In 2004, Grassley co-sponsored a legislation that awards a posthumous award to King, which would become a law on October 25 that year. On November 1, 1984, Grassley signed a one-page citation of contempt of Congress against Attorney General William French Smith due to the latter not turning over files on an investigation into Navy shipbuilding. Assistant Attorney General Stephen S. Trott called the citation "out of place" since Grassley was not acting at a session of the Judiciary panel that he led. In May 1987, the Senate Appropriations Committee defeated an attempt by Grassley to hasten payments of corn and other feed grain subsidies ahead of the scheduled payment taking place after October 1. The Grassley measure was also designed to unravel an accounting device lawmakers used previously to make it appear as though they were reducing spending for the incoming fiscal year. In October, during a press briefing, Grassley accused President Reagan of being "asleep at the switch" and botching the handling of Robert Bork's Supreme Court nomination, adding that the Bork nomination had convinced him the Reagan administration "has been terribly lucky for the last seven years" in other matters including the economy and foreign policy. Later that month, Grassley likened the groups lobbying against Bork's nomination with the era of McCarthyism during the 1950s: "The big lie is standard operating procedure for some of these groups. All you have to do is repeat the same outrageous charges, and repeat them so often that people believe they are true." In November, as party leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee met on the Supreme Court nomination of Douglas H. Ginsburg, Grassley released the text of a letter he intended to send to the American Bar Association suggesting the association was dragging its feet in its review of Ginsburg's record. After Ginsburg admitted to previously smoking marijuana, Grassley said, "You like to think people who are appointed to the Supreme Court respect the law." Grassley joined Jesse Helms in resisting the nomination of Anthony Kennedy, President Reagan's next choice for the Supreme Court, admitting that he would have preferred another candidate such as appeals court justices Pasco Bowman II or J. Clifford Wallace. Grassley stated his distaste for "the people who are committed to changing the judiciary" taking "the path of least resistance." In January 1989, as the Senate voted to schedule a vote within the following month on the pay increase, Grassley questioned how senators would decline federal program increases "come March and April if the first thing out of the box is a pay raise?" In February, Grassley was one of six senators to testify against the 50% pay increase scheduled to take effect the following week.