Commentary

The death of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D, MA), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee (HELP), holds potentially big implications for ag in DC.  And not because Kennedy ever played a big role in farm and ranch policy debates, but because his loss sets off an automatic cascade of committee chairmanship swaps, and one of those could lead to Sen. Tom Harkin (D, IA) giving up the Senate Ag Committee.Here’s how the scenario could play out.  Generally, when a major committee chairmanship opens up, the Senate Majority Leader looks to the next ranking member of the committee to fill the job.  In this case, the number two slot on HELP is Sen. Christopher Dodd (D, CT).  However, Dodd is chair of the Senate Banking Committee and is up to his eyeballs in prospective reregulation of financial markets, as well as oversight over all things economically stimulating.

Further, Dodd is up for reelection in 2010 — and his race is his most challenging since he came to the Senate nearly 30 years ago — in a state chock-a-block with insurance and brokerage companies and the executives thereof.  Would he walk away from the committee and the issues uppermost in his constituents minds?  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV), who will ultimately decide who takes over HELP, is known to want Dodd to remain at Banking lest the finance reregulation effort jump the rails prior to the 2010 elections.

But Dodd has been doing double duty for the last year, holding down the fort at the HELP Committee — with the assistance of Kennedy’s very able staff — essentially caretaking the chairmanship during Kennedy’s illness, and with health care reform challenging the committee and Dodd’s personal commitment to his long-time close friend from Massachusetts to promote the health care agenda, would he, could he turn the committee reins over now to a new leader?

If the answer is “no” to the first scenario and “yes” to the second, then next in line to take the helm of HELP is Harkin, a prospect ag lobbyists have been chewing on since word first came Kennedy was sick.

Would Harkin give up chair of the Ag Committee to take over HELP?  My question is, “Why not?” Harkin has two great loves:  The state of Iowa and its bread basket status and, from an issue/policy standpoint, public and private health, wellness and research issues.  He’s authored and/or championed many of the major health bills over the years, from the Americans with Disabilities Act, to dietary supplements to child nutrition.  The  2008 Farm Bill is behind him — and I’ll bet he remembers every frustrating minute of it – so what better time than now?

Some contend Iowa wouldn’t let Harkin give up the ag panel chair.  I contend Iowa is smarter than that.  Iowa wouldn’t lose a thing if Harkin moved to the HELP chair; in fact, it would actually stand to gain much.  First, Harkin wouldn’t give up his membership on the ag panel, remaining with Sen. Charles Grassley (R,IA) in protecting Iowa interests.  Second, he’d be in control of an arguably more powerful committee which wrestles with all things FDA and food safety and with labor issues, such as the Employee Free Choice Act, and so on.  From a production and processing standpoint, it would be a very good thing for farmers, ranchers and industry to have someone who has an intuitive understanding of production agriculure leading and guiding the debate among his more urban peers.

This is not to say we’d see an automatic rural tilt to the HELP Committee, nor would Harkin be any more easily swayed during policy debate than he is now. It’s to say we’d have an educated and sympathetic ear during these debates.  And to the extent they’d go with him to HELP, Harkin’s senior staff is among the best in the Senate.

So, if Harkin takes HELP, where does that leave the Ag Committee chair? Conventional wisdom would be to put Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D, AR) in the chair. Reid would get major points for doing so. He be recognizing a colleague from the South who by dint of brains and ability has earned the right to chair a major committee. Those on the committee who outrank her all have major committees to chair — Sen. Patrick Leahy (D, VT) chairs Judiciary (and was once chair of the ag panel); Sen. Kent Conrad (D, ND) chairs Budget, and Sen. Max Baucus (D, MT) chairs the powerful Finance Committee.  All have signaled no intent to surrender their current power bases.

Lincoln’s focus in past farm bills has been less broad than Harkin’s to say the least.  While Harkin argued conservation, nutrition and limiting farm payments, Lincoln championed traditional programs.  As one of the architects of the Southern ag bloc, a bipartisan group of senators from Georgia to Texas, she’s focused on maintaining farm programs because, as she’s eloquently stated probably a thousand times in committee and on the Senate floor, her  farmers are smaller and rely more heavily on farm programs than farmers in the Midwest.  This is probably her greatest weakness in a Senate less and less convinced farmers and ranchers need financial support to the extent they enjoy such generosity now.  But Lincoln is also a proven bipartisan player and one who can go national in her perspective and politics as easily as she plays to home state interests.

Lincoln has been a loyal lieutenant to Harkin during his tenure as chair, especially during the ugly 2008 Farm Bill battles, and she’d work well with him on issues of mutual interest to their respective committees. Lincoln is also a staunch ally of Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R, GA), the committee’s ranking member and former chair.  What might/does scare some midwestern and upper midwestern farm state senators is the notion of putting the ag committee in the control of the Deep South. To that I say, do the math.  There are three southern members on the committee: Lincoln, Chambliss and Sen. Thad Cochran (R, MS), who once chaired the committee himself.  The rest of the 21 members are from everywhere else.

It all comes down to timing.  If it’s all about getting a comprehensive health care reform bill to the President in 2009, then it’s status quo until the Senate returns in 2010.  There’s no need to change  horses in the middle of that stream. If it looks as if health care will become incremental legislation – some this year and more next year — and other issues look to need shepherding going into a volatile election year — including food safety and climate change bills — then now may be the perfect time to get the new teams in place.

If Harkin gets the opportunity to chair the HELP Committee and decides to take that job, I see a win-win for ag.  We get one of our own in charge of a major committee which increasingly wrestles with policy issues that affect all the links in the food chain, and his move up the senatorial ladder clears the way for the ascension of Lincoln, who deserves the chance to show herself in a leadership role.