Grassley will seek re-election to state house

To the surprise of few, Republican State Representative Pat Grassley of New Hartford officially announced that he would seek his seventh term in the house this fall and spoke with local reporters about the decision on Monday afternoon.
           
“I think that I’m in a pretty good position being chair of the appropriations committee. At the end of the day, it comes down to the fact that I have a lot of opportunities here,” he said. “I feel like it’s what I’m best suited for, and that’s why I made the decision to run again.”
           
Grassley, who farms north of New Hartford, currently represents southern Butler County, northern Hardin County and all of Grundy County in House District 50, and he was first elected to serve Butler and Bremer Counties in 2006. He recalled the rebuilding efforts in those two counties after the 2008 floods and the push to make mental health a higher state priority after the murder of legendary Aplington-Parkersburg football coach Ed Thomas in 2009 as some of the work that makes him the proudest.
           
Today, the representative is a budget wonk on the appropriations committee, spending a large chunk of his time in Des Moines parsing through documents and proposals and trying to find ways to streamline government operations. A traditional Republican on most issues, Grassley broke rank with his party and voted in favor of a one-cent statewide sales tax increase that benefits school districts (previously known as SILO, now SAVE), and he warns that cutting taxes too drastically could result in a revenue crisis like the one in Kansas—a state Democrats have frequently criticized for its fiscal mismanagement.
           
“One of the things that I would be advising to anybody who might ask about tax reform is making sure that we’re being responsible when it comes to budgeting,” he said. “I don’t want us to be in a situation where Iowa taxes increase.” 
 
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