Grassley Completes 38th Annual Tour of Iowa’s 99 Counties

(Osceola, Iowa) U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) today held his 99th county meeting of this year with a town hall Q&A session at Clarke County Hospital in Osceola. This marks the 38th straight year that Grassley has visited all 99 counties in Iowa.

With this meeting, Grassley marks the conclusion of another year in his 38-year practice of holding meetings with Iowans in every one of Iowa’s 99 counties at least once annually. Grassley has done so every year since he was first elected to serve in the U.S. Senate in 1980. The hallmark of his meetings are the open-topic question-and-answer sessions where Grassley invites and responds to questions and comments on any subject. Grassley’s efforts to go to Iowans where they work, study and live sets a standard for representative government. Grassley also makes himself available for 15 minutes after each meeting to answer questions from local news media.

“Representative government is a two-way street. I’m one half of the process and the people of Iowa are the other half. You can’t have representative government without dialogue between elected officials and the people we represent,” Grassley said. “I’ve made it my practice to go to the people of Iowa in a variety of settings throughout the day for questions and answers. I appreciate the opportunity to hold these meetings, answer questions and listen to comments from Iowans. The cross-section of people I get to meet with during town meetings and in their workplaces, offices and factory floors, in schools and at service organizations, helps me keep in touch and take the common sense of Iowans from all perspectives to work in the nation’s capital.”

Topics covered at this year’s meetings included health care, immigration, tax reform, congressional oversight and investigations, criminal justice reform, the federal judiciary, the Second Amendment, the national debt, the farm bill, the Renewable Fuel Standard, international trade and federal regulations.

Grassley will continue meeting with Iowans for the rest of the year as the Senate voting schedule allows. Grassley kicked off meetings in 2018 in Harrison County with a town meeting at the Logan Community Center on January 12.