You'd need a Ph.D. in Robert's Rules of Order to figure out just what happened in the Senate to derail the Farm Bill last week.

But really, the details don't matter. It doesn't mean much to John or Jane Q. Public whether it was a vote to cut off debate or a vote to extend debate or a vote to allow or disallow amendments that stymied the Farm Bill's progress. What mattered is that it's been stopped dead in its tracks, a victim of the ugly and by-now chronic partisan bickering that has turned the current Congress into a sideshow on the national stage.

There were lots of things wrong with the Farm Bill as passed by the House earlier this year. It was filled with bloated subsidies to commodity farmers who didn't need them, for one -- just as previous Farm Bills have been.

But unlike those earlier bills, this Farm Bill did something different -- and good. The bill has traditionally contained this country's nutrition assistance programs for those who have trouble feeding themselves and their families -- more than 60 percent of the agriculture department's spending is on food programs such as school lunches and food stamps. This time around, the bill increased woefully inadequate food stamp benefits, made more families eligible for those benefits and increased the amount of food the feds would distribute to needy families through food pantries.

So did the Senate bill. Yet as debate began in the Senate -- where an appropriate discussion was shaping up over the continuation of inappropriate subsidies to commodity farmers -- something happened. Republican senators started attaching amendments that had nothing to do with food or farming, including an amendment on illegal immigration and another one on taxes. Democrats called a vote to restrict amendments. Everything ground to a halt.

Now, Senate negotiators are trying to figure out how to restart the debate. In the meantime, the number of hungry Mainers is growing, joining millions of their hungry brethren across the country. Without a new Farm Bill, that situation will likely not improve and, given the high cost of fuel and heating oil, will actually get worse.

Maine's two senators are moderate Republicans who have both expressed strong support for expanding the nutrition programs in the Farm Bill. Yet their support was curiously lacking when it came time to push for continued action on the bill.

We hope that in this current impasse Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe will do as they have often done, and seek the commonsense middle ground which would allow the Farm Bill to be taken up again. That, in turn, will move this country a little bit closer to adequately feeding the growing numbers of people who need the government's help to put food on the table.