SARL Members and Alumni

ome members of a Donald Trump Agricultural Advisory Committee are pushing for a former Iowa legislator to become U.S. Agriculture Secretary. North Dakota State Rep. Mike Brandenburg, R-Edgeley, says his personal choice for the U.S. Department of Agriculture head has been Charles Herbster, a Nebraska cattleman and agribusinessman, but if the administration is looking for gender diversity on the cabinet his choice would be former Iowa state Rep. Annette Sweeney, R-Alden. [node:read-more:link]

State Sen. David Johnson will return to the Iowa Legislature in January, not as the pivotal, powerful wild card that some anticipated, but nevertheless as a public servant determined to play his own hand.  He’s the first independent to serve in the Iowa Legislature in generations. [node:read-more:link]

A federal court on Tuesday ordered North Carolina to hold a special legislative election next year after 28 state House and Senate districts are redrawn to comply with a gerrymandering ruling.  U.S. District Court judges earlier this year threw out the current legislative district map, ruling that 28 of them were unconstitutional racial gerrymanders. They allowed the 2016 election to continue under the old maps, but ordered legislators to draw new districts in 2017. [node:read-more:link]

Federal judges struck down Wisconsin’s legislative map as illegally partisan, an unusual ruling that will require the Supreme Court to once again consider whether political gerrymandering violates the Constitution.  It is a question the court has addressed in the past without resolution. In its last attempt, Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February, wrote that it was impossible for courts to come up with a test to decide when partisan line-drawing goes so far as to violate the rights of those who don’t belong to the party in power. [node:read-more:link]

In Florida, the competing sides on just one November ballot question — about controlling solar power production in the state — already have raised $23.65 million to try to sway the state’s voters.  That amount pales in comparison to the $313 million raised so far to influence the outcomes of referendums in California, which routinely leads the nation in the number of issues on the ballot and money raised and spent on them. But it’s strikingly more than what’s been spent in the Sunshine State in the past. [node:read-more:link]

Michigan State Rep. Dan Lauwers, Chair of Ag Committee, will hold a hearing on HB 5987 concerning delaying the requirements to provide space for animals’ certain movements (including egg laying chickens). The hearing will be Wednesday, November 9, 10:30 am in Rm 519 House Office Building in Lansing [node:read-more:link]

See Diane Sullivan speaking against the Massacusetts Ballot Initiative that will make it illegla to sell eggs and meat products from confined animals. [node:read-more:link]

A heavy burden – the potential future of the state’s dairy industry – now rests on the shoulders of the New Hampshire Legislature.  The Milk Producers Emergency Relief Fund Board met for the second time in as many weeks Tuesday and recommended that legislators approve a $3.6 million one-time payment to the state’s dairy farmers in response to this year’s drought.  The recommendation, one of three included in the board’s annual report, will be passed along to Gov. Maggie Hassan and House Speaker Shawn Jasper on Wednesday. [node:read-more:link]

Dan Zumbach lost 50 acres of corn when the Cedar River flooded. Yet he considers himself lucky.  Most of his 160 acres would have been lost if not for family, friends and neighbors who gathered Saturday with combines, grain carts and semitrailer trucks to harvest a field near Palo. They worked from noon until 11 p.m. before the rising waters forced them to quit. Iowa's widespread thunderstorms and torrential rains have done more than flood Iowa's  cities and towns. They have also slowed much of the state's corn and soybean harvest. [node:read-more:link]

How states compare on taxpayer-funded reimbursements for lawmakers' lodging and food away from home — a payment typically provided on top of lawmakers' annual salaries. They vary from no per diem at all for states like Connecticut, Delaware, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island  and Ohio to $249 per day for Alaska.  Some are based on length of session, Arizona is $35 a day for the first 120 days and $10 a day thereafter, some are an annual payment - Michigan $10,800 a year.   [node:read-more:link]