Chuck Grassley Quotes

One of the things I give Nancy Pelosi a lot of credit for is that she's able to get things passed and hold her members together because she shows us that she's doing everything possible to get our views into these bills.

There are lot of issues we passed out of the House that have gotten not only a lot of Republican support - Tea Party and every group within the Republican conference - but even Democrats.

I will not be making appointments to a committee that is not bipartisan.

The system requires bipartisanship.

The one thing I'm convinced George W. Bush is good at is bipartisanship. It's clearly something he enjoys personally.

There is but one way for a president to deal with Congress, and that is continuously, incessantly, and without interruption. If it is really going to work, the relationship has got to be almost incestuous.

I really don't think there's a lack of good will between members of the parties. I go back a long way with a lot of Republicans, so I don't think it's personal. But there does seem to be a much greater gap in both the philosophy and emphasis on partisan victories as opposed to policy development.

When I was elected governor of my state, I had a legislature 87 percent Democrat. It was not lost on me that to get anything done, I couldn't be attacking them. I had to find ways to reach out to them.

I've thought about it, not a lot, but I thought my relationship with Congress - the Democrats and Republicans - would help me get some things done. Not everything, but at least they'd be willing to try.

Periods of cooperation between political parties shouldn't be taken for granted; they are a stunning human achievement.

The only bipartisanship you ever see is when they finally sign a bill and everybody says, 'Gee, isn't that wonderful?'

You start from the broad premise that all of us have a common duty to the country to perform. Legislation is always the art of the possible. You could, of course, follow a course of solid opposition, of stalemate, but that is not in the interest of the country.

The secret to legislative success in Virginia is courtesy, patience, and persistence; you usually get what you want. You won’t get it if you scream about it, and you won’t get it if you’re not willing to wait a long time.

We are hugely and sometimes willfully ignorant about the arts of politics and governing, especially about the utter necessity of compromise.

We are going to get the Civil Right Bill! Dirksen is going to come out in support…. and don’t ask me what I had to give him.

It typically takes bipartisan work to build enough consensus to get things through our legislative process.

When you hang the 'bipartisan' tag on something, the perception is that differences have been worked out, and there's a broad agreement that that's the way forward.

Gingrich, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, and Clinton passed legislation because they understood and appreciated the difficult political process. They fought for their principles yet recognized the need for compromise to get anything done.

While we always strive to reach 218 with Republican votes, sometimes that is not possible with divided government, and the story of a bill that passed with 150 Republican votes is much more positive and assertive than the story of a bill that passes with 79 Republican votes.

Virginians want you to work across the aisle.

The way I've gotten things done is by working with Democrats and Republicans. I worked with Jay Rockefeller, for example, on highway safety issues.

I'm confident that Senate Republicans will put up a very strong and valiant effort to continue doing what we're united around.

When Congress puts party labels aside, like we did on VA reform, we can accomplish some great things for the American people. But those occasions were far too rare.

[Barack Obama] needs to really engage both Republicans and Democrats.

One of the problems the Republican Party has had is that we're too fast to compromise. You can compromise on the little stuff, but you can't compromise on your core principles.