| WASHINGTON -- Breaking with fellow Minnesota Sen. Paul
Wellstone on his first day on the job, Mark Dayton said Wednesday he
doesn't support Wellstone's proposal for a moratorium on agriculture
mergers.
"I'm not prepared to go that far at this point," Dayton said
a couple of hours before being sworn in as a senator. "We often have
the law of unintended consequences -- you end up creating problems that
are greater than the ones you're trying to solve. But I certainly want to
hear from people in the industry and the producers," including
holding hearings on agribusiness consolidation.
It was a surprising start for Dayton, whose liberal ideology is close
to Wellstone's. Many political analysts have predicted the two Democrats
will vote in lockstep on most issues.
But Dayton, who once served as Minnesota's commissioner of economic
development, may be approaching the job with a more business-friendly
attitude that Wellstone, a former college professor and activist.
In the last Congress, Wellstone proposed an 18-month moratorium on
agribusiness mergers in cases where one company had net revenue of more
than $100 million and the other had more than $10 million. The Senate
defeated the measure 71-27 in late 1999, but most Democrats voted for the
legislation, as did Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.
The issue has gained momentum in recent years, with a wave of mergers
and acquisitions that some producers blame for a downturn in commodity
prices. Just this week, Wellstone seized on the proposed merger of Tyson
Foods and beef/pork packer IBP Inc., to call for more action against
agriculture consolidation.
"More than ever, America's family farmers need and deserve good
old-fashioned trust busting," Wellstone said in a statement.
In an interview after his official swearing in, Dayton elaborated on
his concerns about the moratorium proposal.
"If you tell Company X they cannot merge with Company Y, and so
then Company Y goes off and merges with some other company -- maybe a
foreign company -- have you really achieved the purpose you desire?"
he said.
"It's very difficult when you start trying to legislate business
activity -- especially intra-business activity -- because they're
businessmen and we're legislators," Dayton added.
Wellstone spokesman Jim Farrell -- who took a leave of absence to work
on Dayton's campaign last fall -- downplayed the disagreement.
"Everybody in Minnesota knows that Mark Dayton is going to fight
for family farmers," he said. "He and Paul have been close
friends for 20 years, politically and personally. But Mark Dayton is his
own man, and Wellstone and Dayton are not going to agree on every
issue."
Farrell added that Wellstone will introduced a more targeted moratorium
measure this year, but he didn't have any details.
"The problem has worsened since the original bill failed,"
Farrell said.
The National Farmers Union, which represents family farmers, supports
the moratorium, but its vice president for government relations, Tom Buis,
said he wasn't concerned that Dayton didn't.
"Senator Dayton has always been very pro family farmer," Buis
said. "I'm sure we'll talk to him about it. We would advocate that he
get on board." |