Winning an election sends you to Washington or Albany, or even just to the county seat, but what can determine the ins and outs of new laws, or even major political investigations, are the committee assignments bestowed upon those elected official.

So, what are our recently elected people going to be dealing with? Probably the biggest story right now is that of Marc Molinaro, who won the seat for New York’s 19th Congressional District in November. As a Republican he joins the winning majority in the House and has been tapped to serve on the House committees for Small Business, Agriculture, and Transportation and Infrastructure for the 118th Congress.

Both committees are important, but the immediate focus will be on the massive Farm Bill for 2023. The congressional Farm Bill comes up every five years and is a legacy of the Great Depression of the 1930s when millions of farmers were ruined and millions of Americans went hungry. Today the Farm Bill is primarily a vehicle for providing subsidies to large farms that primarily grow five major crops: corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton and rice. The subsidies are the basis for the industrial meat system, too. The other side of the Farm Bill is the money allocated for SNAP benefits, or “food stamps,” which has become a lightning rod for criticism of “welfare spending.”

Indeed, of the estimated $648 billion to be spent over next five years via the Farm Bill, nutrition will take the vast majority of that spending, primarily for items such as SNAP benefits.

There is a complication however, because SNAP benefits give big agriculture firms a guaranteed market, and thus desires to cut SNAP benefits run into tremendous lobbying pressure from the huge companies that buy most of the heavily subsidized crops. It is estimated that there are about 1,300 lobbyists who operate in Washington, D.C. for all aspects of American agriculture.

Congressman Molinaro will be front and center for this upcoming debate, which will repeat the arguments heard in 2018 and in every earlier Farm Bill process.

Our other recently elected congressman, Pat Ryan (D) of New York's 18th District (formerly Ulster County executive), has not received any new committee assignments yet. But as a veteran and a West Point graduate, he served as a member of the House Armed Services Committee, providing oversight of and funding for the Department of Defense, the U.S. Armed Forces, and portions of the Department of Energy. The committee is also tasked with coming up with the National Defense Authorization Act.

Ryan served on two subcommittees as well: the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces and the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies, and Information Systems.

Ryan has also taken membership in two caucuses of note. He’s a member of the Pro-Choice Caucus, which works to defend against anti-abortion legislation while promoting affordable and accessible reproductive health care for everyone. He’s also part of the Congressional Fire Services Caucus, which aims to produce bi-partisan support for initiatives to help first responders.

Turning next to our state senators, both of whom were reelected, we expect little change in their committee assignments. state Sen. Michelle Hinchey (D) of the 41st District, which takes in Kingston, Woodstock, Hudson and parts of Ulster, Dutchess and Greene counties, will also be in the legislative trenches over agriculture issues; she is the chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee. She also serves on several other committees, including Tourism, Parks & Recreation, Environmental Conservation, Cultural Affairs, Energy and Telecommunications, Finance, Local Government, and Transportation.

Meanwhile in the state legislature's lower house, Assemblymember Sarahana Shrestha (D) in her first term will serve on the Assembly Aging, Energy, Local Governments, Tourism, Parks, Arts and Sports Development and Transportation committees.