Because he was now the Majority Leader, he could no longer take a lead role on programs like peanuts or sugar. It was more on a staff level, initially, when he decided he could not personally commit himself. But as the Majority Leader, he had to take a bigger role in mediating between different parties. Well, I specifically did not want to get on the Agriculture Committee. I have some agriculture in my district, citrus and tomatoes in particular, but one of the problems up here is the way that the committee structures are set up.
People come up here and they have an agenda for their district.
If you have agriculture as a big influence, you want to be on the Agriculture Committee. That s just the way it operates up here. Luckily, that wasn t my focus when I came up here. I came as a fiscal conservative and thus wanted to be on the Budget and Appropriations Committees. Well, we knew there would be a vote, it had to pass, and we knew the committee and the staff were totally in favor of agriculture.