Copyright 2002 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Atlanta Journal and Constitution
May 7, 2002 Tuesday, Home EditionSECTION: Metro News; Pg. 14D
LENGTH: 677 words
HEADLINE: Farm bill plays big role in politics
BYLINE: SCOTT SHEPARD
SOURCE:
Cox Washington Bureau
BODY:Washington --- Control of the Senate next year might well depend on
agriculture.
Specifically, that control might depend on
compromise farm legislation packed with issues and disputes important to
battleground states in this year's key Senate elections.
The days of bipartisan farm coalitions in Congress appear to be over.
Now the farm economy is just one more issue over which congressional Republicans
and Democrats are ready to fight in an election year.
A major battle in that fight is expected on the Senate floor this week,
in debate over the
farm bill, with six hours scheduled for
both today and Wednesday. The House adopted the bill last week.
The bill, in terms of cost to American taxpayers, is nearly three times
the size of President Bush's education reforms. But it doesn't command public
attention the way other major pieces of legislation typically do.
The politicians, however, are keenly aware of the
farm bill's importance. That's especially true in an election
year in which races in a handful of states --- Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa,
Minnesota, Missouri and South Dakota --- could determine whether the Democratic
Party maintains its one-seat majority in the Senate, its only legislative
beachhead from which to challenge Bush's policies.
Consequently, incumbents and challengers alike want to appear
farmer-friendly, even if their interests conflict with colleagues from the same
party and even if it means turning their backs on the 1996 law that was supposed
to usher in a new era in American agriculture by weaning farmers from taxpayer
subsidies.
"In this election year, neither major
political party wanted to risk being labeled as the anti-farm party," Sen.
Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) complained last week. "Consequently, bidding was intense
to satisfy the most vocal participants in the farm debate."
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) was one of the
congressional conferees on the
farm bill, a role that reflects
the importance of the bill to his party and to him personally in the Senate.
Consequently, Daschle has made sure that the new
farm bill will pour billions of dollars in subsidies into states
that are important to Democrats this year.
For example,
the new
farm bill ends a quota system that props up peanut
prices, an important crop in Georgia where Sen. Max Cleland, a Democrat, faces a
tough re-election contest. But as compensation, farmers and others who own
peanut quotas will receive 11 cents a pound annually for five years.
Cleland held off his endorsement of the
farm
bill until the peanut program was protected. But with that protection for
Cleland came a less acceptable provision that would help three Midwestern
Democrats also facing tight races this fall: Agriculture Chairman Tom Harkin of
Iowa, Tim Johnson of South Dakota and Paul Wellstone of Minnesota. That
provision calls for limiting each farmer's annual federal subsidy to $275,000,
rather than the current $460,000.
The lower limit is
preferred in the Midwest, a region with many small farms. But it is opposed in
the West and South, where crops that are costly to produce, such as rice and
cotton, are grown. And that presents a problem not only for Cleland but also for
Democrats Max Baucus of Montana and Jean Carnahan of Missouri, as well as for
Republican Tim Hutchinson of Arkansas.
Despite Lugar's
chastisements, Republicans are just as likely to support the abandonment of
their "Freedom to Farm" approach as Democrats.
For
instance, Rep. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), running for the GOP nomination to face
Cleland in the Senate race, has spent weeks traveling in his home state
complaining about efforts by Democrats to "buy votes" with the
farm bill.But when the House voted on
the conference committee report last week, Chambliss, a House negotiator with
the Senate, was among the 280 who voted to send it to the Senate and on to the
president. And in his debate remarks, Chambliss sounded remarkably similar to
Daschle in promoting the "predictability" the bill brings to farm policy.
GRAPHIC: Photo:
Rep. Saxby Chambliss
(right) Photo:
Sen. Max Cleland (left) and political rival Rep.
Saxby Chambliss voted alike on the
farm bill.LOAD-DATE: May 07, 2002