Iowans react to Grassley town hall

By Thomas Nelson and Kate Hayden, editor@charlescitypress.com

When U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley arrived at the Floyd County Courthouse Thursday morning, both residents of the county and visitors were waiting, many with printed questions in hand.

Starting the event five minutes early, Grassley laid out paper at the podium, which was surrounded by mostly constituents on two sides and media on one said. He started reading out topics from other events through the week.

“If you’d just like to say something to me without me responding, I’d like to listen to two or three or four of those people, and then we’ll go to the questions,” Grassley said, pen poised for his own notes.

After the event, some people said they were unable to attend town halls held by Grassley in their hometowns and came to Charles City because the schedule worked for them. Others said Grassley wouldn’t host public meetings in their county, or respond to invitations to events scheduled by other parties.

Grassley touts his annual effort to go to all 99 Iowa Counties. A placard next to the podium said,”Senator Grassley Meetings Every County, Every Year.”

Julie Fee returned to her hometown of Charles City for the morning, after Grassley did not show to a Black Hawk County event to which he was invited, she said. This was the first of Grassley’s yearly state tour stops that she has attended.

“Grassley has not been in Black Hawk County, where I live, for six years for an open meeting,” Fee said. “We invited him to one last night, and he did not come. It was about the Supreme Court nominee. I thought, ‘If he won’t come to us, we’ll come to him.'”

According to Grassley’s website, the senator visited Black Hawk County this year by having a question-and-answer session Jan. 4 at a Waterloo Rotary Club gathering.

“The senator won’t come to Mason City,” Mark Suby of Mason City said.

The senator held a Cerro Gordo County town hall meeting on Jan. 8 in Clear Lake, according to Grassley’s website.

Suby arrived at 9:30 a.m. to be early for the meeting, but was stuck in the hallway when the crowd became too large for the third-floor courtroom — the largest in the courthouse.

A Charles City High School government class was also unable to enter the courtroom with the crowd for a planned attendance.

“Everyone seemed really furious and really impassioned,” Tahmyrah Lytle of Mason City said.

During the meeting, Lytle questioned Grassley’s support of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who has been widely criticized by Democrats and educators as being unqualified to lead the Department of Education. Lytle received a round of applause from the crowd, but Grassley said her concerns over school choice vouchers would not be realized.

“The fears that you raised can’t be carried out by the Secretary of Education because she has to carry out the laws,” Grassley said, adding that voucher programs would be carried out under state law. “What she’s being criticized for is because she was the head of a non-profit organization that wanted to give parents more choice in education. What’s wrong with giving parents more choice?”

“Some of his answers seemed really dispassionate,” Lytle later said to the Press. “I’m at least glad that he heard us out.”

“I hope that he starts to acknowledge and vote on the national outcry instead of voting for monied interests,” she added.

Grassley also had supporters and past voters speak up in his support, but some also asked him to be wary of partisanship.

“I’d like you to lead all the younger votes away from partisanship, and try to lead them toward compromise, and negotiation, and stuff that makes our government work,” one man requested during the town hall.

“I was pleased to see the turn out,” Janiece Bergland of Floyd said. “It was pretty civil, except for a few people getting a little carried away.”

“It would be too bad if he didn’t go to these meetings, and I’d like to see (Sen.) Joni Ernst and other representatives do the same thing and then act on our concerns,” Bergland said.

“It was handled very well,” Jeff Mitchell of Charles City said. “He handles himself very well.”

Although he said the town hall meeting overall went fine, Dwayne Miller of Charles City said he was disappointed immigration wasn’t covered more, adding that Charles City has a local immigrant population.

“I haven’t seen one bad person yet that’s done anything that should send them back to Mexico,” Miller said, referencing recent national reports of immigrant deportations.

Frank Salomon of Iowa City stood out in the Floyd County Courthouse hallway, holding a sign that read “U.S.A. saved my refugee parents, honor America by saving refugees.”

His parents were Jews in Germany in 1938, Salomon said.

“They desperately had to get out and they just barely did,” he said. “I owe it to my late parents to speak up before we let go of a wonderful tradition.”

Some of those that came had attended previous town halls held in Iowa.

“I thought it was moderate compared to the one in Garner,” Edith Haenel of Northwood said. “It’s pretty much Grassley being Grassley.”

She attempted to ask a question during the town hall, but was denied by Grassley, because she had been at a previous meeting.

“I called for him to answer the question that was being asked,” Haenel said. “He didn’t answer any of the questions about Trump’s lies.”