Agricultural News
Election Day- Ag and Rural Issues at Stake as Voting Begins
Tue, 06 Nov 2012 05:47:07 CST
We have literally been talking about this particular election day since 2010- when the Republicans regained a majority of the US House and took away the total control of Captial Hill that President Barack Obama had in the first two years of his Presidency. For agricultural interests in the southern Plains- that was significant as it switched the Committee Chairmanship of the House Ag Committee from Collin Peterson of Minnesota to Oklahoma Rancher Frank Lucas of Roger Mills County in western Oklahoma. His fingerprints are clearly reflected in the House Ag Committee's version of farm policy which acknowledges there are different needs and concerns in southern agriculture versus the midwest corn and soybean belt.
The pundents generally agree that the US House will likely stay Republican- meaning that Mr. Lucas will stay as Chairman of the Committee for another two years. Politico has an interesting read on the House races that will be decided in large part by tomorrow morning- click here for what Politico has to say on how the House may end up looking like in 2013.
Meanwhile, we have been told more than once by Oklahoma's Senior Republican Senator Jim Inhofe that the Senate will become a GOP majority- most of the experts now say that will not happen- but there are now enough close races in key states that you should probably take up the thought- "It Ain't Over Til It's Over." (Did Yogi Berra say that?) Larry Sabato is one expert that thinks Inhofe's hopes will go down in flames tonight-his latest report tshows no change in the makeup as far as the numbers go- 53 to 47. That would mean Debbie Stabenow would still be Chair of the Senate Ag Committee and the one that would be across the table from Frank Lucas working out final details of the 2012-2013 Farm Bill- either in Lame Duck or in a new Congressional year.
Who knows how the race for the White House will turn out? I am not sure that we will know for certain when we write our Wednesday morning Email update- Obviously, the seven electoral votes from Oklahoma will be committed to Mitt Romney- after that, we will do the math in real time tonight and into Wednesday morning. It does matter who is in the White House to agriculture- a good example of that can be heard in the comments we featured in our Monday Beef Buzz with Colin Woodall of the NCBA- Click here to take a listen.
Our friend Keith Good of FarmPolicy.Com has a great compilation of dozens and dozens of links about the various races around the country- you can jump over to it by clicking here.
We will be watching with you tonight's results- and will devote most of tomorrow morning's email to a look at what is known by early Wednesday- and the ramifications for the Lame Duck dealing with the 2012 Farm Bill. We will also have coverage of several key issue votes- like Proposition 37 in California where GMO labeling is on the ballot. We plan to have updates on Twitter and our Facebook page and our website- we will write updates as needed for all of these platforms- we do hope to visit with the Chairman of the House Ag Committee sometime this evening and will have that for you as well.
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