Farm-district Democrats rein in liberals' agenda

We've chronicled the major moves and players on issues with strong rural angles in Congress this year, mainly the climate-change, health-care and food-safety bills. Now one of the best observers of agriculture and rural policymaking inside the Beltway, former Washington Post reporter Dan Morgan, has weighed in with a magisterial overview for his old paper.

Morgan notes the pivotal roles played by farm-district Democrats (whom he calls "Agracrats," though we would spell it "Agricrats") and their leader, House Ag Committee Chairman Collin Peterson of Minnesota, left (Getty Images). Their power "may come as a surprise to those who thought the 'farm bloc' disappeared sometime around the end of the Eisenhower administration. In fact, its clout has been reshaping -- and in some cases halting -- the ambitious agenda of President Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi," Morgan writes.

Clout comes from numbers. Many of the Agricrats "are newcomers who defeated Republicans in 2006 or 2008. In the Senate, Democrats have 12 of the 18 seats in the central farm belt and northern Great Plains," Morgan notes. "The Agracrats overlap roughly with the Blue Dogs, a formal caucus of moderate-to-conservative (and mainly rural) House Democrats. They share a prairie-populist wariness of Wall Street and Washington that has been heightened by last year's financial meltdown and the ensuing government bailouts."

The rural Democrats' handmaidens are the farm lobbies. Morgan reports "an effort by major farm organizations to raise their lobbying and public relations profile in Washington," and examines Peterson's role: "While many liberals smart at his activism, Pelosi has praised him publicly for helping pass the climate bill. And more accommodations may be coming on immigration and the administration's plan to help African farmers grow more food." Michael McLeod, a Washington lawyer-lobbyist who was chief counsel for the Senate Ag Committee in the 1970s, told Morgan, "We have never had an Agriculture Committee chairman get into other areas of jurisdiction on behalf of rural America the way this chairman has." Clearly, Peterson is a man to watch.

UPDATE, Aug. 5: Peterson and Rep. Tim Walz "were questioned closely" about the climate-change bill by highly skeptical farmers at a Minnesota farm event. Peterson said "he voted for the bill only because he knew it wouldn't become law immediately," reports Norman Merchant of The Associated Press. "In spite of the fact that they gave me everything I wanted in agriculture ... it needs some more work," Peterson said. (Read more)