Sen. Grassley’s grandson to chair House budget committee

CEDAR RAPIDS - Hours after being announced as the new chairman of the Iowa House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Pat Grassley received a vote of confidence along with some grandfatherly advice - and, perhaps, a warning.

'Expect to put in longer hours,” advised U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, who chaired that committee in the early 1970s.

Rep. Grassley, 32, is House Speaker-Elect Linda Upmeyer's choice to lead the Appropriations Committee and the Legislature's budget process in 2016.

He succeeds Chuck Soderberg, a Le Mars Republican who resigned to become executive vice president for the Iowa Association of Electric Cooperatives. A special election will be Nov. 3 to fill that seat.

Upmeyer will name a new chair for the House Agriculture Committee, which Grassley has chaired since 2013. Before that, he chaired the House Economic Growth Committee from 2011 to 2013.

As Appropriations chairman, Grassley said, he's looking forward 'ensuring that Iowa's taxpayers are put first since they are the ones footing the bill.”

'Constructing the state's budget is one of the most important things that we do as legislators,” he said. 'We need to remember that tax dollars do not belong to the government; that money belongs to the hardworking taxpayers of Iowa. The state has to live within its means, just like everyday Iowans.”

Sen. Grassley, who served in the Iowa House from 1959 to 1974, didn't stop with his warning about long hours.

'Know more about the budget than anybody else,” said the senior Grassley, a longtime member of the Senate Finance Committee and current chairman of the Judiciary Committee. 'Try to devote an extraordinary amount of time away from other committees to Appropriations.”

He also advised meeting with agency heads to 'tell them you are open to any sort of discussions they want, but explain to them that you expect information if you have questions about anything going on in their department.

Rep. Grassley, first elected in 2006, is a small-business owner and farmer in New Hartford. He lives on his family's farm with his wife, Amanda, and their three children.

Democrats speculate he will run for secretary of agriculture if that position becomes open and, someday, to succeed his grandfather.