Charles 'Chuck' Ernest Grassley of Iowa currently holds a seat on the U.S. Senate and will be on the ballot for reelection in the general election of November, 2010. Grassley is a Republican, and will face off against challenger Roxanne Barton Conlin, who was once head of the Iowa Democratic Party.

Grassley's political career began in 1958, when he was elected to the Iowa state legislature. He has held some sort of elected office continuously since that time. In 1974, Grassley became a member of Congress, and then in 1980 he beat out Senator John Culver (a Democrat) to sit on the Senate of the United States. Since then he has won every reelection race with between 54 and 70 percent of the vote.http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/external/pre-election/state_candidates/IA.html?SITE=NPRELN&SECTION=PREELECTION&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Grassley was born on September 17, 1933 in the city of New Hartford, Iowa.http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/external/pre-election/state_candidates/IA.html?SITE=NPRELN&SECTION=PREELECTION&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT He grew up on a farm that his parents owned, and claims to have learned financial frugality watching them eke out a living. Grassley bore 5 children of his own at a relatively young age, and had to work at 3 jobs to keep the bills paid. Grassley is one of 28 senators in history who has cast 10,000 votes.http://grassley.senate.gov/about/More-About-Grassley.cfm

Grassley has introduced legislation regarding a variety of issues during his years in the Senate. These include the Judicial Transparency and Ethics Enhancement Act of 2009, the Physician Payments Sunshine Act of 2009, the Hedge Fund Transparency Act, the Frivolous Lawsuit Prevention Act of 2009 and the Medicare Rural Health Access Improvement Act of 2009.http://grassley.senate.gov/issues/legislation_introduced.cfm