Tom Vilsack Won’t Rule Out Another Term as U.S. Ag Secretary if Democrats Win in November

By Donnelle Eller

Tom Vilsack says he will consider continuing his service as U.S. secretary of agriculture if Democrats hold onto the White House in this November’s election and he’s asked to continue the role.

A four-year appointment would tie Vilsack, a former Iowa governor, with the nation’s longest-serving cabinet member, James “Tama Jim” Wilson, another Iowan who served as agriculture secretary for 16 years under three presidents from 1897 to 1913. A Republican, Wilson was born in Scotland but grew up in Tama County and attended what’s now Grinnell College.

Vilsack served two terms as agriculture secretary under President Barack Obama and is finishing a term under President Joe Biden.

Speaking Wednesday at the Farm Progress Show, being held this year near Boone, Vilsack recalled his experience as a lawyer during the 1980s Farm Crisis, representing farmers struggling with foreclosure, and said it changed his “entire view of what I was going to do with my life.”

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“From that point on, I dedicated my life to doing what I could to create opportunities for rural communities and for small town folks — and for farmers and ranchers and producers who lived around those small towns,” said Vilsack, who served as the mayor of Mount Pleasant from 1987 to 1992 and was elected governor in 1998.