Iowa’s senators visit Fairfield

FAIRFIELD — Iowa Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst spoke with constituents on Wednesday in two very different meetings less than a mile apart.

Grassley held a Q&A for employees of the Jefferson County Health Center, although several other community members also attended. The senator said in-person meetings helped him get to know his voters.

“In email, it’s not as easy to detect what their real attitude is,” he said. “Sometimes it is, but it’s not as easy as when you’re looking them in the face, that’s the real advantage.”

Grassley discussed political polarization at length in his meeting.

“Society as a whole is a little less civil than it used to be, and some of that is going to be reflected in the Congress of the United States,” he said. “You’ve got Fox News jacking up the right and CNN jacking up the left, and those are the things we hear in Congress … I don’t have a right to stand out as an example, because I’m not the best example of bipartisanship.”

Responding to a question about whether political hostility was the new normal, Grassley said he was unsure.

“I don’t think (change) is going to happen overnight, that’s for sure,” he said. “For a guy that’s 88 like I am, it might not happen in my lifetime. But I’m going to do everything I can to help it happen.”

Many at the session asked about what to expect as government budgets rebalance from pandemic-prompted spending, especially on still-relevant issues like financial aid and dollars for local public health.

“How do you see the government helping us locally prepare for the next pandemic?” Jefferson Count Public Health Director Chris Estle asked. “We’ve seen what’s happened with travel health care professionals, what that’s going to do for the cost of service for our clinics. There’s a lot of stuff that needs to be figured out.”

Grassley said he was focused on a return to normal.

“We still consider ourselves in an emergency process for the virus, but less so now than over the last two years,” he said. “What we did throughout 2020 was meant to get us through the virus. I’m getting some questions from people that some of these things ought to be continued forever and ever. The way I look at it … whatever was programmed pre-pandemic, you get through the pandemic, and then the excuse for spending the money during the pandemic has gone away.”

Under a mile away and a few hours later, Joni Ernst met with a smaller group for a more casual conversation in the unfinished building that will soon be Sun and Fun Motor Sports.

“We’re very honored to have the senator come and visit us here,” Sun and Fun Owner Scott Gedkin said. “There’s a lot of things that she can do for us as business owners and for the county and for the city back in Washington. So it’s great that she’s taking the time out of her schedule to come and listen … hopefully we’ve given her something she can take back to her colleagues in Washington, hopefully something gets done.”

Ernst said the unfinished building was an unusual but ideal place for the meeting.

“We were invited to come out and tour this facility because it is a brand-new business that’s coming into Fairfield, and is a demonstration of the different types of funding opportunities,” she said. “This is also kind of a fact-finding mission as well, to figure out, ‘How did you get such a magnificent business and structure here in a rural community,’ because what we want to see is the replication of sites like this across the state.”

The discussion at her meeting focused largely on what Ernst considered overregulations stifling the economy.

"The concern (is) that the federal government is really hampering businesses right now, instead of unleashing innovation and opportunity in some of these rural areas,“ she said. ”There are so many things we can be working on, should work on, we just need some support from the administration.“

One area she, and visitors at the meeting, said needed less regulation was trucking, an industry currently suffering from labor shortage, among other problems.

“I would gladly get rid of the whole system, all of our trucking companies, all of our CDL drivers, have had to invest now in the monitoring equipment for their trucks,” she said. “I wish that we could do it different … they could be an hour from home, and have to pull over and leave their load on the roadside and have somebody come pick them up so they can spend an evening at home. Instead of just driving the darn truck the hour to get home … it just doesn’t make sense.”

Ernst said she agreed with allowing truckers to spend more hours per day behind the wheel, but did not expect it to be enacted any time soon.

“There’s just so much time that is really wasted when you could have a driver that could complete a haul and be at home with their family, or productive things elsewhere,” she said. “We just don’t give them that opportunity and I think that’s really unfortunate … I have not given up, but we seem to run into road blocks with this administration, it’s a lot about control.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com