USA TODAY
By Fredreka Schouten and Alan Gomez
WASHINGTON – Several House freshmen who swept into power vowing to change Washington’s ways are pushing legislation that could benefit some of their most generous campaign contributors, a USA TODAY review of legislative and campaign records shows.
Five months after taking office, Rep. Stephen Fincher, a cotton farmer from a mostly rural swath of Tennessee, introduced a bill to mandate swift federal approval of genetically modified crops for commercial sale. Fincher has received more campaign money from agribusiness than any other industry.
Two months after he filed the bill, the political action committee of the Minnesota-based agricultural giant Land O’Lakes’ staged a $500-a-head fundraiser to benefit the Republican’s re-election campaign. The company spent more than $740,000 on lobbying last year on a range of issues, including federal regulation of its genetically modified alfalfa seeds.[...]
Cheeseburgers, coffee and butter comes into the political “limelight” and neither is required for the physical health of human beings. What would happen if America, for the sake of the country, started to eat and drink healthy?
Tags: big donars, cotton farmer, house freshmen, land o' lakes, political action committee, rep. stephen fincher, rural tennessee
