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Iowa City attorney challenging Grassley for seat in the U.S. Senate

CRAIG REBER
Dubuque Telegraph Herald

Iowa City attorney Art Small lists “The Impossible Dream,” from the musical “Man of La Mancha,” as one of his favorite songs.

Small is representing the Democratic Party in the bid for Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley’s seat. He was in Dubuque Saturday night, his first appearance on the campaign trail. Small noted a friend wondered if he was on a kamikaze mission.

“I have no intention of killing myself,” Small said, laughing.

He admits it will be a challenge attempting to unseat Grassley, who was elected to the Senate in 1980. Small points out Grassley has $5 million to spend on his campaign - with the potential to hit $10 million.

“I’m starting at zero,” he said, adding he has a few thousand now. “I acknowledge that it will be difficult, I don’t think it’s impossible.”

Small, who served in the Iowa House of Represenatatives from 1971-79 and in the Iowa Senate from 1980-86, as Appropriations Committee chairman, said Iowans will have a choice.

“People who say ‘well there is no difference between these candidates,’ they certainly won’t be able to say that,” he said. “They might not say they like me and like him better, but they won’t say that there aren’t any differences.”

Besides his law practice, Small has owned and operated several small businesses, including a printing company and the Iowa Legislative News Service. Earlier, he taught English literature at St. Ambrose and Purdue universities. He also spent three years in the Army Security Agency stationed in Germany.

Grassley, before being elected to the Senate, served three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, beginning in 1974.

Small said the differences between he and Grassley are clear on major issues, including tax cuts.

“He obviously believes, so strongly, that just by cutting taxes you can solve all the problems,” he added. “That seems to be his answer to everything.”

One of the reasons Small decided to run was his irritation with the idea that “all the solutions to everything that was being offered was tax cuts, particularly for the wealthy — that if we give the wealthy a lot of tax cuts they’ll have more incentive to work.”

Small noted the New York Stock Exchange’s former chief executive and chairman Dick Grasso made $31 million a year and had a compensation package of over $200 million. “He needed a tax cut like a hole in the head,” Small said.

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