Sarah Vogel

“It made such a difference to me to have Jim Hightower and Jim Nichols (Minnesota Secretary of Agriculture) out front, articulating these issues so beautifully and showing their vision was possible and starting these different programs. In North Dakota, my campaign, I had a long list of campaign commitments, things that I was going to do if elected. I nicked quite a few ideas from those two. I had some of my own and some were legacies from my grandfather and my father, the Nonpartisan League and Farm Holiday Association. But it was really helpful to me to have those two being point. I was running behind the guys who are tackling everybody, who made it easier and more fun.

It made such a difference to me to have Jim Hightower and Jim Nichols (Minnesota Secretary of Agriculture) out front, articulating these issues so beautifully and showing their vision was possible and starting these different programs. In North Dakota, my campaign, I had a long list of campaign commitments, things that I was going to do if elected. I nicked quite a few ideas from those two. I had some of my own and some were legacies from my grandfather and my father, the Nonpartisan League and Farm Holiday Association. But it was really helpful to me to have those two being point. I was running behind the guys who are tackling everybody, who made it easier and more fun.”

Sarah Vogel was elected North Dakota Commissioner of Agriculture while Jim Hightower was Texas Commission of Agriculture. Previously, she was the lawyer who won a landmark case, Coleman v Block, that Coleman v. Block case, which stopped unconstitutional illegal farm foreclosures nationwide in ’83 – ‘85. Sarah’s recently published book, “The Farmers’ Lawyer” , details how Vogel, a single mother and penniless lawyer, sued the USDA. She won a class action suit that saved a quarter of a million family farms.