House Ag Committee Gets a Progressive Influx!

Tea Partiers on the committee (4.00 / 1)

I haven't successfully found a Tea Party caucus list with new members YET - but here's an informed guess from Howie Klein (an expert on Congress) as to which Republicans on the ag committee are tea partiers:

- Scott DesJarlais (R-TN)
- Renee Ellmers (R-NC)
- Stephen Fincher (R-TN)
- Vicky Hartzler (R-MO)
- Randy Hultgren (R-IL)
- Steve King (R-IA)
- Reid Ribble (R-WI)
- Austin Scott (R-GA)
- Steve Southerland (R-FL)
- Glenn Thompson (R-PA)
- Scott Tipton (R-CO)

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

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by: Jill Richardson @ Sat Jan 22, 2011 at 06:39:55 AM UTC

Roster (4.00 / 2)

The committee is now 26 Republicans and 19 Democrats. Delegate Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan from Northern Mariana Islands, who calls himself a Congressman, sits on the committee also, and he is a Democrat.

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by: count @ Sat Jan 22, 2011 at 07:04:08 AM UTC

Yup (4.00 / 2)

And FYI - I've reached out to Peter Welch's office to see if they'd do a quick interview for this site. I think what I'd like to do is make the same request of each of the new progressives on the committee, so that we can get a sense of what ag is like in their districts, what their top issues are, and what their thoughts are for the 2012 farm bill. I'm also hoping to ask them what - if any - common ground they have with the Blue Dogs and Republicans on ag issues. And, of course, how they feel about organics.

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

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by: Jill Richardson @ Sat Jan 22, 2011 at 08:49:54 AM UTC

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Chellie Pingree (4.00 / 2)

I hadn't heard of Chellie Pingree and don't know anything about her, but she looks interesting.

From 2003 to 2006, she was President and CEO of Common Cause. She is the first Democratic woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Maine.
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Pingree held various farming and care-taking jobs until 1981, when she started North Island Yarn, a cottage industry of hand knitters with a retail store on North Haven.
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As Common Cause's leader, Pingree strengthened the organization's programs in media reform and elections, while maintaining programs in ethics and money in politics. Among the specific issues she championed at Common Cause are Net Neutrality; Mandatory Voter-Verified Paper Ballots; Public Financing of Congressional Elections; National Popular Vote (a work-around of the Electoral College), and an Independent Ethics Commission for Congress.
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In 2010, Pingree ran for reelection, and won, defeating Republican challenger Dean Scontras by a 57-43 margin. She overcame strong anti-Democrat and anti-incumbent political sentiment to become just one of eight Democrats in the House of Representatives to receive a higher percentage of the vote than in 2008.

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by: count @ Sat Jan 22, 2011 at 09:15:28 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

she looks wonderful to me! (4.00 / 2)

This reminds me that I intended to start calling around the offices of the new folks this week to see if any would consent to a brief interview for this site. I'd love to do a "Meet Your Ag Committee" series on here.

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

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by: Jill Richardson @ Mon Jan 24, 2011 at 07:58:18 AM UTC

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Kurt Schrader might do an interview (4.00 / 2)

He's not one of the brand new people, but Kurt has a different perspective on small ag that many of the other members don't have. In Canby, Kurt and his wife Martha had a small farm raising specialty produce. Kurt was also a small animal vet in Canby and a lot of his clients were probably rural land owners or small farmers.

I think that may be why he's a blue dog. I know it's the reason why even though I'm still a registered democrat, if I were a politician back in DC (shudders), I'd be a blue dog.

In the interest of disclosure, Kurt's my representative, and I worked with his wife Martha on the Urban and Rural Reserves Policy Advisory Committee when she was a county commissioner. She was Clackamas county's representative on the CORE 4 (the group of county commissioners and the Metro representave that formed the core committee for the process).

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

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by: JoanneRigutto @ Mon Jan 24, 2011 at 14:12:34 PM UTC

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Geographic diversity (4.00 / 3)

It's good to see that a good number of the Dem members are from states outside of the Midwest that grow non-commodity crops. Ideally that will help focus attention on the issues of specialty crop growers, dairy farmers, urban agriculture, and topics beyond corn, corn, corn, corn, cotton and soy beans.  Still, it's too bad there aren't any members from mainly urban districts who can represent the concerns of the "eaters".

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by: mental_masala @ Sat Jan 22, 2011 at 16:34:56 PM UTC

Marcia Fudge's district is pretty close... (4.00 / 2)

OH-11, a relatively compact district contains downtown Cleveland and most of the urban east side, although she's not from the city itself.  The district is rated "100% urban, 0% rural", for whatever that's worth.

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by: JayinPhiladelphia @ Sat Jan 22, 2011 at 20:23:33 PM UTC

[ Parent ]