Grassley: Under GOP control, Senate will be deliberative body again

CEDAR RAPIDS - U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley says the election of Republican Joni Ernst will make the Senate work again.

Ernst, 44, is the first Iowa woman elected to Congress. While Grassley said he appreciates the significance of her election, he predicted the impact will go beyond the history books.

'The Senate will be more productive,” the six-term senator from New Hartford said after the polls closed Tuesday.

'Republicans are committed to the Senate functioning,” he said. 'It isn't functioning now. It hasn't functioned for four or five years” under Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid.”

Grassley and minority Republicans have long complained that Reid bottles up legislation sent to the Senate by the GOP-controlled House. He estimated more than 380 bills approved by the House have not been considered by the Senate.

Reid, Grassley said, 'has shut down the United States Senate as a deliberative body.”

That will change under GOP control.

'They will be considered in the Senate,” Grassley said. 'There will be debate, we're going to have everybody offer amendments. We haven't had a budget for five years and we're going to have a budget again and most importantly we're going to start having Friday sessions.”

Grassley, who is in line to chair the Judiciary Committee, understands the fate of legislation approved by a Republican-controlled Congress will be determined by President Barack Obama.

'Will they die or not die on the president's desk? Now, he doesn't even have to deal with that,” Grassley said. 'Now he will have to deal with that.”

Regardless whether the president signs those bills or vetoes them, 'at least we are moving the ball down the court.”

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Reporters Erin Murphy of the Des Moines bureau and Chris Earl of KCRGTV-9 contributed to this report.