Filibuster Stalls Meese Vote as Pact on Farm Aid Nears

A filibuster by farm-state Democrats held up a Senate vote Wednesday on the nomination of Atty. Gen.-designate Edwin Meese III and came close to forcing bipartisan agreement on a proposal to relieve the nation’s debt-ridden farmers.

Both Republican and Democratic senators, at a closed meeting with Agriculture Secretary John R. Block and other Reagan Administration officials, agreed on several parts of a Republican-drafted emergency farm package Wednesday night and scheduled another negotiating session for this morning.

Sen. David L. Boren (D-Okla.) said the filibuster would continue, but he and other Democrats expressed optimism that final agreement on a farm credit bail-out--which had been tied to the Meese vote--could be reached.

“We’re very close,” Boren said. “We’re in agreement on some basic principles.”

Once the filibuster is over, Meese is expected to win approval without difficulty.

The senators and Block reportedly agreed on adding more than $2 billion to an existing $650-million program of federal farm loan guarantees. They also apparently agreed to ease a key loan eligibility requirement, allowing farmers to forecast only a 5% profit instead of the current 10% in applying for an operating loan.

In addition, Block apparently agreed to make substantially more funds available for Farmers Home Administration loans--the “last-resort” loans for farmers who cannot obtain credit from commercial banks.

Only hours earlier, Block had insisted at a Senate Budget Committee hearing that the Administration already had done enough to ease the farm crisis and that it was time for commercial banks and state governments to give a little. But the secretary came under heavy pressure at a closed meeting with Republican senators, who reportedly delivered blistering reports of farmers in dire need back home.

A major remaining sticking point in the negotiations centers on a GOP proposal that would increase the amount of a commercial bank loan that the government would guarantee. The figure, effectively now 65%, would gradually be boosted to 90% under the Republican plan. But Democrats, protesting that banks need better protection, cautioned that the financial institutions might not offer loans that were desperately needed by many farmers before planting season begins.

Shrinking Demand

Thousands of farmers--burdened by heavy debt, falling land and crop prices and shrinking world demand because of the strong dollar--are on the verge of being forced out of business, primarily in the Midwest but increasingly in other states as well.

Senate Majority Leader Robert J. Dole (R-Kan.) had scheduled a vote Wednesday on the Meese nomination. But, when Democrats served notice that they would filibuster until they were promised action on farm credit relief, Dole accused them of “blackmail.”

At the White House, spokesman Larry Speakes echoed the charge, saying that “to hold the Meese nomination hostage for farm legislation is just not the way to do business.”

Democrats Isolated

Despite the denunciations, the filibuster tactic--long used by senators to block bills or force action on pet legislation--produced results. Originally, filibuster organizers included both Democrats and Republicans. But Republicans--already looking toward the 1986 elections, in which they fear they may lose control of the Senate--decided to isolate the Democrats and try to come up with a farm-relief package of their own.

“There is no reason that these (Democratic) fellows who are doing the grandstanding should get the credit for helping the farmers,” Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) said.

In the House, the appropriations agriculture subcommittee approved a bill that would make $1 billion in loan guarantees available to farmers through the federal Farmers Home Administration.