Senate could vote on Farm Bill by end of week; Democrats say bill is key to keeping their majority

UPDATE, June 6: The cloture vote was 75-22, showing a strong consensus to get a bill passed and put pressure on the House to pass its own bill and work out a final version in a conference committee. "A bloody fight lies ahead in the House, scheduled to take up its bill the week of June 17. But having blocked floor action last year, Speaker John Boehner will find it harder to justify more stalling after the bipartisan showing in the Senate," David Rogers of Politico reports.
The Senate could pass its version of the Farm Bill by Monday, since a cloture motion was filed Tuesday by Majority Leader Harry Reid. If Thursday's roll call receives the required 60 votes to limit debate, the number of pending amendments would drop from more than 100 to only a handful, leading to a vote by the end of this week or early next week, reports Derrick Cain for Agri-Pulse, a Washington newsletter.

On the cloture vote, Agriculture Committee leaders need "a strong showing to clear the way for passage Monday and begin to heal the breach sparked by revisions in the commodity title" and "bad blood" in a tussle over amendments, David Rogers reports for Politico. The big test for committee Chairman Debbie Stabelow, D-Mich., "may be the regional and ideological divide, which cost her precious Southern votes last June and now, could mean the loss of well-placed allies from the Midwest. . . . Behind this split is a decade of change in which net farm income in the Midwest had increased much faster than the national average while income for the Southeast and Southern Plains has trailed behind — or even declined."

Stabenow and ranking member Thad Cochran R-Miss., are trying to make both regions happy by keeping the big shift to crop insurance (Agricultural Risk Coverage) that was in last year's Senate bill, which died in the House, while adding "a modest $3.4 billion “adverse market” countercyclical program including target prices for rice and peanuts," Rogers writes. "Agriculture Department Chief Economist Joseph Glauber told Politico that the chances are low that ARC or the adverse-market program will violate limits set by the World Trade Organization. But this hasn’t cooled the rhetoric from Midwest Republicans, who have been predicting trade wars overseas and planting distortions at home," sounding alarms about the WTO.

Midwest Republicans may also have taken note that some Senate Democrats believe the Farm Bill holds the key to the 2014 election, especially among rural voters in mostly conservative states, reports Alexander Bolton for The Hill. Democrats hold a majority in the Senate, but could lose that position if voters in Montana, South Dakota, Arkansas, North Carolina, Alaska, Louisiana, New Hampshire and West Virginia elect Republicans next year.

“There’s probably no piece of legislation that’s more important to rural America than the Farm Bill," Stabenow said. "More than 16 million Americans have jobs because of agriculture and many of those jobs are found in rural communities. The Farm Bill is a game changer for rural communities and it’s one of the many reasons why passing a five-year bill is so critical.” (Read more)