Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1107667
6 Sugar Producer MAY 2019 FROM THE ASGA By Luther Markwart | EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT Picking Up Steam Getting into the meat of matters with the new Congress The 116th Congress is settling in with the usual transitional challenges, with over 100 new members assembling their staffs and learning their new roles. Washington, D.C., is a town that operates on personal relationships, and those relationships need to be established and maintained very early on with new members. That is why over 70 beet and Louisiana cane growers came to D.C. in late February and early March and teamed up to make 320 congressional and dozens of political fundraisers in an effort to welcome new members of Congress and their staff, and to renew established relationships forged in previous years. With the farm bill behind us, it was an opportunity to thank those members who supported U.S. sugar and farm policy. It was also a chance to ask those who did not support the policy what their concerns and reasons were for not supporting our policy. Perhaps another important aspect of these visits is that we were not asking for anything, other than to protect the sugar policy from any attempts to harm it through the appropriations process. Mischief always looks for a legislative back door to bring harm to the policy, so we must constantly be vigilant to those efforts by opponents. For the new members of Congress, the visits allowed