NAPA,Calif. — Amid reports that Hispanic groups are putting pressure on House members during the August recess, two Republican House members told the nation’s sugar growers here this week that they expect immigration reform bills as well as the farm bill conference report to come up on the House floor this fall


Rep. David Valadao, R-Calif.
Rep. David Valadao, R-Calif., who represents a rural district with labor-intensive agriculture, said here Monday that he has gotten a commitment from House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, that “we will see something by the end of the year.”

Floor consideration of immigration bills is likely to begin in October and it will be “a step-by-step approach,” Valadao said in a speech to the American Sugar Alliance International Sweetener Symposium here.

Valadao, who represents a 72 percent Latino district, has held events with the United Farm Workers to support the comprehensive farm worker immigration reform bill that the UFW and the Ag Workforce Coalition are backing.

He said it is important that the voices heard in Congress “are not just the 20 vocal anti-immigrant people.” Because his district’s raisin, grape and blueberry farms use a lot of labor, immigration reform is “huge,” he said.

Valadao explained that he feels the immigration issue personally because his father immigrated from the Azores, Portuguese islands in the North Atlantic, in 1969. After an initial success, his father went home, got married and came back to California to settle.

Eventually the family went into the dairy business, but Valadao left it to go into politics, serving in the California legislature before running for Congress.

Valadao said he thought he understood politics when he was elected to Congress, but now believes “Republicans are failing because we have this all-or-nothing perspective.”

The Democrats handle their politics “play-by-play,” he said, “but on the Republican side we are throwing ‘Hail Marys’ all the time,” and often losing on an “all-or-nothing policy.”

After the House voted to add an amendment to the dairy program that eliminated the key supply management provision and then failed to pass the bill, Valadao said he held a town meeting attended by dairy farmers.

“I don’t know if everybody walked out wanting to buy a gun and put it in their mouth, but it was close,” he said.

Valadao told The Hagstrom Report that he believes the House rejected an amendment backed by the sweetener users to change the sugar program but adopted the amendment backed by the dairy processors against the wishes of dairy farmers because the sugar provision in the bill was a simple reauthorization while the dairy program’s “pricing system was complicated.”

He added that Boehner’s opposition to the dairy program also played a role in members’ decisions to vote for the amendment.

Valadao said he hopes that Rep. Michael Conaway, R-Texas, was right when he told the sugar growers Monday that Congress would finish the farm bill this year, but he added that the farm bill “has a tough road ahead” and that growers need to reach out to members of Congress.

He noted that Boehner is “getting a lot of heat” as leader, but that he will continue to back the speaker because “I do not see another person out there in the conference who could do a better job.”

Boehner has to deal with the fact that many members of the Republican caucus are doing what they perceive as good for their districts rather than what is good for the country, Valadao said.


Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Calif.
Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Calif., noted today as the sugar growers ate breakfast, that the strawberries they were served were tasty because they had been picked fresh.

“Strawberries have to be picked immediately,” Denham noted, adding that the strawberry farmers are suffering from a lack of labor and that 10 to 15 percent of the asparagus crop had been lost.

Denham said that “the biggest issue right now is immigration,” and that he believes the issue will come up “in some form” before the end of the year.

Immigration reform is likely to be brought up in several pieces, Denham said — border security first, then security in the interior of the country, electronic verification of employees and a bill dealing with the “DREAMers,” students who came here illegally with their parents but who have lived here all of their lives.

Denham, who served 17 years in the Air Force before becoming an almond farmer, said he wants to add an “enlist act” amendment that would allow immigrants who join the U.S. military to become eligible for citizenship.

“If you sign up in time of war, you ought to be a citizen,” Denham said.

On the issue of agricultural workers, Denham said he had supported the Ag Jobs bill that was introduced in previous years but has some problems with the guest worker provision in the comprehensive farm worker bill that passed the Senate.

Denham predicted that the House leaders would appoint farm bill conferees in early September and that Congress would finish the farm bill in September, although others attending the meeting doubted that would be the case.

On how to influence members from nonagricultural districts on farm legislation, Denham suggested that members from rural areas convene meetings at which the lobbyists could talk to the non-farm members.

Denham said he expects the conference report to be “less palatable” than the farm-program-only bill that passed the House, but he said he still believes it will be a stand-alone bill.

The biggest problem in Washington, Denham, said, is lack of trust among the House, the Senate and President Barack Obama. Denham said he wished Obama had asked Congress to pass a bill giving employers an extra year to comply with the mandate to provide insurance under the Affordable Care Act, rather than issuing an executive order.

Mi Familia Vota, a pro-immigration reform group, is seeking a commitment of support from Denham as well as other members of the House, National Journal reported today.

National Journal — Immigration Supporters Plan to Turn Up the Heat on House Republicans