Stay Informed

Indiana Farm Bureau established its first political action committee in 1983 with the goals of supporting candidates who support agriculture and Farm Bureau, encouraging member engagement and increasing the organization’s political clout.

Those are still the goals today, said Jeff Cummins, INFB director of state government relations, who helps coordinate the organization’s political action committees.

“PACs are a natural extension of the democratic process,” Cummins explained. “By working together through a PAC, farmers and others interested in agriculture can get more ag-friendly candidates in office, resulting in the creation of policies that benefit the agricultural community.”

INFB’s has two PACs: AgELECT, which focuses on state Senate candidates, state House of Representative candidates and state legislative caucus events; and ELECT, which operates on the federal level, concentrating primarily on the U.S. House. Both follow the same endorsement and operating procedures, but AgELECT has more fundraising flexibility because unlike ELECT, it can accept donations from both members and non-members as well as corporations.

The process starts at the local level, with trustees who meet with candidates and then vote on whether to recommend endorsement.

Recommendations are then sent to the oversight committee for the second level of candidate review, and the committee then forwards suggestions to state trustees, who also are members of the INFB board of directors. To be endorsed, a candidate must be recommended by at least two of the three levels of review.

“PACs are highly regulated by both state and federal laws,” Cummins said, and are required to periodically file campaign finance reports of all receipts and expenditures. This allows the campaign contribution process to be open to the general public in order to see how much money is going where as well as where the funds originate.