Democrats are working to oust Sen. Chuck Grassley from Capitol Hill using the powerful Judiciary Committee chairman's refusal to hold hearings on any Supreme Court nomination by President Barack Obama as ammunition.
The New York Times reports that Grassley, a six-term Iowa Republican running for a seventh term this year, will now face a potential spoiler in The Hawkeye State with a challenge from Patty Judge, a well-liked Democrat who served as lieutenant governor and state agriculture secretary.
In addition, Grassley is taking a daily pounding from Democratic lawmakers, like Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who has repeatedly slammed him for creating "obstruction and chaos" in Washington, according to The Times.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration — hoping to pick its own moderate or liberal judge to replace the late conservative jurist Antonin Scalia — is said to be creating a bulletproof list of diverse Supreme Court candidates it believes Senate Republicans will not be able to ignore.
They are believed to include Jane Kelly, a federal appeals court judge who has lavishly praised by Grassley, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, a federal trial judge related by marriage to House Speaker Paul Ryan.
Other candidates, the newspaper says, may include India-born appellate Judge Sri Srinivasan, 48, and Vietnam-born Jacqueline Nguyen, 51, who fled to the United States from Vietnam in 1975.
But Grassley, with his decades of political clout, may be tough to beat.
A new
Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows Grassley's approval rating is "holding steady" at 57 percent. Only 28 percent disapprove.
While that approval rating is down 7 percentage points from last year, it's still well within Grassley's normal range in recent years, pollster J. Ann Selzer told the Register.
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