Northwest Iowa — Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley is lobbying the second in command of the incoming Trump administration in favor of a northwest Iowan for the post of Agriculture Secretary.
Grassley says he urged Vice President-Elect Mike Pence to give serious consideration to Spirit Lake farmer, and current Iowa Ag Secretary Bill Northey for the federal Ag Secretary role. That job is the only cabinet-level position for which President-Elect Donald Trump has yet to name a nominee.
Grassley also tweeted about Bill Northey last week, saying Northey had been a “great voice for agriculture.” There’s speculation at the statehouse that State Representative Pat Grassley — the senator’s grandson — is interested in running for state ag secretary in 2018. Trump carried 62 percent of the vote in rural America. Farm groups and some members of congress from farm states have begun to question why Trump has not yet chosen a person to lead the U-S-D-A. Grassley suggested in a tweet last week that Trump should choose an ag secretary who comes from “above the Mason-Dixon Line, where the states of Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania lie.”
The people of Iowa elected Northey to be Secretary of Agriculture in November of 2006 and reelected him in 2010 and 2014. He ran on a platform of expanding opportunities in renewable energy, promoting science and technology to better conserve our air, soil and water, and telling the story of Iowa agriculture.
For his part, Trump has met with the former governor of Georgia and the current president of Texas A-and-M University as well as prospects from California and from Indiana.
