Bridging the political divide

I am one of those people who was raised in a western state with far more wildlife than people. Our politics were always nearly ruby-red conservative and our state, granted two U.S. senators under the Constitution, has just one member of the House of Representatives.

Our politics may have been local, but they were spread over almost 100,000 square miles. Although we may have been spread out across the state, held different views on the issues of the day and been few in numbers, at our heart, we were generally folk of common sense (except for the occasional hard head) and at our soul, Americans.

Growing up with so much of God’s creation between each of us probably made us closer to one another. Small things between neighbors usually remain small. Otherwise, who were you going to sit next to at church on Sunday?

On March 14, a legendary politician from my home state passed away at age 93. He was the Republican co-author of the last ag labor reform legislation to have passed the U.S. Congress and signed into law. Romano Mazzoli (D-KY) was the Democratic author in the House. President Reagan signed the legislation, the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 into law.

This legislation, passed nearly 40 years ago, provides the statutory foundation of the H-2A program. Regulatory construction has been the product of successive administrations, as the first H-2A regulations promulgated from this statute were developed in 1987.

Alan Simpson, a lanky 6’7” football and basketball star out of Cody, Wyoming, was perhaps lucky to have had the chance to rise to the position of Republican minority whip in the U.S. Senate. When he was a kid, he and his buddies occasionally got into mischief, as kids in small towns sometimes do, and he related that if he hadn’t been given the chance to turn things around, he could have gotten in real trouble.

During World War II there was a Japanese internment camp called Heart Mountain located just outside of Cody. The camp became home to nearly 11,000 Japanese Americans making it, at the time, the third largest “town” in the state.

During a scouting event at Heart Mountain that included Japanese American scouts, Simpson made a lifelong friend. Although distinct in culture and obviously political opposites, Norman Mineta and Simpson became lifelong chums, and both ended up in politics. Mineta served in the House of Representatives and subsequently served as the Secretary of Commerce in the Clinton Administration and as the only Democrat in George W. Bush’s cabinet as Secretary of Transportation.

Simpson and Mineta were also lifelong political allies. One of the truly striking things about Simpson was his desire to reach across the political aisle to get things done. He was not someone to dilly-dally about but was always a straight shooter, whether you liked what he said or not. The last time I saw Simpson at a restaurant on Capitol Hill in D.C., I told him these were some of the things I admired most about him and his time in office representing me.

With that constant twinkle in his eye and a small chuckle, he thanked me. Simpson was also known for very quick wit and some of the quotes attributed to him are almost Mark Twain-like. I’ve shared a few in this column for you to ponder.

“Now it’s just sharp elbows, and instead of having a caucus where you sit down and say, ‘What are you doing for your country?’, you sit figuring out how to screw the other side.” “In your country club, your church, and business, about 15% of the people are screwballs, lightweights and boobs, and you would not want those people unrepresented in Congress.”

“Those who travel the high road of humility are not troubled by heavy traffic.” As we witness the goings-on in our nation’s capital today, wouldn’t it be nice to have someone there from rural America professing common sense and saying, “Let’s work together to get something done?” Rest in peace, Al.

— Michael Marsh has led the National Council of Agricultural Employers since 2017. A Wyoming native and certified public accountant, Marsh worked for a CPA firm with farm and ranch clients investigating fraud. He was director of finance for the Almond Board of California for 7 years and for 15 years was CEO of the largest U.S. dairy producer trade association.