On Monday we told you about State Sen. Jim Carlin calling out U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley for potentially buying the Iowa House Speakership position for his grandson Pat Grassley. Today, we can confirm that among the 49 Iowa House Republicans who endorsed Chuck Grassley in his run for re-election, the group was received $848,000 from the Hawkeye PAC alone.
This wouldn’t include any money contributed directly from Chuck Grassley or any money raised on behalf of the candidates at a fundraiser Chuck Grassley may have headlined.
When adding up the $535,000 the Hawkeye PAC contributed to the Iowa House Majority Fund in the 2020 election cycle alone, and the individual contributions over time the Hawkeye PAC has given to each representative who endorsed him, the total ends up being an eye-popping $848,000.
The 11 GOP representatives who did not endorse Grassley have received a total of $16,500 — with $15,000 of that coming in 2018 — a campaign in which Grassley contributed $251,000 to 57 different House Republican candidates (meaning just about every Republican running for Iowa House received something from the Hawkeye PAC that year, the year right before Pat Grassley made his run for Speaker of the House).
Many of the 11 Republicans who did not endorse Chuck Grassley in his U.S. Senate primary are members of the Iowa House Conservative Caucus. That list of 11 includes:
Rep. Eddie Andrews
Rep. Terry Baxter
Rep. Brooke Boden
Rep. Mark Cisneros
Rep. Jon Jacobsen
Rep. Anne Osmundson
Rep. Sandy Salmon
Rep. Jeff Shipley
Rep. David Sieck
Rep. Cherielynn Westrich
Rep. Skyler Wheeler
If you took out the donations to the Iowa House Majority Fund and simply considered the average amount the Hawkeye PAC has given to the legislators who endorsed Grassley, it is $6,387 and some change.
The average given to the 11 representatives who did not endorse him is $1,500.
However, the Hawkeye PAC did not contribute anything toward the campaigns of Cisneros and Andrews, who both made history in their elections to the Iowa House for the GOP.
