TOLEDO, Ohio — The fight over who will be the next Speaker of the House is starting to have impacts felt right here in northwest Ohio.
"The new farm bill is stalled like everything else in Congress because of the majority's inability to elect a speaker," said Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Toledo).
Kaptur said the standstill over the House speaker position, which began with the ousting of Republican Kevin McCarthy and then saw a failed attempt from Republican Majority Leader Steve Scalise to gather enough votes, is causing a delay on a bill that should have been approved two weeks ago.
Following Scalise, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Urbana), has been fighting what seems to be a losing battle in an attempt to gain enough support from the House in his bid for speaker.
"We have just spent an entire day another wasted day listening to another revote for one of their candidates that lost and now he's thinking of bringing himself up a third time," Kaptur said.
This means there is no set agreement in sight to discuss or even present a new farm bill, which provides funding to food service industries including pantries and food banks.
Cheri Dennis, the director of community engagement for Toledo's SeaGate Food Bank, said the bill's delay makes her nervous in the face of a food deficit of 1 million pounds.
And without funding from the federal emergency food assistance program connected to the farm bill, Dennis said the community is in trouble.
"We serve around 165 different food pantries throughout eight counties in northwest Ohio," she said. "We service 150,000 people every single month, so when you talk about a delay or you talk about a decrease in any funding, we are talking about thousands of people being affected."
Ken Hayes, the director of Grand Lodge Food Pantry in Toledo, said a combination of inflation, widespread layoffs and the United Auto Workers strike have caused more people to seek out food pantries, making the stalled funding hit even harder.
"There's definitely been a great increase, probably a 28% increase, in the people we serve," Hayes said in an interview Wednesday. "I've seen the impact just with this month's order that I'm picking up tomorrow from the SeaGate Food Bank. There is definitely less product like meat."
The Grand Lodge Pantry distributes every third Thursday of the month from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 1947 Franklin Ave. But the pantry is in need of donations from the community and Hayes hopes everyone can be patient.
Both Dennis and Hayes said we should ask ourselves how long we could go if our paychecks didn't arrive because that's the problem many families will confront if Congress does not reach an agreement on the farm bill.
"People come in and say they have $40 left to get food and this box of food that we give them is essentially two weeks of food that really helps them and carries them into the next month," Hayes said.
Kaptur said the original goal was to pass the bill by the end of September, but now the new goal is to approve it by mid-November.