Last week President Bush named former North Dakota Governor Ed Schafer Secretary of Agriculture. We have to say we were a little surprised. The general thought around the home office was that Bush would leave Acting Secretary Chuck Conner in place at least until the farm bill was over.

Conner previously worked for Senator Lugar when he was chair of the Senate Ag Committee, and thus had a good relationship with many of the people USDA will have to work with to get a final 2007 Farm Bill hammered out. Traditionally, USDA is very active in the conference committee process, letting Senators and Representatives know what is feasible and what isn't, and letting them know what will draw a veto and what won't.

We were also a little surprised that Bush would pick a North Dakotan. The Bush administration is essentially anti-farm program, and North Dakota of course has a long history of strongly supporting such programs. And we wondered how in the world the administration even knew who Schafer was- no disrespect to North Dakota intended. We certainly didn't (excepting a certain staff member who spent some time in exile up there).

Thankfully, the day this occurred I was actually in North Dakota. Grand Forks, to be precise, way the heck up I-29 not all that far from Canada. So I picked up the Grand Forks Herald newspaper and read Janell Cole's front-page article on Schafer. You can always rely on the local paper to get the details right on this sort of stuff, and the Herald didn’t let me down. There was the information that cleared up my confusion on both fronts.

Why would the administration pick Schafer, previously governor of a state that gets more farm program money than anyone else? Maybe because in the past, Schafer had this sort of thing to say:

Schafer's views on federal farm programs have not always been cordial. In his first political race, an unsuccessful bid against Dorgan for U.S. House in 1990, he caused controversy when he said federal farm subsidies allow “lousy operations” to continue in business when they should be allowed to fail in a free market. The remarks were in an interview, during which he criticized crop insurance, the Conservation Reserve Program and target prices paid to farmers.

Needless to say, Schafer didn’t win that race (he ended up as North Dakota governor from 1992-2000). But that’s certainly not all that different than the line pushed by the White House.

And how did the Bush administration know who he was?

He [Schafer] has been living in Fargo and tending to business interests since he left office. He spurned many entreaties to run for the U.S. Senate since then, including from North Dakota Republicans, Bush political adviser Karl Rove and Bush himself. He said he would not be happy serving in the legislative branch.

Now it all becomes clear. What isn’t clear is why Schafer actually took the job. Being a bunch of cynics, we have to think there is an ulterior motive to taking a one-year appointment as Secretary of Ag in a lame-duck administration, not even starting until after a farm bill is already finished. The rumor in North Dakota is that he’s trying to increase his profile and looking forward to bigger things- maybe now he’s ready to run for Senate against Conrad or Dorgan in a few years. But that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, given he’s almost certainly going to be in DC advocating for positions (pro-trade, etc) that a majority of North Dakotans don’t find very appealing.

But no matter the motivation, Chairman of the Senate Ag Committee Tom Harkin is in no rush to confirm Schafer. Phillip Brasher of the Des Moines Register reports:

He’ll have to be confirmed by the Senate, and he won’t even get a hearing before the agriculture committee until after Thanksgiving at the earliest, says chairman Tom Harkin…

Harkin made no secret that he likes working with the acting secretary, Chuck Conner, who was widely expected to get the nomination.
Harkin has demonstated no enthusiasm so far for Schafer.
Could it be that he doesn’t want to take on another North Dakotan right now? After all, Harkin has already been battling with North Dakota Sen. Kent Conrad, Schafer’s former brother-in-law, over the farm bill.
“Very perceptive,” Harkin muttered.

HA! Now that’s funny. And Schafer is Conrad’s former brother-in-law? That’s just a little too weird. But the full Senate takes up the farm bill on Monday, so we’ll turn our attention to more important matters.

By the way, Grand Forks has a really great downtown. Almost shockingly nice, really. This is partially due to an enormous flood in 1997 that destroyed much of the downtown, which has now been rebuilt. If you’re in the area, make sure to stop by.