In 47 years, the timing of ABA’s Agricultural Bankers Conference has often put it around election day — perhaps, however, none as transformational as Tuesday’s midterms.
Members of the American Bankers Association’s policy team were on hand to help ag and rural lenders begin to sort out the election results that put Democrats in control of the House and Senate and what that the transfer of power in the next Congress might mean for the overall banking sector as well as for ag and rural banking programs and priorities.
Jess Sharp, ABA’s EVP of advocacy and innovation, told meeting attendees that unpacking what happened less than 24 hours before would take a while — with 50 House seats (as of Wednesday evening) left to call, including Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.), who is current chair of the House Financial Services Committee, and Senate seats in Alaska and Mississippi yet to be decided.
“When all the votes are tallied, we’re going to be dealing with a very different House and Senate,” Sharp said. “But we’ve been through this before, and the message everyone should take from here is that we will continue to work in a bipartisan way. We have friends on both sides of the aisle.”
For key committee leadership in the new year, Jonathan Blum, ABA’s EVP of congressional relations and legislative affairs, said the Senate Banking Committee next year likely would be chaired by Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts, who currently is ranking member. In the House, longtime Rep. Maxine Waters of California likely would return as chair of the Financial Services Committee. Names being circulated to chair the Senate’s Agriculture Committee include Michael Bennett of Colorado and Sherrod Brown from Ohio who will return to the Senate after winning his race on Tuesday. Cory Booker from New Jersey is another possibility for chair, Blum said. For the House Committee on Agriculture, the names being mentioned for leadership include Shontel Brown from Ohio as well as Jim Costa from California.
“Our team’s been engaging with these lawmakers over the last several years,” Blum added. “So, our message is going to be consistent. Our priorities are evergreen.” Chris Fisher, ABA’s VP of congressional relations said ABA made a strategic decision after the election of 2024 not to neglect the minority political party, explaining that members of the ABA policy team “continued to engage and participate” on the Democratic side, adding that it’s important to “make friends no matter who has the gavel.”
Fisher predicted that Democrats’ policy agenda would stick close to “kitchen table concerns” around affordability, fuel prices, healthcare and childcare costs.
When lawmakers think about affordability, Fisher said, we want them to think of banking as part of the solution.
“I always tell members, particularly some of the Democrats who haven’t perhaps often dealt with banking issues, that many in their communities already know in how expensive it is to be broke,” he said. “If they have to take their paycheck to a check casher or if they need a loan from a payday lender, those people belong in the bank. If you want to talk about affordability of financial services, get your constituents inside the bank.”
Fisher also predicted a “robust oversight agenda,” but that any time that this new majority is not talking about affordability, “they are losing. And I think they know it.”
Lame duck and beyond
Sharp said that as policy folks begin to assess next steps, there are two important timeframes to consider as part of the conversation: the near term with a lame-duck Congress and after January when the new Congressional class is sworn in.
As lawmakers return to Capitol Hill on Nov. 9 after the election, they are going to have to “tackle some really difficult challenges,” he said, with government funding at the top of the list. The Senate passed a three-month continuing resolution prior to recessing for the month of August. This postponed the deadline to fund the government until Dec. 11 by which time Congress must pass full-year spending bill or another stopgap measure.
The agriculture industry has been waiting for a new Farm Bill. The Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018 initially expired in 2023 and has been extended multiple times following stalled negotiations in Congress. The law was extended through Sept. 30 of this year. The Senate Banking Committee most recently voted 12-11 to advance the bill in mid-September, with the current version of the legislation including several provisions supported by ABA. Efforts stalled to push it through the full Senate. Blum said the Farm Bill could find its way into budget talks or the limited number of working days in the lame-duck session could also slow progress and potentially renew talks of another one-year extension.
“We’re going to make an aggressive push over the next several weeks,” Sharp said, urging ag bankers to participate in a grassroots effort to tell lawmakers to break the cycle of short-term Farm Bills and pass the five-year extension currently on the table.
“We want to make it clear to Congress that it’s important to everyone in this room. We want to paper Washington with letters of support,” he added. “This is how we show our numbers and our strengths.”
And while industry is preparing for new faces in Congress, there are still familiar faces in Washington to work with — at Treasury, the Department of Agriculture, the IRS and others — in moving ag banking issues forward. A primary concern for rural lenders is long-awaited guidance for the Access to Credit for our Rural Economy Act, or ACRE, which was passed as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year.
“We got interim guidance on ACRE [from Treasury and the IRS] and we’re expecting final guidance from them soon, over the next several weeks,” Blum said. “We’ve been pushing really aggressively, and we’re going to continue that. We want to see it by the end of the year because you all need certainty.”
ABA’s policy team reminded the audience that the version of ACRE that passed as part of the OBBB was a scaled-back version of its original scope, and ABA is looking for ways to expand ACRE’s benefit to farmers, ranchers and rural communities.
Currently under the legislation passed last year, qualified lenders can exclude 25% of the interest income they earn on qualifying new loans secured by agricultural real estate, real property used for fishing or seafood processing, and aquaculture facilities. Refinancing an existing loan does not qualify the loan for the exemption. As originally proposed, ACRE called for 100% tax exemption for loans secured by rural or agricultural real property.
“We will be introducing ACRE to new members of Congress, and part of that is being able to tell the ag bankers’ stories, to educate your members of Congress on how you’re saving your farmers money,” Fisher said. “So, as you as you are taking advantage of the acre credit, make sure you’re telling those stories, because those stories are going to unlock the advocacy. Because this isn’t just about farmers and ranchers and producers. This is about supporting and being a part of rural communities all across this country.”
