owa's senior U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley fielded questions about topics his audience Monday felt are pressing. Among them were concerns about aid to Ukraine, the Farm Bill, immigration and the integrity of the U.S. Supreme Court. — Daily Freeman-Journal photo by Jane Curtis

Chuck Grassley, Iowa’s most veteran senator, believes in process and the structure of the United States government. He underscored that repeatedly when fielding questions during a town hall visit in Hamilton County Monday.

Asked if he trusted former President Donald Trump, the Republicans’ nominee for that office in the November election, Grassley answered in the affirmative.

“Yes, I do. But let’s say if I didn’t trust him, I got confidence in our Constitution and the principles of checks and balances that you learn about in high school government that this Constitution is going to protect us from President Trump just like it’s protected us from a Biden that’s trying to do everything by executive order instead of working it through the Congress of the United States.”

Trump, who is 78, will likely face sitting Vice President Kamala Harris, who is the presumptive Democrats’ candidate for president now that President Joe Biden has announced he won’t seek reelection.

But back to Grassley. He will be 91 in September. He’s been a senator since 1981, in politics as a state representative since the age of 26, and joined the House of Representatives in 1975 before progressing to the role of senator.

On Monday, as he fielded questions in the basement conference room of the Hamilton County Courthouse, his knowledge and opinions on the system of government were on full display.

Farm Bill

“One of the things that I try to accomplish – and the only time I’ve been successful doing it, but then I got screwed by a conference committee in between — is putting a hard cap on the amount of money that one farmer can get from the farm program. And I got that done. And two farm bills will go and go both through the House and Senate in exactly the same form, but then the bill went to conference to iron out other differences and the rules of the Senate and House are you aren’t supposed to change anything that’s not different between the House and Senate. But southern agriculture doesn’t like a hard cap on what one farming operation can get because they’re not Midwestern agriculture. And if you look at some of the prices to support peanuts, cotton, rice, you’d find out that it makes what we get for corn storage look like peanuts.

“Anyway, it just got taken out. Now I’m going to try to put that in again when the five-year Farm Bill comes up. And I think that there’s nothing wrong with big farmers getting bigger, but I don’t think we should subsidize big farmers to get bigger. So the idea is to target this … towards medium- and small-sized farmers, and the reason is that if you’re a mega farmer with 10,000 acres, you’ve got some ability to protect yourself from things that are beyond your control. But if you’re a smaller farmer, you don’t have that same protection.”

Ukraine

“To read the newspapers and TV, you get the opinion that $65 billion, it’s (Ukraine is) going to keep it. We’re never going to see it anymore. Twenty-four billion of it is going to be spent in the United States rebuilding our war material and our warehouses. … Twelve billion of it’s going to go to support our additional troops that we’re having in Europe. … So the part that’s going to be spent in the United States is obviously going to be American workers building this stuff here.”

Rick Stotts, of Webster City, who asked the question about supporting Ukraine, interjected: “But it was money that was not budgeted and we don’t have.”

Grassley: “You could say that about 20% of what we spend … So then to answer your question, you’re not, in other words, 65 billion isn’t going to Ukraine and an example of what’s being spent in Iowa is 300 or 400 million to double the capacity for building artillery shells at West Burlington at the ammunition plant down there, just one example and then I guess the way I look at it is this way: Putin said in 2005 that the split up of the Soviet Union was the biggest political disaster of the 20th century and in several speeches since then I’m going to reestablish the Russian Empire.

“So he considers Ukraine part of the Russian Empire. He considers part of Poland part of the Russian Empire; he considers the Baltic states. They were part of the Soviet Union from 1940 ’til 1990, as an example, and he’s going to reestablish it. OK, I suppose this wouldn’t apply to Ukraine because Ukraine’s not part of it.

“But there’s 31 nations, including the United States, that have banded together. And say if one of our nations are struck, we’re all going to go to the defense of it. So now we’re spending some money in Ukraine to make sure he doesn’t go into Poland or the Baltic states, and then the United States will be spending many billion dollars more than what we’re spending now because of our treaty obligations under NATO. And then it would not only be dollars, but it would be American blood.

“For instance, I’ve got a grandson that’s on his way to Romania as part of an NATO operation to show Putin that we’re ready for him if he decides to do more. And then the last thing I would say to you is that the United States and Russia and England thought this way in 1993, Ukraine’s got nuclear weapons because they were part of Russia. And Russia and the United States thought that they ought to give up their nuclear weapons, and they’re willing to do it if we would guarantee their sovereignty. So Russia and United States and England signed the Budapest Agreement in 1993, saying that we will respect your sovereignty. Well, he’s – Putin – violated that agreement. So, if you believe in the rule of law, you know, when you sign an agreement, you want to make sure people live by the agreement.”

The Supreme Court

“My belief is that we should not have term limits for Supreme Court justices, and my feeling is that if you want to come around, and I’m going to tell you why you if asked the same question to me a year or two from now, is because the Supreme Court March of last year put out all new ethics requirements of the court system and I think that they are trying to overcome some of the suspicions that the people have about the ethics of the Supreme Court, the lower courts, and they, they’re trying to tackle it on its own.

“And then, why not legislation? What I am saying is the legislative branch should be independent of the judiciary. If Congress started telling judges how to run the judicial branch of government …”

Voting

Heath Hill, of Ellsworth asked: “It used to be a privilege that the military was granted. That they’re the only ones who get to vote on another day other than the Election Day … privileged that the military had because they weren’t all here. How have we lost that? And how have we become so lazy? So what if we can’t make it a priority to get to vote on the day that we vote then, and I think we lose our right, and I’m so disenfranchised by the early voting and obviously all the things that come with that.”

Grassley: “The inference of the Constitution is the manner of elections shall be decided by state legislatures. But there is an exception for the Congress to step in and do things. So we have. On national elections, we have it all on the same day. We have a Voting Rights Act. …

“Now you say, how do you get to where we are? Well, you get that way under 50 different state laws. The only thing is, it’s been broader attention because of the abuse that we’ve used as an excuse that we had to have more absentee voting because people didn’t want to go to the polls and get COVID … And so it was made much more liberal because of it.

“Now here’s a Republican answer to your question. It’s not a Democrat answer. In a sense, Republicans are kind of waking up to something you don’t want to happen, correct? … Even Trump is waking up to the fact that we ought to learn something from the Democrats and not everybody can be sure (that on) Election Day they can go vote. And if you aren’t sure of that – and just in case you want to be double sure – maybe you want to vote, go to the courthouse and vote, or go to a satellite place and vote, or vote by mail.”

Immigration

“Trump’s remain in Mexico policy would say that if you have reason to have asylum in the United States, you wait ’til you prove that to us while you’re still in Mexico. So, then people don’t come to the border and then wade across the river and get in here and say asylum. … you don’t get asylum, you ask for asylum. And then it takes.”

Trump

“I can say if he gets a second term, unlike he was never involved in government and never involved in politics (before his first term) and you go to Washington, it’s just like Washington is sitting there waiting to eat you up because you don’t know what’s going on. You don’t know how it operates. Well, he knows now.”