Election results may change direction of Farm Bill
The look forward comes in the form of elections and is less concrete just days after the polls closed.
A few races are still too close to call and keep in doubt who moves into majority or minority positions.
Peter Tubbs has our election wrap up.
Transcript
An expected red wave arrived as a red ripple, and the Republican bid to gain control of Congress will have to await completion of the final tabulation and recount process.
In the U.S. House, Democrats have been holding on to the narrowest majority in decades and Republicans needed to flip only 5 of the 435 seats to regain control. In midterm elections over the last 100 years, the President's party lost an average of 29 seats in each cycle. Republicans may fall short of that mark in this cycle.
Control of the Senate may have to wait for a December runoff in Georgia.
Republican control of either the House or Senate Agriculture Committees could change the trajectory of the next Farm Bill. Republicans may put a damper on President Biden’s climate smart agricultural initiatives. Another attempt may be made to separate the USDA’s supplemental food assistance spending, commonly referred to as SNAP, from the remainder of the USDA budget. Attempts to decouple food assistance spending, which makes up the vast majority of the Department of Agriculture’s budget, from the rest of USDA’s coffers has failed in the past.
If the Republicans gain control of the House Agriculture Committee, Congressman Glenn Thompson of Pennsylvania would take over the gavel. Senator John Boozman of Arkansas would be Chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee under a Republican majority.
On the state level, Missouri and Maryland each approved recreational use of marijuana. 21 states now allow recreational use by adults.
For Market to Market, I’m Peter Tubbs.