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 Two decades ago, Grassley, an Iowa Republican, spearheaded a fight
against Garland's nomination to the influential U.S. Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Just like now, a
Democratic president, in that case Bill Clinton, submitted Garland's
nomination to a Republican-controlled Senate.
Garland, then a top Justice Department lawyer, was denied a Senate
confirmation vote in 1995 and 1996 despite earning bipartisan
praise.
Finally, in 1997, after Clinton renominated Garland upon winning
re-election in 1996, was he confirmed to a seat on the court that
was a launching pad to the Supreme Court for Chief Justice John
Roberts, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Clarence Thomas, as well
as the late Antonin Scalia.
 Fast-forward to 2016: Another Democratic president has chosen
Garland to replace Scalia only to have Grassley and a Republican
Senate maneuver to block the nomination without so much as a
Judiciary Committee hearing.
"Nothin' against him," the 82-year-old Grassley, who describes
himself as "just a farmer from Butler County," told Reuters.
Even so, Garland, 63, will sit down with Grassley on Tuesday and be
told that once again, his nomination will be put on ice.
In 1995 and 1996, Garland was entangled in "what ended up being a
12- or 15-year crusade," Grassley said, to reduce the number of
judges on the federal appeals court that Clinton chose him to join.
Two decades later, Grassley again offered no criticism of Garland's
qualifications.
Grassley, like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, has decided
to ignore Garland's nomination in the hope that a Republican will be
elected president on Nov. 8 and, after taking office in January,
would choose a conservative rather than the centrist Garland.
"It's not about him because we're living by the principle 'let the
people have a voice,'" Grassley said, referring to the November
presidential and congressional elections.
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Grassley, no stranger to controversy during 35 years in the Senate,
has become the target of Democrats' scorn in this Supreme Court
drama.
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said Grassley could go down as
both inept and the "most obstructionist" Judiciary Committee
chairman in history.
Other voices have weighed in against Grassley and his fellow
Republicans, with the Des Moines Register newspaper in his home
state calling the Garland blockade "un-American." Grassley, facing
re-election in November, insists he will not buckle, and called the
Register's editorial "hyperbolic rhetoric."
In a Senate speech last week, he recounted showdowns dating back to
the 1980s when he took on a popular president from his own party,
Ronald Reagan, over budget matters.
"I am no stranger to political pressure and to strong-arm tactics,"
Grassley said.
Grassley then turned his attention to Roberts, criticizing a speech
the chief justice made shortly before Scalia's death about the
politicization of the confirmation process and warning Roberts,
appointed by Republican George W. Bush, to keep his mouth shut in
the Garland fight.
"Now that's a political temptation that the chief justice should
resist," Grassley said.
(Reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Will Dunham)
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