WASHINGTON and DES MOINES, Iowa – Tuesday’s elections saw the Republican party gain control of the House and Senate, but what does that mean for agricultural policy in the next Congress?
“It was a good night for the Republicans, and in more rural states, it was an incredibly good night for the Republicans,” says Bloomberg agricultural correspondent Alan Bjerga. The day after the elections, Bjerga fielded a few questions from Iowa Agribusiness Radio Network reporter Brandon Blue on what’s in store for rural America.
First off, here in Iowa, one of the most-watched races was between Joni Ernst and Bruce Braley. With Ernst in, what happens now?
This race was one of the ones that was the most watched on the national level. Rest assured, there were lots of people in Washington, D.C. who were wondering how this race would play out, because there was a lot of thought that, with Tom Harkin retiring, and with the popularity of people like Tom Vilsack still within the state, that this was one that the Democrats should be able to hold onto. People will say that Braley didn’t run a particularly effective campaign, of course there was the comment about Chuck Grassley and farmers early in the spring, but in the end, it seemed like just the tide sweeping more than anything else. Ernst ran a very good campaign. There were a lot of concerns and thoughts among the pundit class here in Washington that she might be seen as a bit too Tea Party, but that really didn’t really happen. Now she’s heading to the Senate. People will be paying attention to what she does in the Senate because she’s going to be expected to be someone who’s going to be speaking a lot about agriculture. Democrats are going to be smartened about this, because they really think that they should have some Senate seats coming from Iowa; it’s going to make 2016 that much more interesting.
How did Tuesday’s elections change the makeup of the House Ag Committee?
In the House, the big story was what didn’t happen. The Republican party put forth a challenge to Collin Peterson, the ranking Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, really the first serious push against him that he’s seen in about 20 years. As it turned out, it was all for naught. Peterson won fairly easily, which lends a little bit of stability to the Democratic caucus, and the Republicans have a strong majority on that panel, so in terms of issues like implementation of the farm bill; even though they may be looking at a new chairman next year, you’re probably not going to see a real change in the direction.
Current Senate Ag Chair Debbie Stabenow of Michigan will give up her spot; what does that mean for the Senate Ag Committee?
The Republican who is in line to become chairman is Senator Pat Roberts, from Kansas. And on the surface level, you would say ‘Well, this is a no-brainer.’ Roberts was head of the House Agriculture Committee when it wrote the farm bill in 1996; he’s from Kansas, a very agricultural state; but there are some quirks going on there. For various reasons, Pat Roberts has voted against the last three farm bills, including the one that his colleagues worked so hard on over the last couple of years. Also, Roberts has a lot of seniority, but he doesn’t have the most good will with the Republicans right now. They had to spend a lot of money and put a lot of resources into a race in Kansas, which; if there’s a state that Republicans normally don’t have to think about, it’s Kansas. So you’re looking at, potentially, Roberts. If it weren’t Roberts, then you go to John Boozman from Arkansas, a Republican who was elected in 2010. Interestingly enough, he beat Blanch Lincoln, who was then the head of the House Agriculture Committee, in that election, so, if Roberts ends up not being the chair, you could actually end up with a return to an Arkansas chair, with the person who beat the last one.
Now that the Republicans control both houses, do you think it will be easier to pass ag legislation in the 114th Congress?
You would think that, of course, that it would be easier to pass the legislation, but it may be more likely to be vetoed, because it would, by definition, more likely be partisan legislation. I think about the 2008 farm bill, which was actually passed in an exact mirror-image situation. You had a Democratic House and Senate, but you had George W. Bush in the White House, in his last two years. That farm bill was actually vetoed by President Bush, but it had the popularity [such] that they were able to override the veto. This environment may be a little partisan for any veto overrides. It’s hard to see, especially since the Senate is so close, many situations in which the Republicans would come up with a piece of legislation with enough Democratic support to actually override a presidential veto. So, it may be easier to pass agricultural legislation all day between the House and the Senate, but if it’s objectionable to the White House, it’s not going anywhere.
There was another item on the ticket in several states; labels on foods containing GMOs. The initiative didn’t seem to get too far in Colorado or Oregon. What gives?
This is a script that we’ve now seen played several times, and if you’re a person who supports GMO labeling, you’ve got to have a little bit of a pause here about your strategy. They’ve already had ballot initiatives that were defeated in past years in California and Washington. And in Oregon, the same thing is happening that happened in those states: agribusinesses greatly outspent their opponents. Early opinion polls would show a lot of support for labeling, but as the months went on, hesitancy to require those labels would go up and up among the electorate. So, GMO labeling proponents keep losing these initiatives. Now, this is not cheap for agribusiness, and there has been some talk about maybe accommodating some sort of a label, so these expensive ballot campaigns won’t go away, but so far playing hardball, for all the money that it’s cost agribusinesses, seems to have paid off, because they are stymying these intiatives. So the question becomes: what are your other approaches? Because, this issue isn’t going to go away. This is not the end of GMO labeling. But, if you’re not going to win in Oregon, when you have a strong constituency for environmental community; you have marijuana legalization issues on the ballot to drive up turnout; and you have those factors, and you still can’t pass GMO labeling, it’s got to make you think ‘How much more effort are we going to try to put into this approach?’
Hear more about how election outcomes will affect ag policy by clicking on the audio player above this story, and keep in the loop by following @IowaAgRadio on Twitter!
