U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) justices voiced worries about the implications of a new California humane-pork law, Proposition 12, asking whether it might open the way for other states to try to impose their moral values beyond their borders. Justices suggested they might let a pork-industry challenge to the law go forward without issuing a definitive ruling on the measure’s constitutionality. If so, that could mean allowing a pork industry-backed lawsuit challenging the law to play out in the lower courts rather than rule on its constitutionality. A decision in the case is expected sometime next year.
Background
The California law bans the sale of pork within the state unless pregnant pigs are allowed at least 24 square feet of space and the ability to stand up and turn around in their pens. The measure was approved with more 68% of the vote as part of a 2018 ballot initiative known as Proposition 12. The National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau Federation, which sued in 2019, say the measure violates the so-called dormant commerce clause, a doctrine that says the U.S. Constitution limits the power of states to regulate commerce outside their borders without congressional authorization.
Read the full story at Farm Journal’s Pork.
[Source: Farm Journal’s Pork 12 October 2022 by Jim Wiesemeyer]