Iowans ask Grassley to push back against Trump

PARKERSBURG - Waterloo's Miriam Tyson admitted her bias up front. She's an active Democrat.

But Tyson, a former longtime Waterloo labor leader and one-time congressional primary candidate, also offered strong praise for U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley's service in Iowa over the years during a town hall with him Friday morning at Parkersburg Civic Center.

'You really do your job,” Tyson said, to a scattering of applause and one vocal supporter who cheered 'Amen Grassley. Yes Grassley.”

But Tyson wasn't finished.

Tyson said she marked the turning point in her support for Grassley back to when he held up former President Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee for a year ahead of the election. But she still wants to see a return of the Grassley she had grown accustomed to.

'I'm asking you to be that role model that we look to, to our legislator, that we have respected for years. I want you to push back” on Republican President Donald Trump, Tyson concluded to a more rousing round of applause from the more than 250 people in the crowd.

'Ms. Tyson, thank you for your thoughtful comments,” Grassley said to her, and then ended his meeting on time, after a raucous hour of taking questions and comments, and occasionally trying to quiet a crowd so he could hear or talk without a microphone.

The comments Tyson offered were on par with several questions throughout the town hall, on topics ranging from government oversight to immigration.

Waterloo immigration attorney Miryam Antunez de Mayolo said Grassley has personally helped many of her clients over the years regardless of their status. Then, Antunez de Mayolo asked what had changed.

Grassley said he hadn't read the most recent executive order on stepping up deportation efforts of people here illegally. Antunez de Mayolo started to explain the orders and then moved on to immigration more generally to ask Grassley why he didn't support a comprehensive reform effort.

'I think you should do the most ‘Iowa' thing, which is to do what is right,” Antunez de Mayolo said.

John Mullen, of La Porte City, tried a similar tack as Tyson, telling Grassley he thought he was someone with 'high moral and ethical standards.” He wanted Grassley to speak up on Trump's more questionable comments - like insulting a physically handicapped person, a prisoner of war and a Gold Star family, and admitting to groping women without their permission. Mullen's brother, Michael Mullen, was killed by friendly fire in Vietnam in 1970 and his story was made into a book and television movie.

Grassley moved on from that particular question without answering.

While Grassley answered many questions, he also took some as rhetorical and didn't address them.

He asked at the outset the topics people wanted to address, and took questions on a good number of them. Grassley had also asked for people who just wanted to comment, without getting a response to speak up, for the first few minutes. Though some asked questions, Grassley didn't answer them either.

Grassley pushed back on the idea that he had changed in an interview with the media after the town hall.

'I presume most of this audience come from the 36 percent of people that voted for my opponent. And so you might expect that from them,” Grassley said, adding he doesn't like to hear he has changed from fellow Republicans. 'The bottom line of it is Chuck Grassley hasn't changed.”

Though the crowd did not often self-identify their party as Tyson did, they did mostly have concerns about impending Republican actions. Several made a point of saying they were not paid protesters, particularly after the Butler County Sheriff Jason Johnson had opened with the house rules, saying 'whether paid to be here or not” and the crowd booed and jeered.

Grassley compared the town halls he's had this week to ones in 2009 when active conservative tea party groups had similarly flooded public meetings to raise concerns about the health care reform debate at the time. He said at those he was more likely to get praise from Democrats and concerns from Republicans.

He said this week's meetings have been less raucous than those in 2009, and less so than meetings he held immediately after the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in 2015 when Republicans said they would not hold a hearing on Obama's nominee.

'These are relatively quiet town meetings,” Grassley said after Friday's town hall.