The First 100 Days of a Chuck Grassley Presidency: What the Record Suggests

Hero image: Iowa State Capitol — via Wikimedia Commons.

01 The scenario

This is a scenario analysis, not a prediction that the person will become president and not an endorsement or criticism of the person. This article does not predict that Chuck Grassley will become president. It asks a hypothetical question: if the Iowa Republican were ever sworn in, what would the first 100 days look like based on his documented record?

Grassley is a distinctive subject for this exercise for two reasons. First, at 81-plus he is the longest-serving Iowan in Senate history and, as President pro tempore, already third in line to the presidency — the only senator in this series who has stood in the succession line itself. Second, his agenda maps unusually well onto day-one executive levers: EPA waivers, USDA payments, tariff relief and platform enforcement are all administrative actions a president can order alone. A reasonable inference from these positions is a first 100 days that opens with executive actions on biofuels and farm aid, and sends the Section 230 sunset and abortion legislation to Congress.

02 The record: who Chuck Grassley is

Grassley has represented Iowa in the Senate since 1981 — the longest-serving Iowan, the “dean of the Senate.” On Jan. 3, 2025 he was sworn in as President pro tempore for the second time (S. Res. 3), succeeding Sen. Murray, becoming third in line of presidential succession and only the second Iowan ever to hold the post after Albert B. Cummins in 1919. He chairs the Judiciary Committee — the second Iowan and, per judiciary.senate.gov, the first non-lawyer in history to chair it. He is a fourth-generation grain farmer from New Hartford who still farms corn and soybeans, a former Iowa state legislator (1959-1975) and U.S. House member (1975-1981), famous for his daily work ethic and town halls in all 99 counties.

His 119th committee roster beyond the Judiciary chairmanship was not verified item-by-item in this pass (a Budget referral is noted on S.Con.Res. 33); treat other assignments as moderate confidence until verified on senate.gov.

03 Big Tech and Section 230: the accountability file

On Dec. 18, 2025, Grassley joined Sens. Graham (R-SC) and Durbin (D-IL) introducing the Sunset Section 230 Act, repealing Section 230 immunity two years after enactment so users harmed by online platforms can sue. His office explicitly calls it out: “For nearly 30 years, Section 230 has provided Big Tech cover as they turn a blind eye to heinous crimes committed on its platforms... I'm glad to join my colleagues in this bipartisan effort to update our nation's laws, rein in Section 230 and hold Big Tech accountable.” He chaired two 2025 Judiciary hearings on online safety and child exploitation and introduced three related bills; with Durbin he introduced a “landmark legislative package to protect kids online” (Dec. 9, 2025) targeting lax sentencing laws and online harms.

The lever analysis is strict: Section 230 is a cause-of-action shield — its repeal cannot happen by executive order and would require congressional approval rather than unilateral presidential action. But a president CAN direct FTC and DOJ enforcement posture toward platforms on day one. A reasonable inference from these positions is a Grassley presidency that opens platform-enforcement directives at FTC/DOJ immediately while pushing the sunset bill through Congress — with the Judiciary background to know exactly where the statute's seams are.

04 Biofuels, E15, and the farm economy: the day-one levers

Grassley's biofuel record spans the full 2025-2026 period: with Sen. Fischer (R-NE) he reintroduced bipartisan legislation authorizing year-round, nationwide E15 sales (Feb. 14, 2025); with Ernst (R-IA) and Klobuchar (D-MN), legislation expanding consumer access to homegrown biofuels (Aug. 7, 2025); and an Oct. 3, 2025 floor remark whose title is the position statement: “Any Legislation with Ad Hoc Payments to Farmers Should Include Year-Round, Nationwide E15.” In 2026 he pressed to cut the phosphate tariff and expand E15 to ease rising ag-input costs, backing fertilizer-relief measures amid price surges.

The lever split gives this scenario its most concrete day-one moves: a president can order EPA to grant a permanent RVP waiver for E15 — an administrative win requiring no statute — and USDA ad-hoc payments are administratively designed at USDA. The phosphate-tariff relief he seeks runs through presidential tariff authority. A reasonable inference from these positions is a first 100 days that delivers E15 relief and farm aid by executive action, with the Fischer bill as the statutory backstop — and a farmer-president who would not need a briefing book on why fertilizer prices matter.

05 Abortion and the Judiciary gavel

With Sen. Ernst (R-IA), and originally with Lindsey Graham, Grassley has repeatedly reintroduced the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act — the 20-week abortion ban — from the Judiciary Committee, which he chairs.

The lever is unambiguous: an abortion ban is statute, and would require congressional approval rather than unilateral presidential action. But the Judiciary chairmanship is the scenario's structural asset — a President Grassley would arrive having controlled judicial-nomination hearings, the pathway for abortion legislation, and the Section 230 and online-safety bills of the 119th Congress. His Judiciary tenure is the reason a first-100-days Grassley agenda would be unusually fluent on which of its pieces are bills and which are orders.

06 Whistleblower protections and oversight

Grassley is Co-Chair of the Senate Whistleblower Protection Caucus; on July 22, 2025 he joined legislation strengthening whistleblower protections for federal contractors. His career-long oversight record includes FBI scrutiny and agency FOIA compliance enforcement.

On Dec. 11, 2025, Iowa's senators joined most Republicans rejecting the Obamacare-subsidy extension and supporting the Crapo-Cassidy reform alternative; during the 43-day shutdown he donated his shutdown paychecks to three Iowa churches (Nov. 20, 2025 statement). With Sen. Smith (D-MN) he also reintroduced bipartisan college-cost transparency bills (May 1, 2025) as Education resumed student-loan collections.

The whistleblower levers split cleanly: most protections are statutory, but Inspectors General appointments and whistleblower-retaliation enforcement are executive — a president could install IGs and order retaliation enforcement on day one, which fits a Grassley oversight instinct documented across five decades.

07 President pro tempore: the succession-line perspective

Grassley has already held the office this series hypothesizes about — not the presidency itself, but its succession line. As President pro tempore he signs enrolled legislation and presides in the vice president's absence; the role is constitutionally third in line to the presidency.

The scenario value of that experience is procedural fluency: a president who has signed enrolled bills, chaired the committee that processes judicial nominations and most domestic-safety statutes of the 119th Congress, and served under six-plus administrations arrives knowing precisely which first-100-days moves are executive and which are legislative. A reasonable inference from these positions is a presidency that pairs immediate administrative action on biofuels, farm aid and oversight enforcement with a precise legislative calendar — the exact inversion of a first 100 days spent discovering the levers.

08 What the record cannot tell us

The evidence runs out in specific places. His full 119th committee roster beyond the Judiciary chairmanship was not verified item-by-item in this pass. Whether the Sunset Section 230 Act received a hearing or a vote is not verified. There is not enough public evidence to determine a Grassley position on tariffs beyond phosphate-tariff relief, or on artificial intelligence specifically — his tech focus is Section 230 and child safety, and no AI position is inferred. His stance on the final November 2025 shutdown-ending package specifically was not verified (only the Dec. 11 health-care votes and the paycheck donation are confirmed).

What the record does suggest is a first 100 days that begins with administrative action on the farm economy — an E15 waiver, USDA payments, phosphate-tariff relief — and platform-enforcement posture at FTC/DOJ, while Congress receives the Section 230 sunset, the kids-online package, the 20-week ban and college-cost transparency bills. Whether an 81-plus-year-old president's first 100 days would resemble his Senate work ethic — the daily schedule, the 99-county town halls — is beyond what the public record can tell us.