Grassley Embraces View of Representative Government

In our editorial endorsement of Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley for re-election in 2016, we said this: After more than 40 years in Congress (six years in the House and nearly 36 years in the Senate), Charles Grassley is today much the same public servant he was when he first arrived in Washington, D.C. He’s an honest man of integrity who reflects the priorities and values of Iowans and stays connected to the needs of his constituents.

Those words resonate for us today, two years later, in the wake of two Grassley accomplishments of note this summer.

— In July, Grassley marked 25 years of no missed Senate votes by casting his 8,169th consecutive vote (the streak remains alive today at 8,219). In January 2016, he set the record for longest length of time without missing a vote in the history of the Senate, breaking the old mark held by late Wisconsin Sen. William Proxmire.

The last time Grassley missed a vote was in 1993 when he was back home in Iowa at a time when the state was ravaged by flooding.

In other words, Grassley is, each and every day, engaged in the process and decisions of our federal government in service of voters who provided him with the privilege of holding public office.

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