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Today 5/25/2005 7:47:00 AM
Cattle Alert: LMA Official Issues Checkoff Vote Challenge
KANSAS CITY (Dow Jones)--After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Beef Promotion and Research Program, commonly called the checkoff, is constitutional under the First Amendment, the Livestock Marketing Association's director of information Tuesday challenged the Cattlemen's Beef Promotion and Research Board to bring the program up for a referendum.
The Cattlemen's Beef Board claims a 73% approval rating among cattle producers surveyed for the program. Therefore, allowing the program to be brought up for a vote "ought to be a slam-dunk," the director, John McBride, said. Instead, the LMA, which was pushing for a referendum when the constitutionality issue came up in 2004, has seen no indication that the directors would seek a vote.
But having a referendum isn't as simple as having the 108 board members approve it, said Monte Reese, CEO of the CBB, which administers the funds for the national program.
The 1985 law authorizing the checkoff provided for a referendum only when 10% of cattle producers sign a petition seeking it, Reese said.
The law does not state how quickly those signatures must be collected, but in 1998, the U.S. Department of Agriculture gave the LMA a year to collect about 117,000 signatures from producers for just such a vote. The catch was that those signing the petitions had to prove they were minimally involved in cattle production.
Even though the LMA submitted more signatures than required, PriceWaterhouse Coopers, the firm designated by the USDA to verify the signatures, said there weren't enough qualified signatures gathered within the required period to call a vote. Dan Glickman, who was the Secretary of Agriculture at the time, said he felt he could not call for a referendum.
The CBB maintained at the time that a referendum would be expensive, costing millions of dollars in funds that could be used to promote beef and to research ways to increase beef demand, McBride said. Instead, the CBB has resorted to semi-annual surveys of a random list of producers to gauge program support.
Reese said some changes in the way the checkoff program operates could be done with a simple mail-in ballot, but since the law specified that 10% need to sign a petition seeking the vote, this couldn't be done with mail-in ballots. A group like the LMA would have to gather those signatures.
"I know the LMA would disagree with me on this, but I don't believe the Operating Committee (which approves the national promotion and research programs) or the Beef Board has fought it (a referendum) in the past," Reese said.
Some have called for the law to be changed inserting a requirement for a periodic referendum, and on this point, the two agreed that the CBB could not lobby for such a change because the CBB, by law, can't lobby.
Reese said that at one point in the late 1990s, the CBB responded to survey requests and asked the National Cattlemen's Beef Association and others to explore petitioning Congress for a change in the law that would require donations to the checkoff from packers, since by selling the meat, they effectively sell the cattle and benefit from promotional efforts.
But the idea was never pursued aggressively because cattlemen didn't want packer representatives sitting on the CBB's Board of Directors, said Chandler Keys, who was the NCBA's chief lobbiest at the time. Cattlemen wanted to chart their own course, he said.
Whether the LMA will take up the mantle and lead a renewed fight for a checkoff referendum is something the board of directors will have to decide, McBride said. The next time it can come up is at the annual meeting in mid-June in Tulsa, Okla.
Trade sources, though, said it was unlikely the LMA would choose not to pursue the matter in some form.
Cattle Alert: LMA Official Issues Checkoff Vote Challenge
KANSAS CITY (Dow Jones)--After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Beef Promotion and Research Program, commonly called the checkoff, is constitutional under the First Amendment, the Livestock Marketing Association's director of information Tuesday challenged the Cattlemen's Beef Promotion and Research Board to bring the program up for a referendum.
The Cattlemen's Beef Board claims a 73% approval rating among cattle producers surveyed for the program. Therefore, allowing the program to be brought up for a vote "ought to be a slam-dunk," the director, John McBride, said. Instead, the LMA, which was pushing for a referendum when the constitutionality issue came up in 2004, has seen no indication that the directors would seek a vote.
But having a referendum isn't as simple as having the 108 board members approve it, said Monte Reese, CEO of the CBB, which administers the funds for the national program.
The 1985 law authorizing the checkoff provided for a referendum only when 10% of cattle producers sign a petition seeking it, Reese said.
The law does not state how quickly those signatures must be collected, but in 1998, the U.S. Department of Agriculture gave the LMA a year to collect about 117,000 signatures from producers for just such a vote. The catch was that those signing the petitions had to prove they were minimally involved in cattle production.
Even though the LMA submitted more signatures than required, PriceWaterhouse Coopers, the firm designated by the USDA to verify the signatures, said there weren't enough qualified signatures gathered within the required period to call a vote. Dan Glickman, who was the Secretary of Agriculture at the time, said he felt he could not call for a referendum.
The CBB maintained at the time that a referendum would be expensive, costing millions of dollars in funds that could be used to promote beef and to research ways to increase beef demand, McBride said. Instead, the CBB has resorted to semi-annual surveys of a random list of producers to gauge program support.
Reese said some changes in the way the checkoff program operates could be done with a simple mail-in ballot, but since the law specified that 10% need to sign a petition seeking the vote, this couldn't be done with mail-in ballots. A group like the LMA would have to gather those signatures.
"I know the LMA would disagree with me on this, but I don't believe the Operating Committee (which approves the national promotion and research programs) or the Beef Board has fought it (a referendum) in the past," Reese said.
Some have called for the law to be changed inserting a requirement for a periodic referendum, and on this point, the two agreed that the CBB could not lobby for such a change because the CBB, by law, can't lobby.
Reese said that at one point in the late 1990s, the CBB responded to survey requests and asked the National Cattlemen's Beef Association and others to explore petitioning Congress for a change in the law that would require donations to the checkoff from packers, since by selling the meat, they effectively sell the cattle and benefit from promotional efforts.
But the idea was never pursued aggressively because cattlemen didn't want packer representatives sitting on the CBB's Board of Directors, said Chandler Keys, who was the NCBA's chief lobbiest at the time. Cattlemen wanted to chart their own course, he said.
Whether the LMA will take up the mantle and lead a renewed fight for a checkoff referendum is something the board of directors will have to decide, McBride said. The next time it can come up is at the annual meeting in mid-June in Tulsa, Okla.
Trade sources, though, said it was unlikely the LMA would choose not to pursue the matter in some form.
