Inside the House GOP plan to avoid a farm bill floor catastrophe

Senior House Republicans are ramping up outreach sessions with far-right members of their caucus this summer with one goal in mind: avoiding a last-minute farm bill catastrophe on the House floor.

In private meetings, House Agriculture Chair G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.) has been pushing a bipartisan approach to the bill and trying to calm concerns about the price tag — which is expected to top $1 trillion for the first time.

Other senior Republicans are trying to convince their colleagues, and even some GOP leaders, that the hardline, partisan approaches Speaker Kevin McCarthy deployed in the debt limit and government spending fights won’t fly for the farm bill — must-pass legislation that supports the agricultural economy and provides food aid for more than 40 million low-income Americans.

There are already major warning signs for the bill, which comes up for reauthorization every five years. Senior Republicans as well as rank-and-file members have been especially alarmed at Freedom Caucus demands to slash funding for farm programs that are sacrosanct in agriculture-heavy GOP districts. Some House factions are also demanding new work requirements for food aid recipients, a non-starter with most Democrats and the Democrat-controlled Senate.

Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), one of McCarthy’s top negotiators, and former Agriculture Committee Chair Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) each have been holding their own meetings with various House GOP factions, as senior Republicans fear another far-right effort is brewing to torpedo the farm bill, as the Freedom Caucus did in 2018.

His main goal, Graves said in a brief interview: “Don’t wait till we get to the floor and we have a problem there.”

A messy floor standoff over the traditionally bipartisan farm bill would not only trigger a bitter internal caucus fight, but would also threaten the viability and timing of the final legislation. Both House and Senate Republicans running for reelection in agriculture-dependent regions are under immense political pressure to pass the bill before the end of the year, when the majority of programs authorized by the last farm bill begin to expire.

But so far, there are few signs the House GOP overtures are moving far-right members off their tough line.

“There are going to be hard conversations as part of these processes. But pay me now or pay me later,” said Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), an Agriculture Committee member who heads the Republican Main Street Caucus. Or, as Johnson put it another way, “We need to frontload some of that pain.”

Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), a Freedom Caucus member who represents a predominantly rural stretch of north Georgia, described the country’s leading anti-hunger program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, as “one of the largest government handout programs” that “needs to be curtailed.” Spending and enrollment in the program have ballooned in recent years, due to the pandemic and the Biden administration’s first in several decades update to the base benefit amount available to families. Nutrition programs, with SNAP being the majority, now represent roughly 80 percent of the total cost of the farm bill.

“I think we're going to work every solitary angle that we can” to curb SNAP, Clyde said.

If history is any guide, senior House Republicans will need to hold off the several dozen far-right members who routinely oppose the bill from leading a larger revolt to tank the legislation. GOP lawmakers now expect 60 House Republicans, and very likely more, to oppose a final farm bill this time. And, given their narrow House majority, GOP leaders will need to simultaneously secure enough Democratic votes to pass the bill out of the chamber. They don’t have much time: Congress is already on track to miss the initial Sept. 30 deadline when the first farm bill programs start to expire, with many more slated to lapse by year’s end.

Thompson presented to a meeting of the conservative Republican Study Committee last month, in part to explain why he’s not pushing more politically divisive measures like the new SNAP work requirements that the group and others are still demanding.

“The fact is, I think we've accomplished what we would reasonably hope to do,” Thompson said in an interview, referencing new work requirements for SNAP beneficiaries that Republicans secured in the politically acrimonious debt ceiling fight earlier this year. He didn’t rule out other changes to reform elements of the SNAP program.

Graves and other key Republicans are trying to rally their caucus around a different approach, which includes limiting states’ ability to request waivers for some parts of the existing work requirements for SNAP beneficiaries. Thompson, however, is aware the move will trigger a major clash with Democrats, and Republicans are still internally debating it, possibly as part of a deal to boost employment and training services for SNAP beneficiaries, according to three GOP lawmakers familiar with the talks who were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations.

Senior Republicans are also trying to focus a major push around cracking down on pandemic-era food aid fraud by fake non-profits and other groups, which appears to have some general bipartisan support — though the GOP is aiming to skewer the Biden administration’s Covid-19 oversight in the process.

The Republican Study Committee supports both efforts, with the waiver crackdown push featuring various SNAP measures that Graves — a member of the group — has proposed as part of the appropriations process. Graves confirmed the waiver route is the most ripe for action, since House Republicans likely won’t be able to force new SNAP work requirements in government funding legislation or the farm bill this Congress on top of what they secured in the debt limit fight.

While talks are ongoing, it’s so far showing little sign of dissuading key GOP factions from their hardline stances.

Freedom Caucus members are pushing a litany of more controversial moves that will further complicate McCarthy’s ability to guide a farm bill through the House. Reps. Josh Brecheen (R-Okla.) and Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) are rallying members to roll back the Biden administration’s recent SNAP benefit update increase — a move that’s being privately panned by some of their own GOP colleagues as too partisan for the farm bill.

“Those two don’t understand the issue,” said a congressional aide familiar with the ongoing farm bill talks. “All they’re doing is fanning flames.”

Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), who chairs the Republican Study Committee, said that despite Thompson’s recent pitch, his group is “still trying to push for” new SNAP work requirements in the months ahead. RSC members make up more than three-fourths of the entire House GOP conference.

Asked if his group would keep pushing for new SNAP work requirements in the spending fight and farm bill, Freedom Caucus Chair Scott Perry (R-Pa.) replied: “Absolutely.”

There are other ominous signs. Freedom Caucus members’ demands for deeper cuts across agriculture programs led to a pre-recess meltdown over the spending bill to fund the Agriculture Department and Food and Drug Administration and sent a new shockwave through the caucus. Their proposal is a non-starter for many moderate Republicans as well as those representing agriculture-heavy districts. The delay in passing government spending legislation for the fiscal year that starts in October is also threatening to push final passage of a farm bill into the new year, when the already fraught debate will become further politicized by the 2024 elections.

Leadership in both the House and Senate are still aiming to pass a final farm bill by the end of 2023. Thompson has said he plans to circulate the lower chamber’s draft in early September, with a possible panel markup by mid-September. But he may push those plans back depending on when he can secure floor time. The Senate is further behind, with lawmakers and aides predicting their farm bill draft won’t be ready until October at the earliest.

Should the lower chamber hit an impasse on the farm bill, however, it gives the Democratic-controlled Senate an opening to take the lead on the legislation. Some House GOP lawmakers privately fear that would leave them with little choice but to take up the Senate’s more moderate version of the legislation under the wire.