Sen. Charles “Chuck” Grassley

Analysis

Legislative Metrics

Read our 2019 Report Card for Grassley.

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Grassley is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot is a member of the Senate positioned according to our ideology score (left to right) and our leadership score (leaders are toward the top).

The chart is based on the bills Grassley has sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 6, 2015 to Oct 22, 2020. See full analysis methodology.

Ratings from Advocacy Organizations

Committee Membership

Charles “Chuck” Grassley sits on the following committees:

• Senate Committee on Finance Chair
  Energy, Natural Resources, and Infrastructure, Health Care, International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness, Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy, Taxation and IRS Oversight subcommittees
• Joint Committee on Taxation Chair
• Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry
  Commodities, Risk Management, and Trade, Conservation, Forestry, and Natural Resources, Livestock, Marketing, and Agriculture Security subcommittees
• Senate Committee on the Budget
• Senate Committee on the Judiciary
  Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, Border Security and Immigration, Intellectual Property, Oversight, Agency Action, Federal Rights and Federal Courts subcommittees
• United States Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control

Enacted Legislation

Grassley was the primary sponsor of 89 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

• S. 3607: Safeguarding America’s First Responders Act of 2020
• S. 4091: Emergency Aid for Returning Americans Affected by Coronavirus Act
• S. 3052: United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement Implementation Act
• S. 2777: Family First Transition Act
• S. 744: Effective Prosecution of Possession of Biological Toxins and Agents Act of 2019
• S. 1091: Small Business Reorganization Act of 2019
• S. 928: Taxpayer First Act of 2019

View All »

Does 89 not sound like a lot? Very few bills are ever enacted — most legislators sponsor only a handful that are signed into law. But there are other legislative activities that we don’t track that are also important, including offering amendments, committee work and oversight of the other branches, and constituent services.

We consider a bill enacted if one of the following is true: a) it is enacted itself, b) it has a companion bill in the other chamber (as identified by Congress) which was enacted, or c) if at least about half of its provisions were incorporated into bills that were enacted (as determined by an automated text analysis, applicable beginning with bills in the 110^th Congress).

Bills Sponsored

Issue Areas

Grassley sponsors bills primarily in these issue areas:

Crime and Law Enforcement (30%) Health (18%) Education (13%) Government Operations and Politics (11%) Families (8%) Commerce (7%) Taxation (7%) Immigration (7%)

Recent Bills

Some of Grassley’s most recently sponsored bills include...

• S. 4784: A bill to extend the Generalized System of Preferences, and for other purposes.
• S. 4717: A bill to amend title XIX of the Social Security Act to streamline ...
• S. 4729: A bill to extend the Generalized System of Preferences, and for other purposes.
• S.Res. 721: A resolution designating the week beginning October 18, 2020, as “National Character Counts ...
• S. 4628: Human Trafficking Council Extension Act of 2020
• S. 4370: Stop Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2020
• S. 4318: American Workers, Families, and Employers Assistance Act

View All » | View Cosponsors »

As President Pro Tempore of the Senate, Grassley may be focused on his responsibilities other than introducing legislation, such as setting the chamber’s agenda, uniting his party, and brokering deals.

Voting Record

Key Votes

Missed Votes

From Jan 1981 to Oct 2020, Grassley missed 37 of 13,481 roll call votes, which is 0.3%. This is better than the median of 1.9% among the lifetime records of senators currently serving. The chart below reports missed votes over time.

We don’t track why legislators miss votes, but it’s often due to medical absenses and major life events.

Show the numbers...

Primary Sources

The information on this page is originally sourced from a variety of materials, including:

• unitedstates/congress-legislators, a community project gathering congressional information
• The House and Senate websites, for committee membership and voting records
• United States Congressional Roll Call Voting Records, 1789-1990 by Howard L. Rosenthal and Keith T. Poole.
• Martis’s “The Historical Atlas of Political Parties in the United States Congress”, via Keith Poole’s roll call votes data set, for political party affiliation for Members of Congress from 1789 through about year 2000
• GPO Member Guide for the photo
• GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills