Farms and dairy: Wisconsin U.S. House District 3

Campaign positions

What each campaign says.

Derrick Van Orden

Says he is the first Wisconsin member in more than a decade on the House Agriculture Committee, and names the Dairy Business Innovation Act and the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act as wins he delivered.

Van Orden for Congress

Rebecca Cooke

Would enforce antitrust law against agricultural conglomerates, direct tax incentives to small and midsize farms rather than large ones, restructure the Farm Bill toward farming itself, and protect farmland from purchase by foreign nationals.

Cooke for Congress

Alexander Valiensi Kent

No position on agriculture is stated, though he names farm policy as an example of an issue voters would decide directly under his proposal.

Voter Directed Network

Rustin Levem Provance

No position on agriculture is stated on any of the four pages his campaign site serves.

Rustin Provance for Congress Rustin Provance for Congress

Evidence timeline

Where statements meet the record.

Occurred Apr 30, 2026
official action
Derrick Van Orden: Record does not bear out the claim
His campaign lists, among major wins for Wisconsin farmers, passing the Dairy Business Innovation Act to support the development, production, marketing and distribution of Wisconsin dairy products. He sponsored a Dairy Business Innovation bill twice, H.R. 4894 in the 118th Congress and H.R. 985 in the 119th; each was referred to the Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry and went no further. Two of the three changes his bill would have made — raising the number of regional initiatives from three to four in both places the statute sets it — did pass the House, inside section 1015 of the 2026 farm bill, which he voted for on April 30, 2026. That bill has not become law. The third change, raising the authorisation from $20,000,000 to $36,000,000, is not in it. The initiative itself is section 12513 of the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, four years before he took office. Limit: The label rests on the words he used: the Act he names did not pass, and the vehicle that carries two thirds of it is not law either. But the distance between the claim and the record is narrower than a first pass found. This desk published this card citing only his two dead bills, which omitted that the operative text of one of them cleared the House inside the farm bill with his vote. Whether “passing the Dairy Business Innovation Act” is fairly called unsupported, given that, is a judgment the owner should make rather than this note.
Van Orden for Congress Congress.gov Congress.gov U.S. Government Publishing Office Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives U.S. Government Publishing Office
Occurred Jan 14, 2026
official action
Derrick Van Orden: Matches stated record claim
His campaign says he championed the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act, which was signed into law by President Trump and ensures children have access to whole milk. He was an original cosponsor of the House bill, H.R. 649, on January 23, 2025, one of 118 cosponsors. That bill never left the Union Calendar. The measure that became law was the Senate companion, S. 222, which became Public Law 119-69 on January 14, 2026. Limit: The Act was signed into law, and he put his name to the House version on the day it was introduced. But the bill he cosponsored is not the bill that passed, and he was one of 118 cosponsors of it. A first check of this claim found the Act's name in no public law and would have called it false; the Senate bill had been enacted and not yet indexed, which is why the enacted text rather than the bill index settles it.
Van Orden for Congress Congress.gov Congress.gov