Project for Opportunity and Safety

Grassley pushing criminal justice bill; tours Story County jail

Republican Senator Chuck Grassley visited the Story County Jail in Nevada, Iowa and answered a wide range of questions from the public on Friday as part of his annual tour of Iowa’s 99 counties.

The congressman from Iowa is currently sponsoring a bill aimed at criminal justice reform, part of a bipartisan effort aimed at addressing the inflation of prison populations.

The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act looks at shortening overtly long sentences for non-violent drug offenders and is intended to save taxpayer dollars while reducing recidivism, according to Grassley.

A number of state legislatures have already taken initiative on the issue, Grassley said, and the intention is to have the federal bill passed before the party conventions.

“States are the laboratory for our political system,” Grassley said. “I think [that] helped me get to the point where we’ve got this compromise that we have.

“We have 38 co-sponsors. If we can get this bill up it’s going to pass the United States Senate.”

The six-term senator also answered a variety of questions including medicinal marijuana, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Bakken pipeline and education reform.

“It’s probably the first time in 20 years that the federal government has had less regulation of local schools,” Grassley said in response to a question about the Every Student Succeeds Act, which replaced the widely unpopular No Child Left Behind Act last December. “The one thing we don’t want is to have the same thing for Nevada as we do for New York City.”

Grassley also spoke in favor of presidential hopeful Donald Trump, approving of his suggested list of potential Supreme Court nominees and he intends to vote for the sole Republican candidate remaining in the race.

“Based upon the 11 people that he’s suggested are the type of people he’s going to put on the Supreme Court, you’d find almost unanimity among Republicans,” Grassley said. “They’re all what you’d call strict constructionists, or conservatives.

“I still don’t know a lot about [Trump] in sense of his philosophy, but I think that he is helping a lot by naming these 11 people…”

Grassley will be up for reelection in the fall, and his Democratic challenger will be decided on June 7 in the Iowa primary.

State Sen. Robb Hogg and former Lt. Gov. Patty Judge have tried to use the lack of action from Grassley and senate Republicans on Supreme Court nominations to sway voters, but low voter turn out might limit the Democrats’ chances to unseat the incumbent.

“I’m a little surprised there hasn’t been more people watching the debates,” Grassley said. “Kind of a sleepy primary, it looks like.”