In the Senate, the difference is razor thin and Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) emerges as a key swing vote. And because he announced he will caucus with the Democrats, he’ll be the next chair of the Homeland Security Committee. We’ve been here before – back in 2000 – and the makeup of most committees won’t change dramatically, the respective staffs will switch offices, and a few folks will be pounding the pavement. However, keep in mind that without Lieberman and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), it’s a political dead heat – 49 GOP, 49 Democrat. The majority leader will be Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), with the “loyal opposition” led by Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
The House is where the magic will happen – or not. The percentages in the lower chamber basically flipped, meaning the margin of majority enjoyed by the Democrats is about that enjoyed by the GOP for the last two years. Emerging from the dust is the first female Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), with Representative Steny Hoyer (D-MD) as majority leader. On the Republican side, no one’s sure what current Speaker Denny Hastert (R-IL) will do, but he’s made it clear he has no heart to lead the GOP while it’s the minority party. That leaves Representative John Boehner (R-OH) as minority leader and GOP caucus chair, unless Representative Mike Pence (R-IN) is successful in his announced challenge to Boehner.
Pelosi now reaps the whirlwind of a calculated political strategy embraced by the Democratic National Committee when it decided to recruit centrist and conservative Democrats to challenge GOP incumbents. Most of the 30 or so new members are Democrats, and most of them are far right of Pelosi and her lieutenants. These are the so-called Blue Dog Democrats, moderate Democrats who tend to be socially to the left, but fiscally to the right. It remains to be seen if Pelosi can control these freshmen by exercising the same force of will that kept her party voting as a bloc for the last four years to stop administration initiatives.
Most Washington insiders believe if Pelosi’s as smart as most know her to be, and if she’s got an eye on putting a Democrat in the White House in 2008, then she’s going to have to move from being a roadblock to a traffic cop. She will have to create a solid record of not only leading her party in the House, but demonstrating she can work with the other side of the aisle and the White House to move legislation. The record of the next two years will be that on which those freshmen run for reelection, as well as a big part of what the Democrats will have to sell on the campaign trail in 2008.
The onus is also on the Republicans for all the same political reasons. The GOP cannot sit back and simply throw bombs; it must engage the moderate Blue Dog Democrats and forge alliances given what’s at stake. It must also try and moderate its extreme right wing. The days of log-jamming Congress over ideology are over, at least that’s one of the messages taken from the November 7th election.
On the legislative front, the broad strokes are the same issues talked about during the campaign, namely Iraq, health care, minimum wage, immigration, and so on. For agriculture, the next two years will bring back old issues, while creating some interesting challenges on a couple of emerging items.
Ag Committees
Keeping in mind that at this writing there are still nine uncertified House races, here’s how the congressional committees that renderers care about will likely shape up.
House Agriculture: Chair: Representative Collin Peterson (D-MN); ranking member: Representative Bob Goodlatte (R-VA). Since the percentage GOP versus Democrat makeup in the House will be about what it is under the GOP, committee numbers won’t change much. Six sitting members on the GOP side were either defeated or resigned; one member on the Democrat side retired.
Senate Agriculture: Chair: Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA); ranking member: Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA). The number of minority seats may increase, but with two losses on the GOP side (Senators Rick Santorum (R-PA) and Jim Talent (R-MO)), membership percentages likely won’t shift much. The Democrats need to fill a seat left by retired Senator Mark Dayton (D-MN), and as many as two others.
Lots of talk about extending the 2002 Farm Bill will resume, but it will quickly turn to serious strategizing on farm policy changes. Peterson, who introduced a bill last year to extend the current Farm Bill for a year or until there is a World Trade Organization agreement, now talks of “tinkering” with farm programs. Goodlatte says he’ll “work with the White House,” but that translates, I think, into his carrying administration water for wholesale program change. Peterson wants a permanent disaster program, mandatory country-of-origin labeling, and mandatory animal identification. Harkin cares about conservation programs, meaning he wants more money, as well as trying to stem the trend toward concentration in agriculture, including livestock contracting and arbitration. He’s also big on enhanced food safety authority for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to shut down bad actors in meat processing.
Both committees will wrestle with renewable fuels feedstock issues. Not from an endorsement or incentive view, but they will need to confront what’s become known as the food versus fuel debate. USDA estimates by 2010, the United States will need to plant 90 million acres of corn to meet the demand for feed/food, fuel, and exports. The only way to do that is to keep corn prices above $3 a bushel. And while the spotlight is on ethanol, the same holds true for biodiesel using soy as a feedstock. There’s much discussion even now about which cellulosic feedstocks can substitute for corn and beans, and how to provide adequate incentives to farmers to plant those feedstocks. There’s also talk of removing subsidies from crops grown for fuel.
Appropriations Committees
House Appropriations: Chair: Representative David Obey (D-WI); ranking member: Representative Jerry Lewis (R-CA). In the ag/Food and Drug Administration (FDA) subcommittee, Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) will chair.
DeLauro will almost certainly go after FDA for having not published its proposed final rule on changes to the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) ruminant feed ban. She has been highly critical of the administration for not having embraced a European approach to BSE mitigation, and has chastised USDA for ramping down its surveillance system. She also wants a mandatory animal identification program out of USDA pronto, and joins Harkin and Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) in calls for stronger, mandatory food safety programs. She’s the chief House author of legislation to create a single federal food safety agency.
Senate Appropriations: Chair: Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV); ranking member: Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS). In the ag/FDA subcommittee, Senator Herb Kohl (D-WI) retakes the chair. This is the most collegial of the appropriations subcommittees, with Kohl and ranking member Senator Bob Bennett (R-UT) working well together. This is also the least political of the two ag subcommittees on spending, the frustration being that often the Senate doesn’t remedy the mistakes made in the House.
FDA Oversight Committees
House Energy and Commerce: Chair: Representative John Dingell (D-MI); ranking member: Representative Joe Barton (R-TX). Dingell previously chaired the committee and is going after FDA. He wants to overhaul dietary supplement regulation as well as investigate FDA on drug safety and generic drugs and patents. He’ll be aided and abetted by Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA), second ranking Democrat and the new chair of the House Government Reform Committee. Waxman is already making noises about “investigating” FDA in his committee, including threats in the press to drag current and former FDA executives to the Hill for hearings on various issues, to have them explain why they didn’t do what they were supposed to do, at least according to Waxman.
Senate HELP Committee: Chair: Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA); ranking member: Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY). In the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (HELP), expect Kennedy to follow the same tactic as Dingell and Waxman, hauling FDA staffers to the Hill routinely to “investigate” perceived problems with the agency.
It will be an interesting two years. Let’s hope 2008 election pressure is enough to get some real legislating done in both chambers rather than the political sniping that’s dominated the last four years.
View from Washington - December 2006 Render