Iowa Press; 1522; Fred Grandy

The I will crush show number 15 20 to topic is Representative Grandy the. The. I am Major funding for this program was provided by friends of Iowa Public Television. During his first year in Congress he favored aid to the Contras and pushed for reform of the farm credit system. He's the freshman Iowa congressman from Sioux City tonight and I will press a talk with six district Republican Congressman Fred Grandy. This is the Sunday March 6th edition of Iowa promise here is being

born. Good evening. He's been in office a year and perhaps now can shed his often repeated line during the campaign that he says it seemed to be his only strong connection to Iowa and that was that he was a legislative aide to Iowa Representative Wiley Maine in the early 1970s. But a former actor a former California and now Iowa congressman Fred Grandy is making his own inroads in Iowa and in the Congress. Nancy Crowfoot files this report. Thanks. Me I would say in my hometown there. There was a return to the state after a 25 year absence and under the constant attack of being called a carpetbagger. He won the Sixth District congressional seat. By 2000 votes. Now what kind of Congressman you want me to be. What do you want. And don't for a minute think that I won't be back here enough to talk to you to talk with you and I will be back there talking for you.

That's what you asked for and that's what you are not God. Spoken like a true politician. And for the most part you may be voting that way. This constituency wants. However his first disagreement with his constituency may have come just a year after taking office. Stop this reckless waste. Tell your congressman Fred Grandy to vote no on any more aid to the Contras despite an active campaign in his district against offering military aid to the Contras Grandy sided with President Reagan and in January voted to approve aid. He was the only Iowa representative to do so for corn. We are no competitive has in your estimation and the generic certificate program for corn become a de facto marketing committee. Randy sits on the House Agriculture Committee and has among other things worked to reform the farm credit system. He also sits on the House Education and Labor

Committee with Iowa's second district congressman Republican Tom talky. He has also tapped his Hollywood past to last year help Governor Branstad promote Iowa as a prime location for filmmaking. Economic development within the state. Foreign policy and foreign affairs too are some of the issues we'll be talking about tonight with our guest U.S. Representative Fred Grandy a Republican from Sioux City with a question by David yu Upson political reporter with The Des Moines Register. And by Allison Hadley reporter with WOIO Public Radio in Ames. Congressman Grandy you voted for Contra aid polls show most Iowans are opposed to that. Why did you vote against the way most Iowans feel. Well David first of all let me say a word about about the polls I got the distinct impression after the vote that there were really two polls there was an orchestrated organized poll to a large extent I think began outside the district and then perhaps incorporating a lot of sentiment in the district.

But once that was up and underway and these ads were on the air there was also a spontaneous outpouring of support for the Contras which when we total it up and I'm talking about calls to my district office. Accounted for about 400 phone calls about 60 percent of those people favored contrail and military. I'm not sorry I'm talking about public opinion polls not these orchestrated postcard deals and well I'm talking I'm time but I've never seen a poll that shows Iowans favoring military aid because well you voted for that I did and I did and why are you voting against the interest your constituents first of all I think that this is not an issue where you can just take a poll and vote that way I think that there's a lot more here than popular opinion. As I conducted my town meetings around the district it became very clear to me that a lot of people were not aware of the Communist presence and the nature of that exploited communist presence in the countries like El Salvador and Honduras. Nor were they aware of issues such as the complete exile of every Jew in Nicaragua that had been thrown out of the country nor were they aware of some of the things that Daniel Ortega has done

subsequent to the vote such as closing down the ministry of justice such as getting rid of Obama to a brothel as the mediator. So I had to take. My. The sentiment of my district. Information that I had from sources in Central America and advice and counsel from colleagues and I might say the White House information was perhaps the least formed in the smallest part of the argument and based my decision on that. Just last week you voted no on thirty point eight million dollars in humanitarian aid to the Contras. Why did you vote yes on military aid and no on humanitarian aid. Well the package that the speaker put forward I thought was among other things an invitation to put American personnel in a hostile situation in a war zone because the contracting was being moved from the CIA to the Department of Defense now you can say well that's just a contract. But there are CIA personnel would oversee that delivery system. It would follow that American military personnel would be overseeing it too. You have

the the House Intelligence Committee making the final arbitration as to whether there's a ceasefire in Nicaragua. Now at least in the president's package the House has offered a concurrent resolution to determine whether or not a ceasefire was in place and military aid should or should not flow. I thought that we should at least return the favor and have two branches of government involved in them in the decision and finally the aid was cash which means that that is for food clothing medical cash for those supplies. The problem is if that money flows into the wrong hands whether you're for the Contras or for the Sandinista government it could be misused and I thought it was a very poor package. Are you uncomfortable with the appearance to people who don't know what all the you know all those details that you're just for military aid and not for humanitarian aid. Well quite honestly subsequent to that vote I haven't heard from one constituent either way as to as to that particular opinion. Obviously Thursday of last week I know I didn't weigh that but I think that this this vote is so complicated that you have to you have to deal with the slings are now and and

the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune here when you're when you're dealing with with an issue this complicated and quite honestly if I do nothing else in my tenure in Congress it will be to continue to try to educate the people I represent this issue. Let's talk about the politics of this vote for a minute. You Greenwich Village you talk about military OK your vote for military action. Assuming that public opinion polls are correct in that most Iowans do not support military aid this does put you as a freshman member of Congress from a marginally from a close district you only won by 2000 votes on the wrong side of a hefty load of Iowa public opinion. And when we have to if we have to write your obituary after one term will it be because you did this are you really flying in the face of public opinion here. Well again I don't know what polls you favor. What polls I favor I can tell you that subsequent to the vote we have gone in and done a survey of our own and got a figure that said something like 43 percent of the people that we sampled

said this was not a determining factor in their support or lack of support for me. So I'm not sure that my obituary when and if it comes is going to be one Contra aid. I hope not I'd rather go down on something as Daniel Ortega go back to the issue from it you see is he a threat to our national security. I tend to think he is I if I didn't believe that I would if I didn't believe that the contra vote the first one the military it was the best combination of diplomacy and pressure to force a cease fire I would not have thought of that what if he's a threat to our national security and why don't we send in U.S. troops and get it over with. Because I think that we are not quite ready to make a commitment of American servicemen into that area if there are other levers to pull we should pull up the significant thing you'd ever see. We're not quite ready that we may be ready. I hope we never have to get to that step. That's one of the major reasons I voted against this last package was simply because I didn't want to commit American servicemen in any way shape or form to that war that Lyndon Johnson hoped he wouldn't have to get into Vietnam the way he did and yet step by step increment by increment this country

got sucked in to Iraq morass and Vietnam aren't you by your vote starting us down that same path again. If you vote no if you completely withdraw. And Ortega does continue to escalate communism and to export it into Honduras and El Salvador. Then what's your alternative. To come back with a military component. Let me just say that I think that when we're talking about Central America that is an area of the world that is always going to be strategically difficult to contain. It is the land bridge between North and South America you have the canal there no matter who owns it. And there will probably be skirmishes if not outright wars in that area for some time to come what the destabilization now in Panama has to do with all this mix is there any connection. I'm not sure yet I know that Ortega has apparently thrown his support to Noriega which I think is depending on how you feel about it. But communist government in Nicaragua are either extraordinarily ill timed or remarkably consistent with you supporting monetary and aid not military aid but humanitarian aid if you knew that you know Americans would be doubting that in that zone.

Yes I would say I would supporting an attorney in a package and as a matter of fact I think another will be forthcoming. This is certainly not the last chapter on contract. Don't we have a situation here Congressman where by the time this is all done every member of Congress will be able to say voted on every side of the issue and depending on the audience you're in front of I could say that having been in Congress for only a year. Well here let me give you an example I voted against the continuing resolution which ended our session last Congress there was a 14 million dollar component for Contra aid in that and a lot of people at the White House said please vote for the continuing resolution as contrary to Nancy I'm not going to vote for it no matter what's in it. It's five hundred ninety four billion dollars in one vote. So I think we've already come to that point. There's all kinds of political cover here if you want to take you said this isn't the final chapter you don't think Jim Wright has had a defeat in the most recent vote on humanitarian aid. President Reagan had one on the military aid. What's likely to come is are likely to come a compromise here or not we're not. Idealistically a bipartisan a real bipartisan approach not a right Reagan

an exchange of headlines approach. Could happen but I think the burden of proof is still on the speaker because he had promised a moderate and conservative colleagues on the Democratic side to come up with a package that could be passed that did not happen and it was really the defection of liberal Democrats that defeated that package like a consonant and it didn't vote for it for the reasons that I stated earlier the deal the commitment. Congressman let's come closer to home OK. Agriculture you're on the house Ag Committee who've been active on those issues. After having spent a year of grappling with with these problems which arguably may be more complex than Central America what is your view of a long term solution to the problems facing American agriculture. Where are you headed on that house Ag Committee in the solutions that you support. For a long term solution to these problems. Well I guess one of the interesting and exciting things about getting appointed to the house as a community is I didn't realize how vast

its purview could be. And I sit on a committee that is supposedly dealing with the day to day custody of the commodity programs. But this takes in world trade. It takes in the environment because of the groundwater. The Ag Committee wrote the major banking bill with 1987 the Farm Credit Act and now we're moving into areas of taxation over which we have no purview but strangely enough I spend as much of my time dealing with tax issues as I do with farm issues. What that means is is I think a vast restructuring one of the Department of Agriculture because unfortunately I think that they still are locked into the management of these tried and not social programs. But there is no commitment to what we're going to do with research. In other words are we going to process more of what we produce. If we're going to talk about set asides are we going to limit that discussion in the United States or are we going to try to include the common market. And your point what are the answers to those question I think clearly I think clearly we have to have an Agriculture Department that is more trade oriented that is more globally oriented and has more research. Oriana

but if I were going to rename the Department of Agriculture circa the year 2000 I would call it trade science and agriculture. But isn't that up to the Congress and the administration to structure that edge to purpose not what do they know or own. I guarantee you they won't know what to to do that you're going to have to reshuffle a bureaucracy you're going to have to have a commitment in Congress and the White House to say this is the kind of Horizon agriculture we want because we can't just continue this particular farm program which although it's working in the short term is basically producing surpluses hurting the environment and in the long run probably keeping us less can competitive globally. Let's talk about some of those specific issues that would get to that overall global strategy. Farm subsidies are very important to many Iowa farmers in fact some are saying that the farm subsidies that come into Iowa are largely responsible to the turnaround in the state's economy. Many are talking about decoupling cutting the link between farm subsidies and production. Do you feel that farmers should just get a cash payment similar to that that it was which is given to welfare recipients.

I'm not sure that's that's the ultimate answer I think that may be part of our 1990 farm bill but I think that we have to go beyond just decoupling payment from production and perhaps offer some payment for quality. We don't grow that much wheat particularly in line districts. But the fact of the matter is the farm payments have forced farmers who produce wheat to produce a a yield of wheat that is really not that good for baking. We should go back and be trying to to encourage farmers to produce those commodities which can be reprocessed into value added commodities and I think we have to offer some kind of incentive for that. I also think that the more land we take out of production These are the the Conservation Reserve Program or the set aside programs while it might be helping the farmers is hurting those rural communities because the input services are not being replenished so you don't see any more 10 year set aside for the Conservation Reserve Program where bonuses are offered to take land out of production because it hurts the fertiliser the seed that effect just si RPN and of itself is not

bad but if you add to that a 20 percent set aside paid land diversion and another corn diversion above that you're talking about certain counties that are already beginning to bump against their limit in terms of the acres they can take out of production. Look at the towns in those counties. President Randy if you pull out those farm subsidies many farmers will no longer have an income. What you're not going to pull him out I mean look at how well Pete DuPont did in the state with that kind of argument. But I think what you are going to have to do is have you as you phase them down you're going to have to phase us into a more kind of globally negotiated agriculture. Talk about a five year plan a ten year plan. You know very little subsidies Well if you if you follow the GATT talks they're talking about trying to do it by the year 2000. I even think that is a little bit optimistic. Are you optimistic about the future of Iowa given the reality that farm subsidies however you get there are going to be reduced. That is the input like you talk about the input services and agriculture the less

demand for that. We're seeing you know I was population growth flat or declining birth rates are down. I mean maybe it's throwing a softball ask a politician if he's optimistic but where is the optimism and I was future given what you're seeing the future of agriculture becoming. Well as long as you're going to throw me that softball I'm going to try and hit it out of the parish. We still have our natural resources and and I'm not going to get into the the normal what is almost become a litany of candidates about the the work ethic of the island people and the quality of life because we know all that there's no need to to get into that here talking in terms of agriculture our natural resource use corn and we grow that better than just about any other part of the world. And we will continue to do that because of our soil so that is an enormous resource that we should have and should be continuing to develop. Now I think as long as we can protect that as long as we can find markets for that whether it is into Hants ethanol production via the Clean Air Act or whether it is coal

polymers for plastic or soy from soybeans. That's what our dollars ought to be doing down the line deploying those commodities into valuated and job creations. Because although I'm obviously approving of the government's and the governor's attempts to to get jobs in Iowa and bring business in I think I still think we do better when we home grow our own our own biz are we in danger of losing food. Aside from the family farm are we in danger in our future of having too much of Iowa's natural resource and farmland owned by corporations. Well I think there is always that potential there. But I also think that there are enough there are enough backstops against that to keep that from happening. I think you've got at least a legislature that will prohibit that. I think you've got members of Congress I include myself that would keep that from happening the natural way is for those corporations insurance companies banks and I'm including those in. They've increased the ownership just because many farmers have gone broke in the past few years

that ownership has increased somewhat dramatically. Well yeah but against that I would put the new agricultural Credit Act which clearly favors the individual farmer almost at the expense of the borrower who has kept current in his payments. Now the borrower is being restructured has a chance to get that land back and that might change the mix a little bit assuming commodity prices stay at around the same level. Congressman Radel we've been talking a bit about the soil but underneath the surface is the ground water you mentioned before that groundwater protection is something that. It is important in Iowa and indeed lawmakers I think last year passed a groundwater Protection Act for Iowa. Senator Harkin last week introduced a bill that would extend that type of legislation nationally on the federal level. If that came up it surely would come up on AG on which you serve. What's your current position on federal legislation for groundwater protection along the lines of the same thing that happened here in Iowa. Well I brought the house Ag Committee subcommittee chairman George Brown on to

Humboldt County to investigate that. And he represents an area of citrus in Southern California. He came out I think with a very regulatory bent. He wanted to see if we could write a law to regulate groundwater. He looked at a level of groundwater in a home bolted very 100 feet within five miles. He looked at different kinds of contamination that was so different that to try and regulate that with one rule even boggle his sentiments and he's always been very environmentally oriented. So what we went back to Congress and did was work on kind of a best management practices approach which Coates what the Agriculture Department the U.S. Geological Survey and the Environmental Protection Agency are all collecting right now. To provide advice to farmers and that's I would like to pursue that that approach either through conservation techniques or through advice as opposed to regulation. Until we are absolutely sure it doesn't work and although I haven't looked at Senator Harkin's approach I'm not sure that we have not passed that point.

How are you going to convince fertilizer companies that they need to cut back on sales to farmers so that the groundwater will be protected without any regulation. Well I'm not sure you are and maybe you do have to come in and limit their abilities but let me just say this in the hearings that we had in Washington the fertilizer people were more in touch with their constituencies and telling them about perhaps the over applications that they had advised prior to this problem becoming one of national interest. Much more so than the Department of Agriculture. My concern is that the Department of Agriculture was ceding all its territory to the EPA and that means that the farmers are going to get punished. Now who has a greater interest in groundwater than the farmer. He drinks ship his livestock his livestock and drinks it and he needs it to farm so I mean this guy is not an environmental bandit. He has the initial interest I think but it isn't his economic interest to have large crops because we write those kinds of farm programs you know that you know it's hard to take one away from the other. And the

groundwater issue I think eventually is going to figure into the 1994 Bill. Kind of the last time you're on the shows back during the campaign I asked you about the deficit and raising taxes and you said you might be as a last resort. And that got misrepresented in the campaign only only got out but OK it's been over a year now. And are we at the last resort. Is it not is it now time for Congress to start thinking about raising some taxes. Well it's always going past that point because you have a two year deficit reduction package that contains 23 billion dollars in new taxes which I oppose and leaves you with a deficit of one hundred and twenty billion I believe something where you know well supposedly if you if you while you're in all our figures show that at least in this year alone the deficit will be a billion dollars higher than it was the year before so I'm I don't I'm not going to swear off on that accounting but I guess what I've seen now that I've been in the appropriations process and I see I see what we don't do about restraining federal spending. We had nine appropriation bills this summer.

Every one of them had a spending increase. Every one of them had a cut in net increase in almost every one of them was defeated the only place we made substantive cuts was in the budget of the architect of the Capitol which means we will have fewer flags we're not ready to start voting for some tax increase no because I don't think we played on what you might hear in that year that you've spent in the Congress. What have you accomplished. What have I accomplished. When you think your biggest accomplishment of then. Well I would I would take part of some of the greater accomplishments such as the Farm Credit Act and the ground water research bill and and the Older Americans Act but I would say things that I have done individually closer to home are more kind of little battles I fought in one with the bureaucracy getting the Department of Agriculture to change compliance on its very big deal back home for a lot of people in my area and getting the IRS to reverse its stand on the pick and roll taxation the double taxation for farmers. These are these are little battles but when you come home and

realize at the end of the year that you've raised the debt ceiling by half a trillion dollars or whatever and it's either coming home and telling your constituents that you did that or save the life of a dairy cow in Sioux County you're going to take the letters you know you have to be I think satisfied with some smaller accomplishments at the beginning. Have you lived down the gopher image. Well I would I guess I would offer this anecdote. I was giving a having a town meeting in Akron in Plymouth County and a fellow came up to me after the meeting and he said you know I didn't vote for you because I thought we had too many actors in Washington. No I don't think we have enough. So I assume that's a compliment kind of a personal question. Many people followed your race even though they were voters in your district because you were a television star for a number of years and he's been probably a major adjustment for you to go from Hollywood star going to TV series marry a congressman in Washington how do you like Washington. I like Congress. I don't like Washington for for a great rebuttal you need my wife

on this program because she she actually lives in what Washington is supposed to be which is I to me kind of occupied territory and you know we're expecting a child now so we're going to be moving out to two part of Virginia but I think that it's a nice place to vote but I wouldn't want to live there. And I do feel more fulfilled as a congressman that opposed to being an actor of course. Sure you do because this time your rhetoric has a little bit of responsibility to it. And although there are more frustrations there are many more stimulations. This job is not all it's cracked up to be but it's a lot more than what my old job. So I was going back to the contract renewed every two years though. Well before it was just 13 weeks. Let's talk just a couple minutes of politics before you're expected to run for re-election this year I think you're going to announce and I'm going are as of tomorrow. What about there's some talk that you might want to run for the U.S. Senate in 1990.

Any truth to that. Well let me go back to that to the family side of that. We're hopefully going to have a baby the end of September. I'm I'm newly married and I am constantly going back and forth between Washington and Iowa right now the the demands that I see on a congressional race don't bode well for a warm loving sharing family life if you to if you assume a Senate race is six times as difficult because there are 16 directional dish districts that that really doesn't appeal to me. All right does that mean you're going to quit after another term. No I wouldn't say that but I think that I would be I would probably be better at mastering the travel and craft of a congressman than to put all that in jeopardy and run for the Senate. I will I will lose a congressman after the 1900 portion a lot of Democrats are talking about throwing you a Jim Ross Lightfoot together industry could you beat him in a primary. I would. That's I think the last thing I would want to do is run against Jim Lightfoot he's one of my best friends in Congress and I would have to think very seriously about what it was all worth it if if Lightfoot and I were redistricted together.

You have not to this point indorsed a presidential candidate and you know who do you support. Well I don't I don't really I don't really play in that field. I mean I have been obviously supportive of Bush. I worked with Dorell on the pick and roll tax thing. But to tell you the truth I got a little irritated with both of them near the end of the run and then particularly in New Hampshire they looked like two kids in a sandbox and I felt that I've got a tough re-election fight why I pick my own supporters against each other when they're becoming emotionally involved in this fight. So I've stayed out of it. And quite honestly if I go through the entire reelection process without swearing off on either one of these candidates I could live with that very comfortably. Well you lean towards who I lean towards. Well for without and without without making a philosophical choice I would say that I probably had more dealings with the bill because of the agriculture related issues that we worked

on. But that's not to say that I don't think Bush would be I wouldn't be a capable leader with with that we have to end. And you can't pin him down. Thank you very much Congressman for you for being our guest tonight and I will press that I will press will not be seen next Sunday night at that time will be bringing you special festival programming so we would like to see you then for a panelist tonight Dave yaps and Allison Hadley. I'm Dean Borg on Iowa Public Television. Take one is next. Major funding for Iowa press was provided by friends of Iowa

Public Television.