House Farm Bill Goes Down to Defeat, 195-234

Via a special arrangement with Informa Economics, Inc.

Next step: bill could come back to floor next week

The House of Representatives today defeated the farm bill (HR 1947) by a vote of 195-234.

The vote count showed very few Democratic members voting for it, but an ample but obviously not enough GOP members voting for it -- 171 with only 24 Democratic yeah votes. In the final vote, 62 Republicans opposed the bill, as did 172 Democratic members, enough to send it to defeat. Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) clearly did not do his job in getting enough Democratic members to vote for the bill, even though he predicted 50 such votes, as opposed to earlier readings of only 20 to 30 Democratic votes, which proved accurate. Democrats in the chamber cheered when it became clear that the bill would fail.

GOP leaders also losers. The rejection of the bill was a shocking defeat not only for House Ag Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) but also for House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), both of whom had spoken in favor of the legislation.

Republicans had expected Democrats to deliver 40 votes for the bill. But a source said that at the last moment, Peterson said they could not produce that many because of pressure from Democratic leaders and the White House, which had threatened to veto the bill over the food stamp cuts. Peterson blamed the approval of two amendments for the failure. One of the amendments — backed by Boehner — ended production limits on dairy producers that were a part of the underlying bill. The second, sponsored by Rep. Steve Southerland (R-Fla.), allowed states to require food stamp beneficiaries to either work or look for work. “I told Cantor that Southerland cost us 15 votes,” Peterson said. “A lot of people came up to me and said, I’m with you, but I’m out now.”

The size of the $20.5 billion cuts for food stamps gave the bulk of Democratic members cover to vote no, along with the White House veto threat.

The failure of the House to clear the bill vindicates GOP leaders last year who said they did not have the votes to pass a farm bill.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), on the House floor, said that going to conference “was the goal and then we would try to participate in a robust discussion with the other side of the capital to see if we could clear some reform measures to a bill and program that is in desperate need of that. What we saw today was a Democratic Leadership in the House that was insistent to undue years and years of bipartisan work on an issue like a farm bill and decide to make it a partisan issue. It is unfortunate. I hope we can work on other issues.”

House Majority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), in a floor discussion with Cantor, said he should not try to put the blame on Democrats but instead the partisan nature of the farm bill. His comments centered on a food stamp amendment he and other Democratic members railed against. Hoyer also noted the number of Republicans who opposed the bill.

Democrats suggested that the final straw for them came near the end of the debate when the House adopted an amendment by Steve Southerland (R-Fla.) that would allow states to impose work requirements on food stamp recipients. Hoyer mentioned a “Draconian” amendment, clearly Southerland’s SNAP measure. “You turned a bipartisan bill, necessary for our farmers, necessary for our consumers, necessary for the people of America, that many of us would have supported, and you turned it into a partisan bill,” Hoyer said.

Rory Cooper, a Cantor spokesman, said that Democrats pulled support after the adoption of an amendment sponsored by Southerland, that would have added work requirements to the food stamp program. “The Southerland amendment has been debated, discussed … for weeks. Everybody knew that it was coming, everybody knew that it was going to pass,” Cooper said. “Democrats told us clearly after the vote, or right before the vote, that they knew that the Southerland amendment was going to pass and decided at the last minute they were going to withdraw their support.”

Cooper said, “Unfortunately, Nancy Pelosi and Democratic leadership decided that politics was more important than going to conference and getting things done.” He called the Democrats’ decision to vote at the last minute against the bill a “complete collapse of professionalism and maturity on the Democratic Party’s part and unfortunately a slap in the face of the American people.”

In a briefing with reporters following the vote, Pelosi called the floor proceedings as managed by Republicans “amateur hour,” calling them “juvenile” and “unprofessional” and disputing accusations that Democrats fell short of their agreement to deliver 40 votes. “They didn’t get the results and they put the blame on someone else,” she said.

Lucas told reporters as he left the floor that, at least for him, what should come next is “healing.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Michael Conaway (R-Texas), chairman of the House Agriculture Committee’s Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities and Risk Management, in a statement, “Democrats torpedoed this important legislation for one reason: because they couldn’t accept a 2 percent cut in food stamps. These Democrats were willing to sacrifice production agriculture and the men and women who feed and clothe our country to prevent modest yet meaningful reforms to this entitlement program. I am disappointed that a discussion on the country’s nutrition and agriculture programs devolved into a spectacle of fear mongering and hyperbole. Our nation’s farmers and ranchers deserve better. Today’s vote represents a missed opportunity for real change in Washington. This bill would have cut nearly $40 billion in spending in 10 years, ensured the sustainability of American agriculture, and made the most extensive reforms to food policy since 1996.”

Peterson issued the following statement:

“The farm bill failed to pass the House today because the House Republicans could not control the extreme right wing of their party. From day one I cautioned my colleagues that to pass a farm bill we would have to work together. Instead, the House adopted a partisan amendment process, playing political games with extreme policies that have no chance of becoming law. This flies in the face of nearly four years of bipartisan work done by the Agriculture Committee. I’ll continue to do everything I can to get a farm bill passed but I have a hard time seeing where we go from here.”

The next House farm bill step: bill could come back next week. The chief Republican vote-counter, Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), also blamed Democrats and said the bill could come back to the floor next week, with changes. “We can correct it if [Democrats] are not going to help us,” he said after the vote.

And, GOP leadership, sources say, will not allow another “simple” extension of the 2008 Farm Bill, despite the leverage of so-called “permanent” law hanging over that issue.

H R 1947 RECORDED VOTE 20-Jun-2013 1:54 PM
QUESTION: On Passage
BILL TITLE: Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act