(ABC 6 News-) U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) held court with constituents on Friday, taking questions during a stop at the Franklin County Courthouse in Hampton, as part of his annual “99 County Meetings” across Iowa.

“You’ve got to have dialog with your constituents if you’re going to represent them,” said Grassley. “I let [the crowd] set the agenda and they can bring up anything they wanted to. And we dealt with a lot of issues that are on people’s minds.”

The stop came one day after President Donald Trump signed an executive order gutting the federal Department of Education.

Grassley said, as a member of the House of Representatives in September of 1979, he is “the only member of Congress out of five hundred thirty five today that voted against establishing the Department of Education.”

“I did that,” Grassley said, “because education’s not spelled out in the Constitution as the responsibility of the federal government. And I think with 50 different states, with our country so geographically vast and our population is so heterogeneous that the best education policies made it all on the state level.”

“I appreciate him putting himself under fire,” said one constituent. “I appreciate him coming out here, a lot of a lot of senators and congressional members are not willing to do that.”

“I hope he realizes, said Margaret Buman of Carroll, “Dismantling the Department of Education, both federally, statewide, and also has an effect locally, because not every school in Iowa, not every school district in Iowa has access to private education.”