Max Baucus — a leading national Democrat who represented Montana in the U.S. Senate and U.S. interests in China as Ambassador during the Obama administration — today endorsed the re-election of Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa.
“Chuck Grassley is a true public servant and friend,” Baucus said. “He is dedicated to representing the grassroots of his state and doing the hard work it takes to develop and deliver bipartisan legislation all the way to the president’s desk. Chuck and I became good friends when we alternated chairing the Senate Finance Committee. We met weekly. His office, my office, didn’t make any difference. Even if we didn’t have business to talk about, we talked about our grandkids. We cleared our schedules so that we met every week. We missed only 10 meetings over about 12 years. We worked together. Never argued, we looked for solutions. We got them, too. Almost all legislation reported out of our committee was not partisan. Iowans benefit tremendously from Chuck’s character, integrity, and work ethic. His commitment to work across the aisle is all the more valuable in a time of too much partisanship.”
“This endorsement means a lot to me,” Grassley said. “Senator Baucus and I got so much done together with legislative initiatives and policy challenges for 10 years on the Finance Committee. We shared a determination to find ways to help farmers, retirees, working families, adoptive parents, manufacturers, transportation workers, energy producers, and innovators across our economy. Max was so effective for his constituents in Montana, and he was committed to the processes of representative government that bring about solutions with staying power for the public good.”
Baucus and Grassley served alternatively as Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Finance from 2001 to 2011. Baucus represented Montanans in the U.S. Senate from 1978 to 2014, when he was appointed as the 11th U.S. Ambassador to China. He ended his ambassadorship in 2017 when Iowa Governor Terry Branstad was nominated to be the next Ambassador to China.
The Lugar Center and Georgetown University’s McCourt School ranked Chuck Grassley 12th in its bipartisan cooperation index for the most recently completed session of Congress, calculated by co-sponsorship of bills and the ability to work across the aisle. He ranks 6th of the current senators in lifetime score and 14 for all senators in lifetime score.
The nonpartisan Center for Effective Lawmaking ranked Senator Grassley as one of the top 10 most-effective senators in the 116th Congress.
In the previous six years, Grassley has worked on 1,326 pieces of legislation. Of those, 312 passed the Senate, and 52 were signed into law. All Grassley bills that were signed into law were bipartisan bills. In 2019, Senator Grassley led the Senate in most bills enacted into law.
