Story thread · 2 reports / 2 sources

Mutiny bubbles up inside rural America over GOP's ailing farm bill

rawstory.com · 6h · first reportShare

"This story was originally published by Grist . Sign up for Grist's weekly newsletter here ." Last Tuesday, Senator Mitch McConnell returned to Congress after a three-month absence and promptly cast a deciding vote in the Republican-led agricultural committee. Back in August, Democrats on the committee blocked the Senate’s version of the farm bill from progressing to a full vote. But even after McConnell’s vote, the way things are going, it’s unlikely that Congress will pass a farm bill this year — which would mark the fourth straight year that lawmakers have failed to renew the nation’s cornerstone of agricultural policy . The issues that made Democrats oppose the farm bill last month are still there, meaning the path to surviving a vote on the Senate floor remains unclear. With 53 seats, Republicans hold a majority in the chamber, but they need 60 votes to pass a bill — so they would need to sway several Democrats to their side in a relatively short amount of time. Midterms, after al