Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Mississippi, is the newest member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry.
She fills the void left in both the Senate and its agriculture committee after longtime Sen. Thad Cochran, also a Republican from Mississippi, resigned on April 1 because of health problems.
Cochran had been a member of the agriculture committee since 1978, and he served the committee at different times as both the chairman and ranking member.
Hyde-Smith was appointed by Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant to fill Cochran’s seat, and she was sworn into office on April 9.
Prior to her appointment to the U.S. Senate, Hyde-Smith was the Mississippi commissioner of agriculture and commerce. She was elected to that position in 2011 and re-elected in 2015. Before her stint as agriculture commissioner, Hyde-Smith served as a member of the Mississippi State Senate for 12 years. Eight of those years were spent as the chairperson of the state’s senate agriculture committee.
“I’m delighted we have another farmer on the Senate agriculture committee,” said Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, who chairs the committee. “I look forward to working with Sen. Hyde-Smith as we continue to write the farm bill. Her firsthand agriculture knowledge and boots-on-the ground experience are a welcome addition to the committee.
Hyde-Smith and her husband, Mike, raise beef cattle. They are also partners in a local stockyard auction in Brookhaven.
Hyde-Smith will serve on the Subcommittee on Commodities, Risk Management, and Trade; the Subcommittee on Rural Development and Energy; and the Subcommittee on Conservation, Forestry, and Natural Resources.
Special election coming
A special election to fill Cochran’s vacated Senate seat on a more permanent basis will be held on November 6. She will be one of five candidates seeking election. Also running is former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy. Espy serve in that capacity during the first two years of the Bill Clinton presidency. Prior to that, he was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1987 to 1993.
