Grassley will meet with young Iowans participating in the National 4-H Conference.  The 4-Hers are from Ankeny, Burlington, Fort Dodge and Lake Mills.

Grassley will meet with a young Iowan from Belle Plaine who is participating in the Close-Up program, which helps students increase their knowledge of government and citizenship.

Grassley will also meet with young Iowans from Clinton (Prince of Peace Academy); Eldridge (North Scott High School); and New Vienna (Beckman Senior High School. The students are participating in the National Young Leaders Conference.  During the conference, students visit with policy makers and other leaders in an effort to hone their understanding of current events and political issues.  Additionally, students take part in group discussion and decision-making exercises to prepare them for leadership roles.

· On Monday, March 22 at 2 p.m. (CT), Grassley met with community leaders from the Council Bluffs area.  The Iowans are in Washington, D.C. to meet with members of Congress about the community's priorities in the upcoming appropriations process as well as other legislative initiatives.

· On Tuesday, March 23 at 8 p.m. (CT), Grassley will host a live, interactive telephone town hall meeting with Iowans. Grassley will answer questions from constituents for the duration of the program which is expected to last approximately one hour.

· On Wednesday, March 24 at 8:30 a.m. (CT), Grassley will participate in a Senate Agriculture Committee mark-up.  The committee will consider the "Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010."

· On Thursday, March 25 at 9 a.m. (CT), Senator Grassley will participate in a Senate Judiciary Committee executive business meeting.

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"It's pretty unbelieveable that the President and his closest advisors remain untouched by the reforms they pushed for the rest of the country.  In other words, President Obama's health care reform won't apply to President Obama," Grassley said.  "Last December, the effort to apply any new law to administration political leaders was rejected by the Senate Majority Leader.  But there's no justification for the double standard, and I'll continue to work to establish fairness."

The Senate legislation passed last night by the House of Representatives includes an amendment Grassley sponsored and got adopted by the Finance Committee last fall to have members of Congress and their staffs get their health insurance through the same health insurance exchanges where health plans for the general public would be available.  During the closed-door negotiations on the bill late last year, the Senate Majority Leader carved out Senate committee and leadership staff from this requirement.

Subsequently, Grassley and Senator Tom Coburn attempted to offer another amendment to restore the requirement during Senate debate on the health care bill, but the Senate Majority Leader would not let their amendment to fix this loophole even come up for a vote.  In addition to Senate committee and leadership staff, the amendment Grassley and Coburn filed during the Senate debate would have made the President, the Vice President, top White House staff and cabinet members all get their health insurance through the newly created exchanges.  It would not have applied to federal employees in the civil service.

Grassley said, "It's only fair and logical that top administration officials, who fought so hard for passage of this overhaul of America's health care system, experience it themselves.  If it's as good as promised, they'll know it first-hand.  If there are problems, they'll be able to really understand them, as they should."

Grassley said the motivation for his amendments is simple:  public officials who make the laws or lead efforts to have laws changed should live under those laws.

"This is the same principle that motivated me to pursue legislation over 20 years ago to apply civil rights, labor and employment laws to Congress," Grassley said.  Before President Clinton signed into law Grassley's long-sought Congressional Accountability Act of 1995, Congress had routinely exempted itself.

The Congressional Accountability Act made Congress subject to 12 laws, including the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988, the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute, the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Veteran's Employment and Reemployment Rights at Chapter 43 of Title 38 of the U.S. Code, and the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1989.

Today, Grassley is working to make sure Congress lives up to the same standards it imposes on others with legislation such as his Congressional Whistleblower Protection Act.

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Grassley, Landrieu-led Caucus Urges Foster Youth Views

in Education Program Re-authorization

WASHINGTON - The Senate Caucus on Foster Youth, led by Sen. Chuck Grassley and Sen. Mary Landrieu, is urging legislators who will begin re-authorization of federal education programs to hear from foster youth in the process.

"There's nothing like first-hand knowledge to educate lawmakers about the policy decisions they'll make," Grassley said.  "Foster youth are the experts on what it's like to deal with the challenges of attending school while in foster care.  Their views could help to improve the experience for the next generation of kids."

"Foster youth have the power to influence legislation as evidenced by our success in pass of the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act," Landrieu said. "Children who had spent time in our broken foster care system were invaluable during that process. What has been made clear to me is that we must empower youth to educate Congress about their unique experiences in foster care and the obstacles they face. They help us make better policy decisions."

Grassley and Landrieu, joined by 10 other members of the Caucus on Foster Youth, wrote to the chairman and ranking member of the Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee, which recently began holding hearings on the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.  The caucus requested that the committee "invite youth in foster care to one of these hearings to testify about their experiences in the nation's educational system, and their suggestions for reform."  Reforms could include better record-keeping, more of an effort to keep students in the same school when their foster home changes, and better coordination between school personnel and child welfare agencies in developing strategies to help these youths.