Description: The story of why all four members of the U.S. House of Representatives from Kansas voted against passage of the Agricultural Act of 2014, known popularly as the Farm Bill, despite pleas by the state's agricultural leaders to support it.
Brief description: Christopher Bosso is professor of public policy and urban affairs at Northeastern University. His books include Environment, Inc.: From Grassroots to Beltway, also from Kansas, and Pesticides and Politics: The Life Cycle of a Public Issue.
Review Quotes:
"Framing the Farm Bill is the best treatment to date about how a policy area that once exemplified logrolling and deal-making confronted the contemporary realities of partisan gridlock, ideological extremism, and institutional dysfunction. Christopher Bosso succeeds in turning a classic beltway struggle into a lively account that helps the reader understand the government programs and political battles that shape how and what we eat."--Adam Sheingate, associate professor of political science, Johns Hopkins University
"Farm subsidies are an old story in America, but their most recent enactment brought important new national conflicts into sharp relief. Most laws are indeed like sausages ("it is better not to see them being made"), but the Agricultural Act of 2014 deserves all the scrutiny provided in Christopher Bosso's important and highly readable new book."--Robert Paarlberg, Adjunct Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
"Framing the Farm Bill tells a fascinating story about how the Farm Bill came to include the food stamps program, and how this marriage of political convenience was an important factor in sustaining the political support for both over time. Bosso shows how increased partisanship and political ideology came to outweigh constituency pressures and transformed the once routine politics of the food."--Robert J. Duffy, professor of political science, Colorado State University