Champaign County Adopted Legislator now Majority Leader

Last week the News-Gazette highlighted a story about the Illinois Farm Bureau's Adopt-A-Legislator program that pairs urban legislators in the State with the agricultural interests of downstate Illinois. From last Tuesday:

Champaign County farmers' adopted legislator now the Illinois House Majority Leader
Champaign County farmers now have the ear of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s right-hand man, Rep. Greg Harris, D-Chicago.

Named the majority leader this year, Harris has been the Champaign County Farm Bureau’s adopted legislator since he first joined the Illinois House in 2007...

These connections have helped lead to three Friend of Agriculture awards for Harris from the Illinois Farm Bureau, which gives those out based on legislators’ voting records, and local farmers who’ve met Harris said the program has given them a voice in a district where there’s no farm fields...

Area farmers said their visits to Chicago have helped them understand where Harris is coming from.

“We realize that he can’t represent us on everything, when there’s a difference between how something impacts his particular area on the north side of Chicago versus ours or the rest of the state,” Warfel said. “His area doesn’t know anything about livestock besides eating a hamburger.”

But Warfel said their visits with him have helped Harris understand where they’re coming from on regulations about pollution the livestock industry faces.

Full article with more information here. The Illinois Farm Bureau has more information on the Adopt-A-Legislator program here, and a blog of stories and connections here. You can find a lot of division between urban liberals and rural conservatives in politics, but our fates and fortunes tend to be more intertwined than a lot of us appreciate. Creative solutions to bridge the gap can help not just your own interests, but everyone's. Something to keep in mind when you run into folks who want to write off one or the other.