NCBA Says Election Preserved
Status Quo, Plus Small Gains

WASHINGTON — Last week’s elections essentially preserved the status quo, says the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, and meanwhile delivered some good news for the cattle industry.

NCBA notes that rancher Bob Smith, R-Ore., is expected to chair the House Agriculture Committee in the 105th Congress.

Smith represented the second district in Oregon from 1982 through 1994 and was persuaded to seek the seat again this year after House leaders promised he would retain his seniority, making him eligible for the chair of the committee.

"Smith clearly brings a beef cattle perspective to the House Ag Committee that hasn’t been prominent for some time," said Chandler Keys, vice president of the Center for Public Policy. "NCBA worked hard to help get Smith elected and will look to Smith and committee ranking minority member Charles Stenholm, D-Texas, to propel agriculture issues above and beyond the usual committee jurisdiction."

Smith joins some 18 other farmers and ranchers in the House and several in the Senate to help provide first-hand experience on issues important to producers. At presstime many races remain undecided, but Republicans appear to have picked up two seats in the Senate, making a 55 to 45 majority. The House appears to have shifted somewhat, with Republicans losing approximately 10 seats while retaining the majority.

Several Cabinet changes are expected in the second term of the Clinton Administration, but USDA Secretary Glickman is expected to stay, sources say.

"The heart of politics is often local, and that came through in this election," said NCBA president John Lacey, Paso Robles, Calif. "What we saw coming out is more a reflection of personal choice than national issues."

An Oregon state initiative that NCBA, the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association and a number of other groups wholly opposed was soundly defeated by a two-thirds margin. The initiative would have banned livestock from Oregon’s waterways and required extensive fencing by claiming that naturally warm Oregon water was polluted.

"The Oregon Cattlemen’s Association members and others around the West who spent time and money to get the word out and let Oregon urban and suburban voters know what the initiative really meant deserve credit for the defeat," Lacey said. "In an election dominated by local issues, defeat of the initiative is a sign that some local common sense may be emerging in the environmental debate."

NCBA expects political battles between a Republican Congress and a Democratic White House, but is ready to move ahead on such priority issues as estate tax reform, Endangered Species Act reform, Clean Water Act reauthorization, inspection inequities and federal grazing reform, said Lacey. "The election outcome makes it all the more imperative for cattlemen to get involved and make their voices heard at both the local and national level to achieve these goals," he said.