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Bacon expects House speaker on Tuesday, 2023 farm bill finish line in early 2024

The US House remains without a speaker after Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan failed to get elected this week, but an Ag Committee member says he expects that to change soon.

Don Bacon, a Republican from Nebraska tells Brownfield, “We have five people trying to be speaker now. It will take us awhile to whittle it down to two, and then select a speaker.  Tuesday morning our plan is to vote for a speaker in our conference and go to the floor a few hours later and get it done.”

Bacon voted against Jordan on every ballot, and says that’s partly because of Jordan’s opposition to ethanol and previous farm bills. “I was in opposition when we were in conference trying to determine on which Republican to vote.  He voted against the continuing resolution. That was a big strike. He’s never voted for a farm bill and the same thing with ethanol.”  

Bacon says potential speaker candidates that emerged late Friday afternoon include Tom Emmer of Minnesota, Mark Green of Tennessee, Keven Hern form Oklahoma, and Pete Sessions or Jodey Arrington both from Texas.

Bacon says Congress needs to vote on an aid package for Israel and Ukraine, pass appropriations bills and fund the government before picking up the 2023 Farm Bill. “It’s pretty much done. We just haven’t had time to work on it.”

He says he expects work to be done on it in the first quarter of 2024, but because of its price tag it won’t be easy. “We know that we have a $1.5 trillion dollar farm bill over 10 years.  That’s what we have queued up.  $400 billion of that is for non-nutrition programs.”

Bacon says he anticipates bipartisan support for the farm bill once its brought to the House floor.

Nebraska Congressman Don Bacon: