Hanging onto the cliff of optimism with our fingernails for a Farm Bill in 2024 - Jonathan Coppess

Hi everybody. Welcome into the MToM podcast studios here at Iowa PBS. I'm Paul Yeager. Glad to have you here on this new episode where we are going to talk about an old issue - The Farm Bill. Jonathan Coppess is a professor of ag policy at the University of Illinois. He's also a former Washington DC staffer. He knows the ins and outs of making a farm bill happen and the challenges of we're going to find out what challenges are out there right now, in this legislation to an extent when it comes to discussing policy, and there's a couple things I wrote down, I need to check my notes here, we're going to talk about historical context. Have we seen this type of rhetoric, or lack of action, and or lack of action? In a farm bill before we'll get a little historical perspective there, we're also going to talk about the issue of vote counting, and amendments. And maybe it's time to just kind of put some things out there and just see what happens. We'll also get into the timetable of when we may see action, and if we don't see action on a farm bill by a certain date. Boy, there's some big challenges ahead. It is a presidential election year. So politics is clearly at the center of a lot of this debate. If you have any feedback for me, send me an email at Paul.Yeager@IowaPBS.ORG. If you liked this podcast, comments are always appreciated. If you don't like it, send me feedback. We'll chat and maybe have a good topic that we should cover. But for now, let's talk about foreign policy. And our friend Jonathan Coppess. This is going to be a pretty short conversation. When you have no Farm Bill or progress anywhere. Am I misreading the news reports? The staff reports the lack of action on the farm committees. Is this thing just stuck? 

[Jonathan Coppess]  Yeah, well, happy New Year to you.

[Yeager]  Happy New Year, Jonathan.

[Coppess]  It's good to see you again and talk to you again, I You are not misreading anything. It is stuck. It is at an impasse. And it's been at an impasse for a while. You know, some of the latest sort of reporting, is probably reinforcing that as much as anything and which, in particular Chairwoman Stabenow has been, has sent a letter to her colleagues. And as sort of laid out some basic principles. The way I look at it or interpreted is, she's not getting much of a response, I saw some also reporting that ranking member Bozeman made some comment about putting something on paper or the spokesperson says I'm not putting on paper, which my first thought was, well, that should happen a year ago. It's not a good sign that we're a year into this and the ranking member has yet to put anything down as to what the priorities even are, or says we know as a reference price conversation, what are the reference prices that we're looking for? And so that's the Senate side, that's the more that's where we have our strongest optimism that the Senate can be more functional. The house, as you've seen, is just an incredibly difficult situation. I mean, I kind of liken this to not really having a functioning majority. And because of that lack of a functioning majority, it's really hard to get things together. There seems to be just substantial resistance to anything bipartisan, which is what we would think a farm bill would be, is bipartisan, and they don't traditionally have been. And they don't seem to like anything else that they're putting together, or at least some of them don't, I shouldn't say that about everybody. There is really just a small faction in the house, that is a real problem in terms of making progress, but when the majority is slim, a small faction can hold everything hostage. 

[Yeager]  And I'm gonna guess, Jonathan, any optimism has to have probably left, given the movement on the immigration bill. Where I mean, that was something where if you read the political stories of the Democrats were basically handing a victory to the Republicans in the election as a whole, not maybe necessarily the Presidential. So I read that as we really are not going to see anything done in these next nine months. 10 months.

[Coppess]  So you read ,yeah, you raise which is like the the the you know, if you think of our we're sort of hanging on the cliff of optimism, by our fingernails, somebody that just stepped on one of our fingers, if not three up, right, that just really does cloud the legislative picture if they can't get to that sort of, I mean, here we have just a tragic problem at the border and is getting worse and and it's complicated. It's difficult, and you're right there. There is a deal in front of Congress right now. That maybe nobody likes all away, but has a lot of what the constituents want but we need to see. And it appears to be hanging on by its own thread. And if you can't get that through I don't know what that signals again for the Farm Bill. I don't know how to factor that in. But it does it feeds this this overall pessimism right, it feeds this sort of really challenging outlook for things because we do not have functioning. We have a functioning legislative branch, and that makes it really tough. Now, look, can these things be resolved? Sure. You know, we've got to get funding from the government done, and we've seen maybe some potential progress there. The 2018 Farm Bill got held up on the House floor over immigration. So it's not as if we haven't seen that again, as well. You're sorry, I cut you off. You're getting ready.

[Yeager]  Well, no, I was going to you. I guess let's peel the curtain a little bit. You were in DC last week, right?

[Coppess]  DC? Yes. Yeah. 

[Yeager]  Okay, you've got friends there. You worked there. You lived there. Do they have any optimism? And I'm not trying to out your friends or anything? 

[Coppess]  Yes. First of all, I wasn't there for Farm Bill purposes. I was there for actually a very fascinating workshop at USDA, on other issues, but it's hard to, it's hard to answer that because particularly the staff that are involved in working on a farm bill, like you don't have a choice, your job is to work on this and to grind and grind and grind through it. And so I think, at the staff level, I mean, I compliment them for what I can imagine behind the scenes, I actually don't have a lot of I don't have a lot of intel on this at this point. Because again, I think it's just that it's at an impasse. But I do know from my own experiences, what's probably going on behind closed doors, and in the meeting rooms and whatnot, it's just a, a just constant grind to try to find a way forward. Had it worked for Chairwoman Stabenow. I know, she is relentless and trying to figure this out. And I, you know, I don't pretend to be objective when it comes to how she legislators I think she's just an incredible legislator. And so I have a lot of confidence that she's trying to find a way. I'm really concerned that, you know, she cannot do it alone, there has to be votes on all sides of these issues. And there has to be a path of compromise. And if we're not seeing it, particularly from the ranking member, then that's raising the challenges. We're not seeing that sort of, here's what I want to here's what I need to see your what here are the parameters, here's the deal. You know, there's only so much that any one member can do, or even a chair can do. And so I'm pretty certain that you're got a lot of work going on. And that's where I find optimism, Paul, to be honest with you, like, if you're asking me for why I'm still hanging on to the cliff of this, it's like, look, we've seen this, I lived through it, when what became the 2014 farm bill where there seemed to be no path time and time again. And people like Chairwoman Stabenow, we worked and worked and worked to try to find a path through it. So if there's a chance for us, if there's a reason for optimism, it is that that work is continuing, we may not see it. And out of that, you know, constant grind and push that there may be something right, there may be a chance to find a compromise. And once they do, then you gotta find a path through Congress. But at least let's get that first step down.

[Yeager]  Okay, historically, though, yeah, let's not even go 2014 In the challenges that we had, have we ever had anything like this? In the history of this? I mean, this is a bill that goes back decades, several decades, nine of them to be exact. Yeah. Do we ever find in your guess you're you know, you're in the study, academic look from the back business. Now. What can you point to students who are like, Have we ever done this before? How do you answer that question?

[Coppess]  I mean, that's the nicest way I've ever heard anybody call me a geek. So I appreciate it.

[Yeager]  Words matter, right Jon? 

[Coppess]  Yes. As a geek? No, it's a great question. I think, and I have been trying to figure out how to write this, let alone say, like, how to work this out in terms of the historical context. One of the things that reminds me of when you look back over is some of the impasse and problems we had in the 1950s and early 1960s. There's some goods and Bad's to that, right. In that stretch of time, we had, for example, the Agriculture Act of 1956, which included the Soil Bank. Eisenhower had to veto the first version of it and send it back to Congress and tell him this is not the path we're taking. Right and it was a big fight between the administration and the Southern Democrats on the committees in Congress. So that's an example. And they eventually found the way through it right. And then they did. Although they, the soil bank did not, did not get much of a chance to succeed. And we saw things unravel right into the 1962, '63 debacle. In which I would, I would say looking at the history, it was probably one of the lowest points for foreign policy and its existence. Now, the upside was the way they found their way out of it was food stamps in 1964 was paired up to help gather votes, because the Farm Coalition that was moving that legislation had really just tore itself apart. So there's some historical examples. I don't know where that next kind of coalition building potential is, if there is something like that had to happen. I do think the coalition of farm bills now is extraordinarily powerful politically, and in an extraordinary vote counting mechanism, as well as being important in terms of the policy benefits, it delivers across the country, to multiple groups of constituents. But I just think there's this bigger challenge we're seeing in Congress, this inability to work together to work things out. And I mean, disagree productively. Right. Part of the whole point of politics and policymaking is we have disagreements, and we work them out. But it's got to be a productive effort. And we're not seeing and so I don't know that we have a in the history of foreign policy, I don't know that we have that set of scenarios to work through, we've had some significant problems in the past, you know, the mid 90s, the '95, the '96 range was really difficult as well. But I don't have a great historical analogue to say, Oh, wow. And you know, '47, they did this, and they worked it out that way. This was a little bit different.

[Yeager]  But I look at the country as a whole. And then I look at individual states. Yeah, minorities have had a hard time minority parties have had trouble getting anything done. It's been the majority party, whether it's Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, when they're in the majority, whichever party it is, they seem to be controlling things. Are we to the point yet? Let's go back to maybe putting a finger back onto the cliff to hang on, that the path forward is absolutely bipartisanship and no longer just one party pushing something through?

[Coppess]  I think the answer to that is yes. Is that that way through Congress, and this is one of the challenges with comparing state level legislative policymaking to the national? And I don't mean, we could get into a long philosophical discussion here for not being careful, and I'll try to stay out of that too much with you. But it's a great question. Right. One of the challenges we see is the levels of faction, you know, the sort of breaking apart that we see at the at the national level, which gets included in Congress, and the way Congress was designed, it just has a lot of these, these bottleneck points or veto points in which any small group can can can really bog down or blow things up. And so it's hard to work through those. And I think, particularly things like the 60 vote threshold in the Senate anymore. This rule, this sort of standing procedure in the house in which a majority of the majority has to agree to something right, like, those sort of things really, really complicated. But I do think, look, the system was designed for exactly what you're talking about. You've got to be able to pull together enough factional interests to sort of whether it's bipartisan, or by multi-regions, multi-factions, like, the way you clear the hurdles in Congress, is you build that coalition. It can't just be one, one side, one issue, one faction getting its way, it was designed to force that coalition, though, that's basically why it's so difficult to do. So we've got to see it, and you're right, where we find that optimism is, you know, at this sort of the grinding, difficult work to build that up to put those pieces together. And then eventually, I think some people you know, are just gonna have to kind of push they're gonna have to be pushed to a situation of Are you gonna vote for it or not? Like we can only negotiate for what we're going to have to try our best, we have to put something forward and say, Okay, if you don't like this, what's your amendment look like? Right. That's the other thing that I feel like we're missing in some of this conversation. You have a chance if you disagree with legislation, instead of blowing up the process, have an amendment. I mean, the beauty of the legislative process is vote counting. I will say this over and over. Get right, you can find out whether your idea is popular very quickly, do you have the votes to win. And if you don't have the votes to win, then maybe that should be a signal that your idea doesn't have what it takes. And so I would love to see a more open process. We went through hundreds of votes and 12 and 13 on a farm bill. And it was a really cathartic process for many members, members got to come out and demand what they wanted. And, most of them lost. And you know, what, fine, you got a chance you made your case, the votes weren't there. That's honestly where I see this having to resolve itself is on the floor with like some sort of process by which you get a chance. You don't like the way SNAP program works, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, bringing them in. And if you can get enough votes, then your view just wants to are validated. If you don't, do you last move on, like other people have their say to? 

[Yeager]  There's two things that I'd like to do. I'm very intrigued by the vote counting aspect. I'm also intrigued by what you just said about the floor openness. Yeah. Do you think we have seen the legislative process go a little less in the light, to protect it to get to the floor in a way that those opposite Those in opposition can't rally a base with emails and tweets, to flood offices with phone calls to say, please do not let my representative vote for this?

[Coppess]  And that is a difficult question.

[Yeager]  And in only two minutes, because class is about to start.

[Coppess]  I think, I still think and I get I know why we close these up. I know why they're protecting these things and using rules. But I still think that at the end of the day, even with the cacophony of craziness that we see from social media, at the end of the day, the vote counting has real value. And I will argue until proven wrong. And Lord knows, it's probably easy to prove me wrong, that you gotta you gotta sort of, you've got to have a chance for the disagreements to be aired. And for people to see they don't have the votes. And look, that's tough, that's tough for leadership, they got limited time, they got a lot of stuff to work through, they don't want to spend weeks on a farm bill, I get it. But at the end of the day, if we're stuck, and we can move it, you know, maybe that chant starts with the committee and just get a bill out there, get a mark. And if you don't like it, bring an amendment. And just open that conversation. I know that may sound, you know, like I'm over making a sound too easy. That's somebody who tried to count votes a few times, like, I apologize to my friends on the Hill that I just opened that even thought, right, it's gonna be a lot of work. But with these kinds of impasses, at some point, it's a question of are the votes there? Otherwise, you allow these small factions to kind of drag your feet, drag their feet, demand things, move the goalposts, pretend that they're trying and then go tweet at them, or whatever accident or whatever you write, pretend that they're negotiating when they're not. And at some point, you got to have the votes. And that goes in the house that goes in the Senate as well. And so maybe, you know, maybe this sort of frustration, and the hard work kind of leads us to that sort of basic legislative process to say, Okay, here's what we think it should be, you know, don't don't just stand out there and bash it in the press, bringing amendment less than bait it, let's see who's got the votes, and then we move on, and then we move forward. You know, I'd like to think that could happen. I'm not necessarily going to bet on it. But I do think there's, there's, there's a chance for something like that to be actually very valuable for the policy itself, and maybe even the politics here.

[Yeager]  If we don't see something done, in, what, two months, four months, are we done until 2025?

[Coppess]  So we've got probably too early July, right. I think that July 4, recess is going to be a pretty light. The door closes nearly immediately after that, because we go into the full on crazy season of campaigns, and the presidential election obviously is going to have such a huge it's got to take up a lot of oxygen and energy. We don't have to necessarily get it all the way down. I hate to say this, but I do think you can get far enough along the process to allow for a lame duck. But that probably requires some version of getting through committees and maybe even water both floors. By July 4. I mean, I think we're okay. I think that's going to be a tough stretch after that. Now, they'll have some a couple of weeks to work maybe in July, but yeah, pretty limited.

[Yeager]  All right, I gotta let you get to class. Jonathan, thank you so much for squeezing me in today. I appreciate it. 

[Coppess]  Thanks, Paul. It's good to talk to you. I love the questions. Those are great. Maybe we may have a philosophical discussion.

[Yeager]  Hey, we're just here to chat. All right, Jonathan Coppess, University of Illinois. Thank you much. Thank you. My thanks to Jonathan for squeezing us in right before class started one day this winter, as we discussed the Farm Bill. Hey, a couple of weeks ago, we had the end of the podcast where we asked for items to be mailed to us that could be on display. At our podcast table, which right here where my arm is, you may soon see in future episodes, what has been sent in what has made the cut, send us anything that you think would be kind of a fun display case whether it's an old tin or bobblehead ashtray coffee cup. Some pictures that are going to be coming soon. Send it to M to M Podcast, via Iowa PBS, PO Box 6450 Johnston, Iowa 50131. Thank you. We'll see you next time on the MToM Show podcast.

Contact: Paul.Yeager@IowaPBS.org