What many farm groups wants in the years ahead is bipartisanship in Washington. The National Milk Producers Federation says the White House was won by razor-thin victories in a handful of states and the House and Senate will be more narrowly divided than they were the last two years.
At the American Farm Bureau Federation, Executive Vice President Dale Moore says getting legislation done in the next Congress and administration, will be a challenge.
“In order to get something out of the House, you need 218 votes,” he said. “And the House is controlled by a Democrat majority. In order to get something out of the Senate, you need 60 votes on, virtually everything, and Leader McConnell does not have 60 Republican members. He’s got, what is it, 52, 53-members. So, anything that gets done is going to require some level of compromising in order to find that middle ground that both sides are willing to accept.”
Compromise will be needed on the big things like COVID and the economy, though even that may now be harder with Republicans divided on accepting Biden as president-elect, and Democrats losing seats in the House and not likely retaking the Senate.
Moore knows the ebb and flow of DC politics and is not deterred.
“We worked through different things when the Obama Administration, some things, we worked with them, some things we had to wrestle with them. I worked for the Bush Administration, I had members of Farm Bureau that told me there were things that they worked closely with the Bush Administration on, and there were things that they wrestled with us on.”
Ability to compromise will be tested soon as lame-duck lawmakers work to keep the government funded after December 11 when temporary funding runs out. Virus relief negotiations were to restart this week with lawmakers back to finish out this Congress.
Source: NAFB News Service