Wichita — As population shifts weaken the rural vote in Congress and in state legislatures across the nation, farm groups have been quietly hiring more lawyers than lobbyists - turning the courts into their new advocacy battleground.
As the trend toward legal advocacy gains momentum across the nation, more traditional farm groups - including those in rural states such as Kansas - are establishing their own legal foundations and expanding legal services on behalf of their member farmers in and out of the courtroom.
"What we are facing in Kansas is not unique in our state," said Mike Matson, spokesman for the Kansas Farm Bureau. "The population shifts and demographic changes are occurring throughout the Midwest and the nation."
The Kansas Livestock Association, which was among the first to hire staff attorneys in the early 1990s, decided to create its legal department when environmental and other advocacy groups began bringing legal challenges against its members and the state and federal regulators that oversee the agriculture industry, said Dee Likes, KLA executive vice president and chief executive officer.
When the constitutionality of the Agriculture Department's beef checkoff program was first challenged in the case of Goetz v. Glickman in Wichita in 1996, the KLA hired John Roberts, now President Bush's nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, to represent the association and defend the program, which funds beef promotion efforts. The constitutionality of the checkoff was upheld in the Kansas case.
"As far as we know, he had no particular expertise in agriculture, but he was a widely recognized and respected constitutional expert and had the reputation of being one of the best, if possibly the best, constitutional expert," Likes said.
Roberts continued to defend the checkoff program while he was a partner in the law firm of Hogan & Harston in the initial appeal of the Livestock Marketing Association v. USDA. The U.S. Supreme Court recently decided the checkoff program did not violate the First Amendment.
One farm group whose name is nearly synonymous with legal advocacy is R-CALF United Stockgrowers of America. The once relatively unknown ranchers' group - whose name stands for Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund - became an international player with its lawsuit to ban Canadian cattle imports because of fears about mad cow disease. Recently, an appeals court overturned the injunction R-CALF had won from a Montana judge.
Even more traditional farm groups are taking notice.
The Kansas Farm Bureau, which has been an advocate for farmers in the state since 1919, formed their legal foundation in 2001. A year later, rural lawmakers in the Kansas House were outnumbered by their urban and suburban counterparts. By 2004, rural lawmakers also became the minority in the state Senate.
"It is clear a majority of state legislators now hail from urban and suburban areas - and for a state like Kansas, that is a watershed event," Matson said.
"Clearly we need to advocate on behalf of members in Topeka, but we can no longer take for granted slam-dunk victories in the state Legislature," Matson said.
Since forming their legal foundation, the Kansas Farm Bureau has been soliciting donations for it and filing relatively cheaper "friend of the court" briefs on behalf of members before taking on expensive court battles on their own.
To better coordinate legal advocacy efforts among the state Farm Bureaus across the nation, The American Farm Bureau Federation has developed a legal database and plans its second formal legal advocacy conference next month in Nashville, Tenn.
"Probably in a perfect world, you wouldn't need a legal defense component, but we live in the real world and the real world in Kansas is now dominated by urban folks," Matson said. "There are still gaps to be bridged in the way elected and appointed leaders relate to rural folks, farmers and ranchers."
At KLA, Likes said legislative issues rarely break on the fault line of rural versus urban.
"The changing demographics in the Legislature was, and is, a significantly more minor consideration for us," Likes said. "We find many of these urban and suburban legislators are business oriented, and we are a business. Even though we are an agricultural business, we tend to get along with them very well."
Even so, two of the three primary KLA lobbyists this past session were lawyers. "Lobbying takes a lot of law, and that is why we have been hiring lawyers," said Allie Devine, general counsel for the KLA and former Kansas agriculture secretary.
Much of the legal work farm groups are doing also takes place in city council chambers, zoning board meetings or county attorney's offices.
In her role as KLA attorney, Devine has given input to the state attorney general's office on industry issues, talked to landowners considering agreements over management of critical habitats on the Cimarron River and given informational talks on fencing laws.
"We prefer to positively and constructively influence the legislative process, so we only use legal and court systems as a last resort," Likes said. "But let me add with haste: We are not afraid to defend our members' interests through the legal system when necessary."
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