Stepping Stones

I finally learned something my teachers had always been trying to tell me: MAJORITY RULES! At sometime during a 4H, Student Council, FFA, Boys' State, or Alpha Gamma Rho meeting, I understood that the motion with more votes, would win. I understand parliamentary procedure, and the concept behind voting to make decisions, but until today, I did not understand just how much the majority in fact does rule. The House of Representatives has rules that make up its body, like most organizations. The rules include information about committees having the same ratio as the full House, how long someone is able to speak, and how they will be starting and ending each day. Somewhere in the mix of the parliamentary information is a rule about staff. Whether the majority is 100% or 50.1%, the majority party has both 2/3 the staff and budget, for every Committee across the board. This means they are able to do twice as much research, be in twice as many places, and in theory help twice as many citizens. In our case, we are adding new staff every day. I believe last years number was something like 14, so this year the cap is around 28. I do not know who is actually "staff of the House Ag. Committee" and who is not, but I have had to learn a new name every day, while I know most of the Republicans. We also get the corner office, which is THE Agriculture Office, run the website and answer the phones. When you call the House Committee on Agriculture, who you are speaking to is actually the majority party office. Every once in a while we will send someone down to the Republican office, but there is really no reason unless it has something to do with only Republicans, as the Democrats (and more importantly Mr. Peterson and his office) control the committee and what it does. For the most part we can do as we please.

I thought the 2/3 staff rule was unusual, but then there are the Senate's rules... and these rules I have known about for some time, but it is hard to hear that they still exist. But of course, those in power will keep the rules so that they stay in power. I have one example (of many) of how these rules are so powerful. This year we will be working on a Farm Bill. If it were a perfect world (for our office) everyone would agree to what we say, and it would move out of committee with unanimous approval. Then the House would vote and again have a unanimous Yea vote to send the bill to the next step, which is either a conference committee with the Senate or the President. If Mr. Chairman hated the bill, he would not present it to the house. However, the full House could still pull it out of committee using a 2/3 vote.

In the Senate, there is no such rule. Mr. Harkin, the Senate Ag. Chair from Iowa, does not agree with some of the policies from our office. If he did not approve of our Farm Bill, he could sit on his committee's version as long as he wanted, and just wait for the session to end. He, as a Senate Chairman, has much more power than a House Chairman. It is this kind of power that worries many in our office, as even if we have all the votes for the bill, Mr. Harkin, who is involved with Ag. but thinks a little differently, can stop anything from happening. So even though our majority in both houses exists, we may now have to find a lesser of two evils deal.

My day started off with normal mail sorting and email deletion, and then onto little projects like sorting bills and printing labels. At 10:45 I was treated to attend a speech by our office's Minnesota Agriculture person, to the Midwest Association of Governors. This was held in a building which I am not sure of the name, but it houses C-SPAN, Fox, NBC and many other media outlets into little sets, which look much bigger on TV, when you see pictures of the Capitol or White House in the background (think Meet the Press). It also houses about 90% of the States, and serves as offices away from home for Governors and their staff. At this meeting we had Governors' staff from Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Ohio, along with me, my boss, and the Farm Bill spokesperson from Chairman Harkin's (the Senate Ag. Chair from Iowa) office. I was sitting in between two people who know more about what the Farm Bill can look like than anyone in the universe. We talked ethanol, MILC, and California, and then proceeded to the Minnesota office to talk about setting up a testimony at a hearing by Governor Pawlenty in front of the Ag. Committee. I never realized how important it was for a governor to be in Washington (Pawlenty was today) and know what is going on. It would be a waste of time if either Congress or the State was working towards a similar law, which is why there are so many state offices within blocks of the Capitol. We also needed our badges to get into this building, as it is basically an extension of Capitol hill, being as close as possible behind the federal buildings.

I had lunch with the Science Policy Director for the Weed Science Societies. We quickly found out we were both AGRs, he was from Iota (Wisconsin-Madison) and came from smaller crop and dairy farms. He is actually the only person from his organization (it is a volunteer society) on the Hill. We had a very good conversation about what he did and how he got there. He said that he has worked as both a scientist giving information and a policy director helping make decisions, but with the rest of Agriculture, he was a bottom feeder. While in my microcosm I see Agriculture as one of the most important and pressing topics each day, most people, especially Congressmen, don't. He said he has approached Congressmen that will tell him that they "do not support illegal drug use," so his title alone can start him off on the wrong foot. After he tells them, "we kill them, we don't smoke them," it is still hard to get most people to listen on how big of a deal noxious weeds are, and trying to get the money back that Agriculture was promised in an '04 bill that was made to help get rid of them. He did also say that he really enjoys his job when he can meet with others in agriculture, as they have a common bond (maybe beer?) that allows their conversation and workings to go a lot more smoothly, no matter the party our house of Congress, compared to other committees. After meeting with him I really can see myself working on the Hill (as well as a billion other places), as it puts things in perspective that maybe life out here isn't so chaotic after all. He reflected that many Congressmen saw Agriculture as a stepping stone, where he and I both truly believe that the House Ag. Chair is the spot Mr. Peterson wants to be. He said the same thing one of the people in my office said about the Republican ranking member, last year's chair of the Ag. Committee., Mr. Goodlate. They both talked about how he probably wanted the Judiciary Committee Chair, being that he was a lawyer, and took Ag. because he could, just to "add a notch to the belt." I see this as horrible policy in a place like the U.S. Congress, but fine for your local 4H club. To me chairing a committee should be something you really want to do, and not a PR stunt.

When I returned to the office after lunch, the House quickly passed HR 6, the provision to increase Renewable Energy funding and lessen dependence on foreign oil. Mr. Chairman ran the Agriculture portion of the 4 committee debate, which lasted about an hour out of a total 5 or 6 hour bill discussion. Many Republicans also voted for this bill, and didn't listen to their colleagues talking how this bill was actually helping create more jobs in the Middle East. One thing I have realized is that when you sit in an office spitting out only one side of everything, it is really easy to become part of that office. It's everything from setting policy to details on newspapers. Yes, the more liberal the paper, the higher on the stack it goes, filtering conservative information to the bottom. I know how our office stands on a lot of issues, and have to believe they are right, as I only hear all the good things for one side of each debate.

I received word on some really interesting projects added to my docket for when I get a computer. They include doing research on ethanol, animal ID, and possibly helping to write "Legislative Histories," which are placed in the National Archives. The last is just something that came up today because I did not have a desk, everything happens for a reason. Friday will be a nice end to a busy short week. We may get a Capitol tour so we would be able to give them in the future, and hopefully I end up with a real desk by the end of the Friday. Our computers currently lost their "backup" capabilities, so I will not have a password for sometime, but look forward to the day I do less sitting on the couch, and more typing. Yeah, you're right. That does sound really weird coming from a college student.