Voter backed Governor Brow's Proposition 30 by a surprisingly strong margin. This measure will raise income taxes on tax payers with incomes over $250,000 and increase sales taxes. It should raise approximately $6 billion a years for the next 7 years when it will expire. Voters also supported repealing a tax break for out of state multinational corporation and send half the money to the general fund and the other half to energy efficiency and green technology investments.

Even with these additional revenues, California's budget remains out of balance. Governor Brown has already started attempting to reduce voters expectations that these tax increase will be a budget panacea. The Governor is required to release his budget by January 10, 2013.

While millions more votes are still left to be counted, it appears voters rejected Proposition 37 in California, the flawed and misguided food labeling measure. The No on 37 campaign, a coalition of family farmers, doctors, scientists, researchers, Nobel Prize winners, retailers, food companies, business groups, taxpayer groups and community groups, said Californians saw through Prop. 37 and rejected the measure.  From the beginning, No on 37 allies argued that Prop. 37 was more than just a simple labeling measure, pointing out that it was misleading, costly and unnecessary based on the science of genetically engineered foods.

The coalition was successful in educating the press about the flaws of the initiative. Nearly every daily newspaper in California urged a "No" vote on Prop. 37. Proposition 37 would have banned the sale of tens of thousands of perfectly-safe, common grocery products only in California unless they are specially repackaged, relabeled or remade with higher cost ingredients. Prop 37 was a flawed food labeling scheme that would have added more government bureaucracy and taxpayer costs, created new frivolous lawsuits, and increased food costs by billions - without providing any health or safety benefits.

With a handful of contested races to tally, America voted to stay the course, giving President Obama a second term, leaving the Senate in Democrat control and giving the GOP two more years of House control. This translates into a second chance more than a mandate. The presidential contest saw a record $6 billion spent and more than 1.2 million political ads aired. The Senate majority edged two seats to the Democrat side of the political ledger with pickups in Massachusetts and Indiana. Still undecided is the North Dakota race, where the race is too close to call and Republican candidate Rep. Rick Berg (R, ND) is likely going to force a recount in his race with Attorney General Heidi Heitkamp.  

There remain two Independents in the Senate with the election of former Maine Gov. Angus King (I, ME) who joins Sen. Bernie Sanders (I,VT). If the North Dakota race goes to Heitkamp, who holds a miniscule lead, and both Independents caucus with the majority, the split is 55-45, still short of the 60-vote super majority to move legislation in the Senate. The House saw seven GOP members defeated, slightly narrowing Republican control. Of those defeated, four Republican members from the Illinois delegation lost their seats. Rep. Steve King (R, IA) defeated Christy Vilsack, wife of Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, and Rep. Tom Latham (R, IA), an appropriations committee stalwart, ousted Rep. Leonard Boswell (D, IA), an ag committee member. House Ag Committee member Rep. Mike McIntyre (D, NC) is facing a vote "recanvas" against State Senator David Rouzer, a former staffer to the late Sen. Jesse Helms (R, NC). The new split -- with eight races still not called as final -- is 233-193.

Chairman Lucas recently said that he and ranking member Peterson are still pushing for the Farm Bill to be passed in the lame duck session, before the end of the year. Lucas went onto say that, if a one year extension is all they can get, he is ready to hit the ground running next spring. Many inside the beltway fear that the Farm Bill, more specifically crop insurance, could be targeted by lawmakers trying to find savings to prevent the sequestration cuts scheduled to go into effect January 1, 2013.

The House Appropriations committee has seen some shake- ups following the election, most notably with the retirement of full Committee Ranking Member Rep. Norm Dicks (D, WA). Several names are currently being floated as possible replacements, including Rep. Nita Lowey (D, NY), Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D, OH), and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D, CT). DeLauro is well known to FDA advocates due to her recent support of funding increases for FDA. The current top members on the House Appropriations FDA subcommittee Rep. Jack Kingston and Rep. Sam Farr were both easily reelected.

The Senate Appropriations committee is going to see some change as well. With the retirement of Sen. Herb Kohl (D, WI), current chairman of the FDA/Agriculture appropriations subcommittee, several names have been mentioned as possible replacements. Sen. Mark Pryor (D, AR) and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D, OH) are both currently on the subcommittee and do not have a chairmanship, making them the most likely front runners. The FDA/Agriculture subcommittee has one more open spot with the retirement of Sen. Ben Nelson (D, NE).

The first public test of all the presidential and congressional promises to learn to work together in a bipartisan way will be tested during the upcoming lame duck session. When Congress returns next week, the primary focus of both chambers and the White House will be ensuring the U.S. economy does not go over the "fiscal cliff." The question looming over action on the "cliff" is whether Congress will knuckle down and find a long-term solution or slap another legislative bandage on the issue and punt it into the 113th Congress next year. The "cliff" is the perfect storm of the most dreaded and most highly charged political issues -- the expiration of the Bush era tax cuts, the mandatory 8-9% across-the-board federal spending cuts -- about $110 billion a year for 10 years -- contained in the Budget Control Act of 2011, as well as extension of unemployment benefits and eligibility criteria.  

House Speaker John Boehner (R, OH) seized the high ground immediately after the election was called for President Obama, effectively restating his 2011 offer of his chamber's willingness to work with the Democrats to solve the fiscal challenges. Boehner is on record saying the GOP will not support raising taxes on "anyone," and will not entertain the Obama proposal to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire on incomes over $250,000 a year. He said the savings needed can be part of a broader deficit reduction approach, one achieved by reforming entitlement programs, including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security and closing special interest loopholes in the tax code and other revenue measures. He challenged the President to "lead on this issue." Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV) is more in Boehner's camp than the President's right now, hoping his gang of eight bipartisan Senators who've been meeting over the summer can come up with the right formula of debt reduction through spending cuts and revenue raisers.

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