[jQuery] Textarea Question

I was trying to check a textarea to make sure it has a valid number of
characters. The code below selects the textarea by ID. This works
for Firefox, but not for IE. Is there something I am doing
incorrectly here?
if ($("textarea#reason").val().length < 1 || $
("textarea#reason").val().length > 500) {
...display fail message...
}
Thanks,
~K