House Committee on Agriculture

She is Executive Director of the Texas Pecan Growers Association.

I'm Tom Nicoletti for the Texas Farm Bureau Radio Network.

The results of the midterm elections will shake up both the House and Senate Agriculture Committees.

Jessica Dommel tells how.

There will be more than 116 new faces in Congress in January.

According to DTN, following the election Tuesday, it looks like there will be 101 new members in the House of Representatives and 15 new senators.

How that will impact agriculture fully remains to be seen, but we do know that the makeup of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees will change in the new year.

That's due to retirements.

Tuesday's midterm elections could bring major changes to agricultural policy in the nation's capital, with Democrats flipping control of both the House and Senate, setting the stage for new leadership on congressional agriculture committees.

The House Agriculture Committee could lose at least 11 members.

while retirements and election losses will reshape the Senate Agriculture Committee.

Those changes raise new questions about the future of a long-awaited farm bill.

The biggest implication for those committee leadership changes will really come from committees that touch housing, transportation, infrastructure, disaster recovery, economic development, and finance issues for local government.

So House Agriculture Committee, House Budget Committee, House Transportation Infrastructure, Homeland Security Committee in the Senate, Senate Judiciary, also Senate Appropriations with Senator Collins losing her race last night, Energy and Natural Resources, Environment and Public Works in the Senate.

So what matters most, though, Clarence, isn't just those committee names.

It's really the turnover in those leadership positions because those chairs really set the agenda for those respective committees.

So we'll keep talking to her or trying to get a hold of her and see what her thoughts are as far as going into the new Congress, what committees she wants to be on.

I'd be shocked if she didn't want to be on the Agriculture Committee, but we don't know that until we talk to her.

So we'll get in touch with Becca and see what her plans are.

And, you know, it's still hard for me to...

So Chantel Brown of Ohio wants to be...

She's not a farmer, doesn't have a lot of farm background, but she wants to be the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee.

Also...

We have other members, too, that are going to want to step up, so it'll be interesting to follow the trail of a whole lot of people as the new Congress is going on.

Wisconsin's Derek Van Orden lost and has been defeated.

He sits on the House Agriculture Committee.

And we also have to remember, Democrats do not choose committee leaders just by seniority, so there's going to be a lot of maneuvering before any decisions are finalized in 2027.

Combined with at least 14 committee departures across both chambers, the turnover in agriculture leadership is going to be deep.

I'm Jim Taylor.

Well, the five Illinois congressional members who serve on the House Agriculture Committee all won their respective races last night, including Republicans Mike Boston, Mary Miller, and Democrats Nikki Budzinski, Jonathan Jackson, and Eric Sorensen.

More election coverage at farmweeknow.com. Democratic Lieutenant Governor Julianna Stratton becomes Illinois' next U.S.

Senator after defeating former Illinois Republican Party Chairman Don Tracy.

And so she is running in a contested race for the education and the workforce committee.

She has a subcommittee role on the on the Agriculture Committee.

But this is, you know, this is her first time kind of vying for leadership.

And I spoke to her right after she made her election victory speech.