Posted: 10.28.2010

With less then a few days before the November election, the Dairy Business Association decided to pull their endorsement of 57th Assembly Representative Penny Bernard Schabe. 

The announcement was made by DBA on Thursday.  Laurie Fischer, executive director of DBA, told Pam Jahnke in an interview aired on the Wisconsin Farm Report radio network stations, that they had hoped for more time to discuss their concerns with the representative before issuing their press release - but it was possible.  Fischer acknoweldged that the representative was not happy with DBA's decision.

Fischer told Jahnke that despite their final decision to withdraw their endorsement, they did have a productive conversation with Schaber and her staff - and Fischer feels they're all much closer on the issues. 

DBA had received notification that Schaber's office had been making inquiries to agricultural groups regarding the treatment of agricultural animals - specifically poultry.

"I was surprised at this one,"  Fischer told Jahnke. "Typically inquiries like this might be made because of a constitutent that has a concern - so they start asking questions.  Our job as DBA is to try and provide those people correct information about the industry. After reviewing the assembly-woman's previous testimony on things like large dairy operations - DBA concluded they could not endorse a candidate they believed could be a threat to the industry" 

Dairy Business Association was not one of the initial agricultural organizations contacted about staff questions surrounding animal agriculture.  Instead, through a network of other agricultural groups - DBA was informed of the questioning.

Bernard Schaber lives in Appleton and represents the 57th district - which is primarily Outagamie county.

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