Grassley Explains Absence Of GOP Women On All-Male Judiciary Is Due To Committee’s Heavy Workload

When asked about the lack of Republican women on the all-male, all white Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) suggested that women may not want to take on the workload of the committee, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Asked why the panel had so few female Senators, Grassley said, “It’s a lot of work – maybe they don’t want to do it.”

“My chief of staff of 33 years tells me we’ve tried to recruit women and we couldn’t get the job done,” the committee chairman added.

“It’s a lot of work – maybe they don’t want to do it,” Grassley said, explaining why there aren't more women on the Senate Judiciary Committee. “My chief of staff of 33 years tells me we’ve tried to recruit women and we couldn’t get the job done.” https://t.co/UxFJMsOFV0

— Tim O'Brien (@TimOBrien) October 5, 2018

According to WSJ, Grassley later walked back his remarks, clarifying that he didn’t mean to single out women.

“We have a hard time getting men on the committee. Do you know we’ve got four people that are on the committee because the leader asked them to be there because they couldn’t fill the seats up? They said we need you. It’s just a lot of work whether you’re a man or a woman. It doesn’t matter,” he said, CNN reports.

The 21-member Senate Judiciary Committee contains four women, all Democrats. The GOP’s 11 members on the committee are all men.

On Saturday, committee member Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., tweeted about “women senators’ workloads,” citing a study that found women in the Senate were more effective dealmakers than their male counterparts.

7-year study to remember when discussing women senators’ workloads: Despite small numbers, women senators are “introducing more bills..getting more out of committee and getting more bills enacted into law than their male colleagues in the U.S. Senate” https://t.co/82oye5y7MO

— Amy Klobuchar (@amyklobuchar) October 6, 2018