At least every two years, candidates have the same ritual: gather over a muddy field to talk about agricultural policy and how they disagree with their opponents.
This year, at Farmfest, there was no field: just two diametrically opposed candidates for Senate talking over Zoom. The candidates are Jason Lewis, the endorsed Republican candidate, who served one term in the U.S. House representing Minnesota’s Second District; and Sen. Tina Smith, Minnesota’s former lieutenant governor who was appointed to fill the Senate vacancy left after Al Franken’s resignation, was elected in her own right in 2018, and now must run for re-election just two years later.
It was one of the first public meetings for Smith and Lewis, and their discussion of environmental policy, immigration and health care gave voters a first look at some of the key issues that will shape the campaign for Minnesota’s U.S. Senate seat in the fall.
Environmental policy
One area of agreement between the candidates: Neither supports the Green New Deal, a policy platform that advocates for a massive U.S. shift toward sustainable energy sources and carbon emissions.
“I oppose the Green New Deal vehemently,” Lewis said. “I’m not interested in meeting those sorts of folks half way.”
Smith agreed. “I don’t support the Green New Deal,” she said. “I think you know that.”
That doesn’t mean the candidates agree on what environmental policy should look like. Lewis has a zero-percent scorecard from the League of Conservation Voters for his time in the House voting on major environmental legislation, while Smith maintains 100 percent.
Smith highlighted the economic benefits of green energy technology. “Right now, there are major, major technological innovations that could be happening here in the United States, that are happening in China. And instead we need to bring that home,” she said. “That’s going to help Minnesota agriculture, as we think about expanding the wind energy and solar energy, that becomes a way for Minnesota agriculture to diversify their revenue streams. And it helps local governments as well.”
Lewis said he supports the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline, a $2.6 billion dollar pipeline project that cuts across tribal land in Minnesota. “Only Democrats, Tina Smith, and the environmental groups are opposed to that,” Lewis said.
But Smith hasn’t publicly opposed the pipeline. In July of last year, Molly Morrissey, a spokeswoman for Smith, said the Senator “believes we need to continue with a rigorous process to make sure this project is safe for Minnesota.”
U.S. Senate Forum from American Farm Bureau on Vimeo.
Temporary work visas
On agricultural policy, the two candidates rarely clashed substantively. David Preisler, the CEO of the Minnesota Pork Producers, asked the candidates how they intend to deal with the current immigration system, especially regarding farmers’ reliance on laborers with temporary work visas.
Both candidates said they support H-2A visas, temporary agricultural work visa programs.
Lewis argued that, in addition to easing access to H-2A visas, work requirements need to be attached to the food stamp program in order to encourage people to work (something Lewis and House Republicans advocated for when he was in office). “You got to get job training, or you got to go out and work part time,” he said. “That would have got them into the labor market on the ladder of opportunity.”
Smith, who serves on the Senate’s Agriculture Committee, said visa restrictions need to end. “It is completely counter our needs in Minnesota agriculture to clamp down on these visiting a work visas when we should be making it easier,” she said. “I think that we need programs that are market-based and that have the kind of flexibility that we need.”
Health care
Kevin Paap, President of the Minnesota Farm Bureau, wanted to broaden the conversation beyond the idea that farmers only care about agricultural policy. “Certainly the availability and the affordability of health care keeps many farmers up at night,” said Paap. “What do you do to support solutions for rural Minnesota health care?”
The difference between the two candidates could be boiled down to the party lines: Smith wants to build on Obamacare, while Lewis wants to repeal it and prevent any form of a single-payer health care system.
“She wants to keep Obamacare,” Lewis said. “I don’t.”
Lewis opposes a “single-payer, government-driven system,” because he believes it would squeeze private rural hospitals, resulting in less services around the state. Industry associations have said this could be true, while other experts have suggested that the healthcare system could benefit from hospitals paying more standardized costs.
Smith did not advocate for Medicare-for-all; instead, she wants to build on the Affordable Care Act. “The number one thing that I hear about from family, farmers and folks in rural areas is their worries about the skyrocketing cost of health care,” Smith said. “And, you know, I am for affordable, good quality health care that you can have no matter who you are and no matter where you live.”
Smith again emphasized bipartisan legislation she’s working on.
“I have a bill that I’m working on with Lisa Murkowski to expand maternity care and rural communities because I’ve heard from moms and families all over rural Minnesota about having to drive hours and hours to get to maternity here,” Smith said. “So these are practical, common sense things that we can work on in a bipartisan way.”
Their pitches
According to Lewis, he is not part of the polarized environment today in politics. Instead, that environment is created by people like Smith. “I do think that the polarization is not healthy,” Lewis said. “And I think it quite frankly, a lot of it’s due to the radical nature of some of the actors these days.”
Lewis said in all, there is one question voters have to ask themselves: “You’ve got to ask yourself a question: Since my opponent’s been in office is agriculture better off?”
“I don’t think it is,” he said.
Smith ended on a different note. Rather than talking about Lewis, she instead only emphasized the current challenges faced by Minnesota’s farmers.
“We’ve seen low prices, trade disputes, bad weather, and now COVID, but you know that I have been there with you every step of the way,” she said.
“And so I ask for your support so that we can continue working together, for the good of Minnesota, for rural communities in Minnesota, and for family farmers.”
“Polarization is not healthy” says Jason Lewis, who is where he is because he made a career in talk radio as one of the most polarizing, bigoted and narrow-minded local hosts ever in the Twin Cities radio market.
“According to Lewis, he is not part of the polarized environment today in politics.”
That’s a pretty curious self-assessment. My takeaway from the article is that Lewis isn’t for anything. He certainly has a lot of complaints about things he’s against, but is pretty light on proposing solutions. I wonder whether that’s a compelling vision for MN voters.
Jason Lewis wants farmers to fail.
Kind of funny hearing Lewis talk about polarization when he’s one of the most polarizing candidates in the country, who has a history of vile insults towards women and minorities. I’ve listened to him and trump and wonder about those who could vote for such vile and polarizing candidates.
Disappointing that during this pandemic when many could be facing horrific medical bills that affordable healthcare and prescriptions cannot be a bipartisan plan. When I was young, even the poor could afford a house, a car, medical and dental bills and college and vocational school was affordable for all…and repubs absolutely refuse to help with those issues…but they always have room for tax cuts for the wealthier, no matter the insane deficits left behind.
We need a massive Blue Wave so we can begin to fix the mess left behind by repubs…and sadly…some establishment Dems.
> “According to Lewis, he is not part of the polarized environment today in politics. Instead, that environment is created by people like Smith.”
That’s a howler. Lewis is a poster child for the absurd hard-line right. Reading through just their statements in this article, Smith is looking for compromise on issues and is breaking with hard-left factions (re Green New Deal; Enbridge) while Lewis follows the party line to a T.
Lewis says he is not part of the current partisan environment? Lewis, you have been throwing red meat to conservatives and attacking your enemy (including women), since your time as a talk show host.
Do you support Trump’s trade war against China, which has destroyed international trade markets for Minnesota farmers and forced them to rely even more on the federal government? Do you support Trump’s denial based approach to the pandemic, which fill disrupt rural schools this fall? Do you support booting people off their health insurance. slashing Medicare and Medicaid? To you like what Trump is doing to the Postal Servive, which will result in declining services and closing rural Post Offices? How about Trump’s hatred for mail voting, the method used in many rural community?
How exactly do your policies benefit rural America, when the Republicans serve wealthy urban and suburban interests? Nothing from the article gave any indication.
Good Lord, how much more idiocy could Jason Lewis pack into one appearance?
He says he is not interested in “meeting those sorts of folks half way,” but says he is not part of the polarized environment today in politics.
He wants to impose work requirements for SNAP benefits, conveniently ignoring the fact that most of the recipients of benefits re working.
He asks rhetorically if agriculture is better off since Senator Smith came to office, leaving out the part about who the President has been since that time.
Are the voters really ignorant enough to reward this man with anything other than loud, derisive laughter?
Incidentally, I’ll bet he forgot to mention all of the inconvenient things he used to say on the radio about agricultural policy.
There are 10s of millions not in the labor force. A good portion of them are able to work. The farmers have all the labor they could ever need but we continue to depress wages by bringing in millions of foreigners. End the visa program and let farmers hire Americans to do the jobs. They’ll have to pay higher wages (a good thing for workers) and food prices will go up slightly but that cost is easily offset by the billions we spend every year on foreigners in terms of education, healthcare, welfare, snap etc.
I’d give both a big F on that issue.
On the green energy, Smith is still touting solar and wind (both are the most inefficient means out there). Neither mentioned Thorium reactors from what I’ve seen. That is where China and India are going. We should have already gotten there since we had a working reactor in the 60s at Oak Ridge. Wind and Solar will never be affordable or viable options for large scale electricity generation. Both will always require a 2nd power plant system to be maintained as a backup (coal, nuclear, nat gas). The benefits to Molten Salt Thorium Reactors are numerous.
“. . . but that cost is easily offset by the billions we spend every year on foreigners in terms of education, healthcare, welfare, snap etc.”
Foreign workers on H2-A visas pay income tax on what they have earned in the United States, and pay sales tax on anything they purchase here that is already taxable. They have to apply for an additional visa to bring in family members, so the educational costs are not there (H2-A visas are temporary, so bringing a school-age child here for a few months makes no sense).
The idea that that people outside of the labor force could do farm work is such a absurd and utterly preposterous idea that an economic illiterate like Jason Lewis more or less understands that. The conservatives here complain about the liberal elite and metro area snobbery, but an argument like that sounds like its from someone who has never set foot on a farm in their lives.
Wind and solar are existing technologies that, contrary to your false claims, are already more efficient than a lot of fossil fuel sources. And that efficiency continues to increase.
Thorium may be a possible fuel source someday, but is largely theoretical and prohibitively expensive. There is lot of junk on the internet about how Thorium is a magic solution to all our energy problems (kind of like hydroxychloroquine for Covid) that doesn’t hold up under actual scrutiny. We are years, if not decades away, from Thorium being a viable widely-uses energy source.
I think it is kind of ironic that Jason Lewis would say he is not part of the polarized element of politics. He has been very vitriolic related to anything about the COVID-19 pandemic and has taken the line of Donald Trump in opposing public safety measures. His attack ads misrepresent the words or actions of his opponent. In trying to become the “Minnesota Trump” he has in fact been a very polarizing figure.
Hey quit picking on Jason, he’s a Trump Republican, we can’t expect him to maintain the cognitive dissonance that requires AND be self-aware too. He is doing the best he can with his very limited intellectual horse power.
Jason ‘next caller’ has no clue and no ideas. Being against things isn’t a plan. How’s the fundraising going Jason?