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Too much Eric Cantor

As a chronic victim of Potomac fever, I watched House Republicans and Democrats duke it out this week over their chamber’s version of the FY2015 agriculture/FDA spending bill.  My interest was admittedly disproportionate to most C-Span viewers as there were expected amendments I was working to kill.

The floor debate was a good old back and forth, one side accusing the other of any number of sins against the American people, but generally said in the nicest possible way.  The big issue was House GOP language allowing schools/school districts to obtain waivers allowing them to opt out of the new federal school breakfast and lunch nutrition requirements – more fruits and veggies, “local” purchases, etc. – if they could show a net operating loss for a six-month period going back to July, 2013.  Many schools say they’re losing money, the foods are too expensive and hard to find, and when they do serve the new USDA menu, kids won’t eat the food and throw the lunches away.

Facing down the schools was none other than First Lady Michelle Obama and her “Let’s Move” program designed to head off/reduce childhood obesity.  Her minions kept pointing at the “science” underlying the new menus.   Her former White House assistant chef Sam Kass, now unexplainably a senior advisor to the President on food policy, kept admonishing folks to “follow the science,” and Rep. Sam Farr (D, CA), ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee’s subcommittee on agriculture, was his acolyte, pushing an amendment to strip the waiver language from the bill.

As the GOP assured one and all they aren’t trying to force kids to eat cake, candy and sugar-laden soda pop for lunch, and as the Democrats tried to convince everyone they stand on the side of the angels in retraining children what to eat, the House Republican leadership pulled the plug on the debate.  Why?  House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R, VA) lost the Virginia Republican primary to a college professor, or as I like to call it, the best example of what goes around, comes around in quite a while.

The first scheduling announcement said debate would resume next week; then late Thursday, it was formally declared the bill was off the floor schedule indefinitely and “may be taken up at some later time this summer.”   One House GOP staffer told me senior Republicans on the floor were “emotional and distracted” by Cantor’s stunning defeat, and the GOP needed to “regroup” to move on.  A Democrat staffer, acknowledging the Cantor defeat was unsettling, said scuttling the bill had more to do with potentially losing the vote on school lunch waivers.

Cantor’s fate is admittedly a game changer of sorts in the House.  I still blame Cantor for mishandling of the floor action on the House Farm Bill that delayed that legislation for over a year in his zeal to cut federal food stamp rolls, a rather extreme example of politics over policy.  Street talk say Cantor plays to the ultraconservative side of the House and had his sights set on becoming House Speaker one day.  House Speaker John Boehner (R, OH) speaking to reporters with unusual candor this week, said all the right things about his “friend and colleague,” but refused to get sucked into the “why” of Cantor’s defeat, declaring “it’s just one election” and “they’re all different,” and saying the Majority Leader would be chosen – as such folks are always chosen – by a vote of the caucus.

The original one-hour debate recess so Republicans could meet, assess, talk process, etc., made sense, but the scheduling did not.  What also surprises me is unending dithering by reporters, Democrats and other Republicans over why Cantor lost, what his defeat means to the party nationally and its prospects in the November elections, and what the fate of the free world might be with Cantor out of House leadership.

Being the round-headed Midwesterner I am, and being one of those who prefer to view most glasses as half full, I think House GOP leadership has indefinitely delayed the bill to “regroup” over how to win the school lunch battles, and ultimately, pass the bill it wants to pass.  Unfortunately, an analysis by an appropriations committee veteran, now an industry lobbyist, is probably the correct one.

She contends House ag approps won’t come back to the floor, but rather will become part of an omnibus FY2015 spending package – all the spending bills too controversial to make it on their own. This “minibus” will be rushed through the process during the post-election lame duck session.  If she’s right, chalk it up to another opportunity lost.

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