Incoming chairman Mike Conaway said he will install three of his top aides as the key staff members of the House Agriculture Committee. In a statement, Conaway said his “team of seasoned professionals…share my vision for a committee that will work aggressively and intelligently on the issues that are important to America’s farmers and ranchers and the people who depend on them.”
Scott Graves, now chief of staff in Conaway’s congressional office, will become the committee’s chief of staff and its new policy director will be Matt Schertz, who is now staff director of the Agriculture subcommittee chaired by Conaway. The committee’s chief lawyer will be Jackie Barber, who is counsel to Conaway in his job as chairman of the Ethics Committee. Conaway described Graves as “my right-hand man” for nearly a decade. Graves worked on the 2008 and 2014 farm laws.
Bart Fischer will remain as the committee’s chief economist, a job he had held since June 2011, said Conaway. Christine Heggem, most recently at the National Rural Electric Cooperatives Association, will be director of coalitions and outreach, working with congressional committees and agricultural organizations.
House Republicans ratified their leadership’s selection of Conaway and 16 other men as committee chairs. In an interview, Conaway, 66, told Poltico he expects to be chairman long enough to draft the next farm bill, due in 2019. He also said he plans a series of hearings to oversee USDA’s implementation of the 2014 farm law, completed in February. On immigration, he said he “plans to craft a new, narrow bill” that applies only to farm workers. Politico quoted Conaway as saying, “I think we should be able to craft a temporary worker program that has nothing to do with citizenship.”