Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley isn’t exactly known for his coherent social media posts, but on Monday, he authored one of the strangest tweets of his career. In it, he announced that his chief of staff—a longtime aide named Jennifer Heins—tied the knot with her husband, Nick Davis, in beautiful (?) Cedar Rapids over the weekend. That’s all he needed to say, but Grassley—eternally the oversharer—punctuated the post with a strange revelation: “They are the 20th couple to marry after mtg in my office.”
Twenty couples! Man, oh man. The hottest Tinder spot in D.C. is apparently the Senate Budget Committee. It’s sweet that Grassley fashions himself something of a legislative Cupid, flitting around the halls, concocting romances between his staffers, but I truly cannot think of a less erotic place than the enclave of a senator from Iowa. Imagine playing footsies under the table during a three-hour argument about soybean subsidization—and then being like, “Is that passion I feel?” But hey—a record of 20 marriages speaks for itself.
Is it mildly creepy that Grassley has an exact tabulation of the number of young people he’s brought together in holy matrimony? Does this at least open the possibility that the longest-serving senator in the country is running a sex cult in his name? Sure, but Grassley has also been working around politics, in some form or fashion, since 1959. From that perspective, I’d expect the marital number to be closer to 50, maybe even 100. On that note, does Grassley also know how many of his staffers have spiraled into life-destroying extramarital affairs? Does he have a firm count on divorces as well? Does he keep a dossier on everyone who could ever cross him? All of this sounds like prime terrain for a romance novel.
I have always understood the work of politics to be immensely dry and antisocial. You need to be an enormous nerd to dedicate your life to the bureaucratic sausage-making functions of legislative administration, so in that sense, nobody should be surprised that the people who choose such a path are finding love in a crucible for the terminally lame. But at least Grassley seems to be taking a passive approach to the personal lives of his aides—across the aisle, we have Chuck Schumer, who claimed, in a 2012 New York Times story, to have overseen the weddings of 10 of his staffers. Reportedly, he takes a rather involved approach with his matrimonial instincts, often playing matchmaker around his office. Here’s a direct quote from the man himself:
Our staff is a family. I want them to be happy. I get worried that they’ll be lonely. So I encourage them. If I think it’s a good match, I try to gently—as gently as I can—nudge it.
Bro, what? That, my friends, is a story that could have been written only in 2012. You are not going to see any sitting senator, in the post–#MeToo era, wax poetic about how they encourage their workplace to become as incestuous as possible. Also, this is beside the point, but I’m pretty sure Schumer (or Grassley) doesn’t know my type or what a “good match” is. Grassley, in particular, is one of the last people in American politics I’d trust to set me up on a blind date because I’m pretty sure that guy thinks a wild night out is a trip to your local Dairy Queen. (For what it’s worth, I think the top three matchmakers in D.C. are Amy Klobuchar, John Fetterman, and—you know what? Joe Biden. You know, people with gumption.)
So, congratulations, once again, to Nick Davis and Jennifer Heins. We hope Grassley didn’t hog the mic too long during the speeches. The senator is now 90 years old, serving a term that doesn’t end until 2029. Can he get to lucky No. 21? If there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s that you can never count out the Chucks.
