"We haven't officially taken
the action of forming it" yet, said Nevada Farm
Bureau Executive Vice President Doug Busselman, referring
to the Farm Bureau's prospective new political action and
education arm. That, he said, would follow close of the
1997 Nevada Legislature.
But Busselman noted that voting delegates to
the Farm Bureau's annual meeting last December in Elko
had approved the idea and that now "we have our
county leaders going through the process of putting
together their ideas on who they would like to represent
their county farm bureaus" on the new organization.
"As soon as the [legislative] session is
over," he said, "the plan is we would then call
an organizational meeting for the development of the
details of how we go about doing this."
Busselman said member interest in forming the
PAC -- as yet still unnamed -- did not stem from reaction
to any particular recent issues.
Rather, he said, it was more a continuation of
the priority the Nevada Farm Bureau has already placed on
the state legislature.
"As much as anything," he said,
creation of the political action and
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education committee,
would reflect "a desire on the part of our leaders
and members to become a full player in the public
process."
That would entail, he said, "doing what
we can to elect the type of people who would represent us
in the legislature.
"There are legislators who have been very
supportive of legislative initiatives or things we needed
to get done in the legislature. And working to re-elect
your friends, or to attempt to elect individuals who
support the concepts that you support -- that's how the
process works," he said.
The Nevada Farm Bureau Federation is composed
of 13 county farm bureaus, made up of individual farmers
and ranchers. The statewide federation, in turn, is a
member of the American Farm Bureau Federation.
"There has been discussions of the
creation of a PAC at the national level as well as here
in Nevada for several years," said Busselman.
--
Steve Miller
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