Sen Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., talks with a reporters in June 2008. (Lauren Victoria Burke/WDCPIX.COM)

Democrat Tom Harkin was chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, a powerful post for protecting Iowa’s economic interests, but a low-profile position nationally. He was next in line for the chairmanship of the HELP Committee if he wanted it, but he would have to hand his Agriculture gavel to someone else if he took Kennedy’s top spot.

A five-year farm bill was passed and signed by the president in 2008. An Iowan with strong ties to Harkin, Tom Vilsack, heads the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But even with those two aces up his sleeve, U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin said leaving his position on the Agriculture Committee was a difficult decision. Ultimately, though, it fell to him to pick up Kennedy’s torch, he said Sunday in Indianola, and he took over the HELP chairmanship last week.

“It was a hard decision for me, but nonetheless one that I welcomed,” Harkin said.

“Keep in mind that I will still be on the ag committee. I will still be a high-ranking member on that committee. So, I’m not leaving the committee, I just won’t be the chairman of it.”

When the three senators with the most seniority after Harkin passed on the Agriculture post, U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, the daughter of Arkansas rice and cotton farmers and the youngest woman ever elected to the Senate, became the first woman to serve as chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry. She is the first member of Congress from Arkansas to lead any committee since the 1970s, and the first Arkansan ever to lead the Senate Agriculture Committee.

Lincoln, who will now oversee agriculture and rural economic development in the Senate, had been seen as one of the most vulnerable Democrats going into the 2010 campaign, but that could all change with her newfound power. When her new position was announced, Arkansas News columnist John Brummett said that someone should pull a banner behind plane stating: “Y’all would be fools to fire Blanche Lincoln now.”

Lincoln is now uncommonly positioned to defend East Arkansas farmers’ interests when subsidy issues arise, as they always do, and as they inevitably will as this president of Lincoln’s party tries to find ways to get the deficit down.

She is uncommonly positioned to protect and serve the interests of the Arkansas poultry industry. And she is uncommonly positioned to try to do whatever is within the federal government’s might to save and revitalize her native Arkansas Delta.

The editorial team at the Arkansas Democrat Gazette opined that the only way Lincoln’s new leadership position could be more popular among Arkansans would be if she had became chairwoman of a High School Football Committee.

Iowa’s two U.S. senators — Harkin and Republican Chuck Grassley — both have spoken highly of Lincoln, who has proven herself in their eyes as a thoughtful member of both the Agriculture and Finance committees. But they also acknowledge that agriculture in Arkansas is quite different from agriculture in Iowa.

“The only thing that I can say — and she would understand exactly what I mean when I say this — she has different commodities and a broader base of commodities than what we have in the Midwest,” Grassley said. “And she and I have had some differences on capping farm payments to a certain class of farmers — those that would be average, we’d say. And she would say, ‘Well, you don’t understand the agriculture of the South.’ Rice and cotton is entirely different than corn and soybeans.”

Grassley said that he agrees with Lincoln 95 percent of the time on agricultural policy, and that he doesn’t intend to allow the 5 percent to jeopardize the working relationship he’s built with her. But, when asked this week if he agreed more often with Lincoln or Harkin on agricultural policy, Grassley was quick with his response: “Senator Harkin.”

Agricultural interests in Iowa have quietly voiced concerns that Lincoln may not be as strong an advocate for the upper Midwest as Harkin has been, but both Harkin and Grassley doubt that much will change for the worse.

According to Harkin, his decision to relinquish the chairmanship was made easier due to the farm bill being settled for three more years, former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack being in charge of the USDA, and the strong Midwestern presence that remains on the committee.

“We have a lot of people from the upper Midwest on that committee — so our grain farmers shouldn’t be too concerned about that,” Harkin said. “Our interests in biofuels — our interests in grains, corn, soybeans and the kind of infrastructure we have in the upper Midwest … believe me, I’m still going to be protecting it.”

And Harkin’s seniority means he has one more ace up his sleeve: Should it become necessary, he has the power to retake the chair of the Agriculture committee before the next Farm Bill is written in a few years, even if Lincoln and every other incumbent is returned to office in 2010.

From the Farm Bureau’s release listing some takeaway points from their candidate survey responses:

When asked about the farm bill, Obama said it was important to implement the 2008 bill as passed by Congress. McCain, who did not support the bill, instead focused his answers on expanding foreign markets and reforming the crop insurance program.

According to the survey, both candidates support creating a greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program. McCain goes a step further by saying he would exempt farmers from greenhouse gas caps.

Both candidates pledge to cut the estate tax, with McCain promising a lower tax rate and higher estate value exemption (15 percent and $10 million) than Obama (45 percent and $7 million).

To read the questionnaire in the newsletter, click here (pdf) and go to page 3.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer visited the 2008 Farm Progress Show in Boone, Iowa on Thursday.

Implementation of the new farm bill will ultimately be handed off to the next presidential administration, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer said at a press conference in Iowa Thursday.

Schafer told agriculture reporters at the 2008 Farm Progress Show that the implementation of the new farm bill is “going well,” with the work about two weeks ahead of schedule.

“We have prioritized the programs, and some programs come to us with certain timelines and deadlines,” said Schafer. “We’re working through methodically to produce the rules and regulations. And, importantly, we understand that we will not get this farm bill fully implemented before the end of this administration. So it will go off into the next administration.”

One of the major tasks that Schafer’s department must complete soon is the implementation of the new country-of-origin labeling program for retail food products. Country-of-origin labeling was passed into law in 2002, but was never implemented by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The new farm bill that passed this year mandates that the labeling law be implemented by Oct. 1. Schafer said that the USDA is on track to do so and has published its interim final rule for the program.

“I believe we came up with a set of regulations that are understanding of people’s concerns, of producers’ concerns, and the cost to the consumer,” he said. “I like the regulations the way they came out. There’s a lot of controversy all the way around, but I think we struck a good balance with this, and we are in the position to deliver it on October 1.”

Schafer said he anticipates “bumps in the system” regarding regulation of the program. He said the USDA will allow a six-month implementation period in which the department will work with retailers and producers for a smooth transition. During the six-month period, he said, the USDA won’t be “coming in with the hammer or the summons book, but we’re coming in to say this is the new law, this is how we work through it. So we’ll have that grace period to work through so we can get it implemented properly.”

Other aspects of the farm bill will cost more to implement than the USDA has been given, he said, noting that the department cannot implement some of the new programs with the hardware and software currently in place. He has requested an additional $179 million from Congress to fund the shortfall. “One difficulty that we’re facing is we required and asked for $200 million for implementation for the new farm bill, and we received about $55 million, so we simply don’t have enough money.”

Schafer also discussed the Conservation Reserve Program, which has been in the news recently following a lawsuit filed by the National Wildlife Federation. Schafer said he would like to see legislation passed that would bring more flexibility to the program and allow the USDA to change CRP contracts. “The conversation has definitely not stopped,” he said. “It is being pursued legislatively on the hill, which is where the final answer is going to rest.”

“His recent statement in Iowa that he would veto the new Farm Bill as now written helps firm up his reputation for independence from lobbying interests, but puts him more at risk in swing states like Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Missouri, and maybe Indiana — or even the critical state of Ohio, which people often forget is in the Corn Belt,” Cross told Iowa Independent. “Perhaps he expects that his national media campaign will mention his opposition to ethanol and other subsidies, probably not a bad idea at a time of rising food and fuel prices.”

McCain’s opposition to farm subsidies and hostility to ethanol are well-chronicled. Here is The Associated Press from earlier this month reporting on McCain’s visit to Des Moines and comments on the Farm Bill:

“I do not support it. I would veto it,” McCain said. “I would do that because I believe that the subsidies are unnecessary.”

McCain was in the heart of farm country, a place where subsidies for corn and ethanol fuel are wildly popular.

His long-held opposition to subsidies has cost him in Iowa, the state that traditionally begins the presidential nominating process and is a potential swing state in the fall. Yet the Arizona senator didn’t hesitate to bring up the issue.
“I just thought I’d start out with that non-controversial statement,” he said as he began the town hall-style meeting.

The nearly $300 billion bill would pay for farm and nutrition programs for the next five years.

Given Obama’s “weakness with rural Democrats,” perhaps McCain, an Arizona senator, figures he has some room to run in farm country, Cross said.

“But he (McCain) had better beware those swing states,” Cross said. “Farm prices may be high, but farmers and their economic allies are in the squeeze, too.”

Obama touted his support of renewable fuels during campaigning in Iowa and frequently mentioned his farm country constituency in Illinois — which has many of the same interests as Iowa producers.

For his part, McCain is now being swept up in the “food versus fuel” debate that many in farm country regard as nothing more than a straw man for big oil.

Ethanol is far from the only energy source to be propped up with government subsidies as evidenced by a Texas state comptroller’s report released this week.

And in Grand Island, Neb., this week — an area where corn and livestock and biofuels are vital — Rick Tolman, chief executive officer of the National Corn Growers Association, told the Grand Island Independent newspaper that a “massive disinformation campaign” against ethanol was started by the oil industry which doesn’t want the competition.

It also may have been started by those, such as the meat industry, that want corn to return as a low-cost feed for livestock, he said.

Seventy-five years ago, corn was fetching less than 10 cents a bushel and pork was at three cents a pound. A migrant class of American workers was being created. These were the desperate times of the 1930s known as the Great Depression.

And just like today, mortgage foreclosures were taking land and homes away from citizens.In Iowa, angry mobs violently fought judicial decisions that foreclosed their farms. Just 55 days after President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s inauguration, a group of farmers in northwest Iowa angrily shook the foundations of civilized law when they seized Plymouth County District Judge Charles Bradley from his courtroom, dragged him outside to the courthouse lawn and punched, kicked and slapped him.

The mob, part of the Farmer’s Holiday Association, had been organized the previous year to protest the dire financial situation that was ruining family farms throughout the nation. At their first meeting on May 3, 1932, some 3,000 farmers met to form the bloc.

The “holiday” officially called for a farmer’s strike of withholding produce for sale. They sang:

  Let’s call a Farmers’ Holiday
  A Holiday let’s hold
  We’ll eat our wheat and ham and eggs
  And let them eat their gold.

The association’s leader, Milo Reno, called the strike “the last stand of American agriculture in defense of their rights and their homes.” He claimed the United States had found itself in “the most amazing and confounding situation in the history of the world — people starving in a land with an abundance of food; naked, because of a surplus of clothing; people bankrupt in the richest nation in the world.”

Roads were blocked and fresh milk dumped into ditches during 1932’s infamous “Cow Wars” (also known as the “Milk Wars”) outside Sioux City and Council Bluffs.

In September of that year, the Farmer’s Holiday movement prescribed actions in Tipton to block veterinarians from diagnosing bovine tuberculosis and condemning animals.

With a foreclosure moratorium law in February 1933, the Iowa Legislature attempted to calm violence in rural Iowa by stopping banks from foreclosing on farms unable to cover their mortgages.

The constitutionality of that law was to be challenged in Judge Bradley’s court in Le Mars on that day, April 27, 1933. But before he could hear any arguments, he was charged by more than 100 men in his courtroom.

According to accounts from “A Judge and a Rope” (by George Mills, 1994), “A History of Iowa” (by Leland L. Sage, 1979) and the Chicago Tribune (in the days following the event), Bradley was dragged from the Plymouth County courthouse and refused repeated demands to ignore foreclosure edicts. He was surrounded by an angry and violent mob.

In that public square, he was struck in the face and fell to his knees. The crowd demanded that he agree to stop signing foreclosures, but he refused to disobey his office.

Roughly, the judge was hauled by the mob into the back of a truck and blindfolded. The crowd would be thinned by a change of locale, but unfortunately for the judge, the terror was multiplied.

Dumped a half-mile outside of town, he had a noose placed around his neck. The rope was tossed over an electric light pole, tightened and for an instant the judge was lifted off the ground by his neck.

Again he was asked not to sign foreclosures on farms and this time when he refused his pants were removed, smeared with grease and filled with dirt and gravel.

The 54-year-old judge was crowned with a greasy hubcap and told to get on his knees and pray. Aloud he prayed, “Oh, Lord, I pray thee, do justice to all men.”

Miraculously, this brave prayer seemed to break the will of the mob, and some of the masked men who held the rope got in a car and drove away.

While walking back to town, he was picked up by Rev. J.J. Depree who drove the judge the rest of the way back to town. Judge Charles Bradley escaped with only minor injuries and the need for a wash-up and a change of clothes.

Dr. Thomas Starzl, son of Le Mars Globe Post editor Roman Starzl, was only 7 years old at the time of the almost-lynching. His father was a correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and wrote front-page accounts of the incident for the Trib.

In recalling the incident, Starzl told the Iowa Independent:

“The farmers were on a rampage because they couldn’t get properly paid for milk and for their meat from pigs they were raising, so they had gone on a rampage … They were pouring all their milk out and they had vigilantes on all the roads around Le Mars and any scabs trying to break through and sell the milk had to be roughed up.”

After the incident, Gov. Clyde Herring sent hundreds of troops to quell the farm strikes in Le Mars and Denison. Martial law was imposed in several counties until May 17, only five days after the enactment of the New Deal farm bill, the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA). Considered the first farm bill, the AAA paid farmers a subsidy to leave their fields empty.

Starzl again:

“There was a huge National Guard encampment and the city was put under martial law. I remember that extremely distinctly because I had toy soldiers and there were these real soldiers running around with real guns. I was 7 years old.

What was going on was mortgage closings just the same as going on today and ruthless people were coming along buying up these farms for pennies.

This was a dangerous time in this country. It was a dangerous time in Le Mars because it was the center of a real revolt … It was a real uprising.”

Today, the crossroads where Judge Bradley was brutalized is now a housing addition named in his honor by the real estate developer.

Starzl is widely regarded as a pioneer in the field of organ transplantation. The University of Pittsburgh has named the Thomas Starzl Transplantation Institute in his honor and he remains one of the most cited physicians in the world. Now retired, he lives in Pittsburgh, Pa.

“I’m not focused on simply kicking the ball down the field with another short-term extension,” said Harkin.
“We need to chart the course, set the schedule and wrap up the bill. We all know the main sticking points of the farm bill at this point. It’s time for people to come together and get the solutions and get this bill done. In order for that to happen it will require the leadership of this Congress to break the impasse over the farm bill.”

Harkin noted the fact that Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., have been working on a resolution to the funding and tax disagreements. “Resolving this $10 billion in funding and the tax issues are really in their court, not in mine,” said Harkin.

Later Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., officially appointed the House members of the Farm Bill Conference Committee. The committee held its first meeting Thursday morning.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, quickly criticized the House proposal brought forth in the conference committee meeting. Grassley issued a statement early Thursday afternoon noting that the House proposal leaves out a tax provision that would benefit young and beginning farmers, as well as a provision that would provide tax relief for disabled and retired farmers.

“If the House really wants a farm bill, they didn’t start out very well today,” stated Grassley. “The Senate made investments in nutrition, energy and conservation all while providing important agriculture tax relief. Not only did the House leave out important tax provisions for young and beginning farmers, they also neglected to include relief from the self-employment tax on CRP (Conservation Reserve Program) payments for the disabled and retired.”

Grassley stated that the House proposal would result in some farmers seeing their Social Security or disability payments being slashed.

This places the veteran Iowa senator in a pivotal position for ironing out differences between House and Senate ag bills.

"That does have a nice important aspect to it, if you know what I mean," Harkin said. "I get to call the meetings, and I get to decide what the agenda is."

In 2002, while Harkin was chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, it was the House's turn in a rotation to run the conference.

Harkin said his role as conference committee chairman doesn't mean he  can push through all provisions favorable to Iowans.

"But still, it gives me some leverage," Harkin said.

The 2007 farm bill is a long way from conference, though.

"I think there's going to be some big battles on the Senate floor in this farm bill," Harkin said. "There will be some tough fights."

With any reforms attempted, some interest group will be hurt and "that's what the battles will be about," Harkin said.