OK for people my age and a lot of people younger than me to live high on the hog and leave somebody else to pay the bill," Grassley said.

Subsequent questions covered the high demand for jobs in the skilled trades, school book bans and the ongoing war in Iran and its effect on gas prices. The Senator discussed Iran's long history of hostility toward the United States beginning with the Islamic Revolution in 1979 all the way up to recent planned terrorist attacks.

"I know this is an unpopular war in America. Only about 35 percent of the people support it, but (for) a Democratic president or a Republican president, the number one responsibility of the federal government is to protect the American people. And one of the worst things to do would be to have crazy people like that have the nuclear bomb, even if they never used it. They'd be able to use it for blackmail, and they're also the number one financing of terrorism around the world, and some of that terrorism you see here in the United States," Grassley said. "I always think you should use diplomacy before you use war, and the president tried that for six months before the war started and six weeks after the war, he tried diplomacy. And I think it's all diplomacy now, but who knows what's gonna happen tomorrow?"

The final question of the day pertained to a rise in political violence, and Grassley responded by touting his own bipartisanship and noting that the media focuses on points of contention rather than legislation the two parties have worked together to pass and enact. The Senator highlighted his strong working relationship with his colleague Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on bills regarding teen social media safety and keeping prescription drug prices down.

Grassley lamented that moderate members of each party have all but disappeared over the years, and he noted that he is consistently ranked as one of the most bipartisan senators in the country.

"If you don't have bipartisanship, you never get anything done. And even though not enough gets done, some things get done," he said.

Contact Robert Maharry at (641) 753-6611 ext. 255 or rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.

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