Shooting won’t deter Grassley appearances

The shooting of a congressional leader and four others at a suburban Washington baseball field Wednesday is a 'sad situation,” Sen. Chuck Grassley said, but the senator doesn't see a need for additional security for members of Congress.

None of Iowa's congressional members were at the scene during the shooting.

Personal safety probably doesn't cross the minds of members of Congress as often as it should, Grassley said hours after he learned of the shooting.

He said he has noticed more law enforcement at his town hall meetings in Iowa this year, but Grassley said adding more security personnel in might actually make lawmakers less safe.

'This may sound like tongue-in-cheek and it's not meant to be,” he said during his weekly conference call with Iowa reporters. 'But in this town, if I had three or four people following me around, somebody would say, ‘He must be somebody important.' It tends to put your life more in jeopardy more than if you are just obscure.”

Capitol Hill security does check on his travels, Grassley said, asking his staff for the locations of his town halls.

'I have to assume maybe they call local sheriff's offices or the local police in a town I'm going to be in because I have had the presence of those people at my town meetings,” he said. 'There's more of a presence of them than I've seen before. At least that's my recollection.”

Several town halls hosted recently by Iowa Republicans have been raucous, drawing large crowds and shouting.

However, that's nothing new, Grassley said, recalling meetings in the summer of 2009 involving conservatives upset with his participation in negotiations on the Affordable Care Act as well as those who wanted him to be more supportive of Obamacare.

Last year, Grassley, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, had several confrontations with Iowans upset with his decision not to hold hearings on President Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee.

The shooting will not change his tradition of holding events in all 99 Iowa counties every year, Grassley said.

'Life goes on and representative government demands that we consider constituents' points of view.” he said.

Other Iowa members of Congress made statements or sent tweets about the shooting.

Rep. Dave Loebsack, the only Democrat in Iowa's delegation, said, 'I was shocked and deeply saddened to hear the news of this morning's shootings.”

Reps. Rod Blum and David Young and Sen. Joni Ernst offered prayers.

Rep. Steve King tied the shooting to violence 'on the left,” the Washington Post reported. The newspaper quoted him saying that 'the center of America is disappearing, and the violence is appearing in the streets, and it's coming from the left.”

Matt Sinovic, executive director of Progress Iowa, responded by calling attention to some of King's past controversial comments.

'If Steve King is searching for someone who has contributed to our culture of violence, he need only look in the mirror,” he said.

Ed Tibbetts of the Quad City Times contributed to this report.