We aren’t in Kansas—or anywhere—anymore with any farm bill

The “Big Four” of farm bill negotiations came out of their meeting striding out arm in arm like that scene in “The Wizard Of Oz” when Dorothy and her three friends decided to follow the yellow brick road as they went off to see the wonderful wizard.

The ag policy Twitterverse went agog for the photo by Teaganne Finn, a reporter with Bloomberg’s BGOV, of Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-KS; Ranking Member Debbie Stabenow, D-MI; House Agriculture Committee Chairman Michael Conaway, R-TX; and Ranking Member Collin Peterson, D-MN; as they left their meeting in the Capitol basement Oct. 4.

While it was all smiles for the camera, behind the scenes things look like we’re still at where we were when this debate began.

They’re arguing over a doomed House concept for changing the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to be paid for by cutting conservation funding while putting in a payment program that benefits cotton farmers to the detriment of farmers of other program crops.

With all due respect to Roberts, all you can say after looking at what is causing this stalemate is, “We’re not in Kansas anymore.”

Nope, the idea that a farm bill is supposed to be fair to all crops is, at least for now, something akin to an L. Frank Baum novel—a figment of someone’s imagination.

Even the freshman Republican House member from the seat Roberts used to occupy is telling the guy who’s been through more farm bills than anyone on the Hill to “at least listen to the challenge” and throw away a compromise farm bill that passed the Senate 86-to-11.

Drinking the coffee of party leadership in one chamber is one thing. Not listening to voices of experience and knowledge far deeper than your own is bordering on another form of light fiction.

Try Looney Tunes.

While that freshman, Rep. Roger Marshall, R-KS, appears to be favored against Democrat Alan LaPolice heading into the election, it might be interesting to hear what both have to say to each other and to voters about the wisdom of taking this sort of path in support of the farm bill. I understand they’ll be debating on statewide television Oct. 16.

I’d like to see how the incumbent “listens to the challenge” of a good debate.

Still, with the Senate probably remaining in Republican hands, what we really have to examine are the House races taken as a whole in the context of the farm bill debate. If you take the current Real Clear Politics “poll of polls” as a good reading for what’s happening in the country (and it usually is), Democrats are at present certain to add a minimum of 12 seats to their current 193 seat minority, just four seats shy of gaining a 218-seat House majority. There’s 32 seats considered toss-ups, including the Kansas 2nd and 3rd districts as well as the Iowa 3rd district.

Split those 32 toss-up seats in half between the parties and you’ve got a 221-seat Democratic Party majority.

This could mean there will be a bunch of lame duck GOP House members returning on Nov. 13 when the body is supposed to be gaveled back into order. That’s a lot of Republicans with nothing left to lose since they’re out of office.

Will they switch on House Speaker Paul Ryan and side with the Senate farm bill? Will they do something that gets President Donald Trump’s Twitter feed blazing hot?

Will they vote what their conscience tells them rather than party leadership on other issues that need votes prior to the end of the session?

As always, expect the unexpected.

Larry Dreiling can be reached at 785-628-1117 or [email protected].