Far right “constitutionalist” Krisanne Hall is scheduled to speak at the Washington Farm Bureau’s Annual Meeting & Trade Show in Wenatchee, Washington. Sponsored by businesses such as BSNF Railway, Bayer Crop Science and Country Financial, the event will be held November 19th and 20th at the Wenatchee Convention Center. Hall is slated to speak at noon on the second day of the event, according to the calendar on her website.
An initial conversation with a Farm Bureau Public Relations representative indicated that Hall was suggested as a speaker by a county member of the organization. The Farm Bureau did not respond to a subsequent request for comments.
As IREHR has documented, Krisanne Hall promotes a radical assault on civil rights in the U.S. and has allied her cause the far right paramilitary group Oath Keepers. Among Hall’s actions of concern for those that support human and civil rights are:
- Hall has erroneously argued that the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not establish birthright citizenship (despite the Amendment’s very specific statement that it does).
- Hall argues that the “The 14th Amendment, the 15th Amendment, the 19th Amendment were not necessary. As a matter of fact, they were an unlawful expansion of federal power.”
- Hall erroneously argues that Kamala Harris, Barrack Obama, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz are not “natural born citizens” and therefore have been ineligible to run for President.
- Hall erroneously argues that Kamala Harris is an “anchor baby” and is not a U.S. citizen because her parents are immigrants. Harris was born in Oakland, California, making her a U.S. citizen under the 14th
- Hall has allied her cause with the nationalist paramilitary group Oath Keepers and shared a stage with far right militia advocate, and former Graham County, Arizona Sheriff, Richard Mack.
- In August Hall spoke at a meeting of the white nationalist League of the South. The League of the South has declared that “we seek to restore the South to the dominance of the White man and to make it our own ethnostate for our prosperity.”
Krisanne Hall as pictured on Farm Bureau Website Promoting its Annual Convention
Inviting Hall to the event provides the far right activist a platform she does not deserve. It is not, however, the Farm Bureau’s first foray into racial politics. In October the Farm Bureau join several woods products industry associations on the side of the Trump administration’s effort to alter fish consumption rates used by Washington State to calculate allowable levels of multiple pollutants dumped into state waters. Tribes had struggled for decades to bring about rates that reflected the high fish consumption levels in their communities. Higher fish consumption rates protect water quality for all people in the state.
In 2016 the Environmental Protection Agency set rates that better reflected consumption in tribal communities – though their rates did not fully account for the level of tribal consumption. In 2017 the Trump administration responded to industry requests by unilaterally revising the new rates, placing tribal communities that rely on treaty-reserved fisheries at greater risk. In June 2019 the Washington State Attorney General sued the Trump administration for the move, arguing that it had no legal basis for doing so. The Farm Bureau is seeking to support the Trump administration position.
KrisAnne Hall’s appearance at the Farm Bureau event takes the group well into the muck of American far right politics. It remains to be seen whether this is a one-off-event, or a new direction for the Washington State Farm Bureau.
