Eleven months after Californians approved “cage-free” Proposition 12 in a landslide vote, the meat industry asked a federal court in Los Angeles to overturn the referendum that guarantees farm animals more space to move about. The trade group North American Meat Institute says the referendum violates the Constitution, which puts the federal government in charge of interstate commerce.
The lawsuit is similar to farm belt attempts to overturn a 2010 California law that extended the reach of the 2008 predecessor to Proposition 12. The Supreme Court declined on Jan. 8 to hear a challenge to the California law and a similar one in Massachusetts, just as it refused in 2017 to consider a challenge to the California law that said all eggs sold in the state had be be produced under the same standards that applied to local farms even if the eggs were produced elsewhere.
Proposition 12, passed on a 3-to-2 margin, will require farmers to give sows, veal calves, and egg-laying chickens more room to move about and also require that pork, veal, and eggs produced outside of California but sold in the state meet the same standards. It would end the use of sow “crates,” veal-calf stalls and “battery” cages for egg-laying hens.
“If this unconstitutional law is allowed to stand, California will dictate farming practices across the nation,” said Julie Anna Potts, chief executive of the Meat Institute. The trade group said Prop 12 will drive up costs for consumers and for producers, who would have to remodel barns and other facilities to meet California’s requirements. “California’s over-reach” will disrupt a smoothly running meat production system and result in a patchwork of standards, said the Meat Institute. California lawmakers say citizens of every state have the right to set standards for items sold inside their borders.
Beginning in 2020 under Proposition 12, farmers would have to give veal calves 43 square feet of floor space apiece, pregnant sows 24 square feet of floor space each, and 1 square foot for every egg-laying hen. From 2022, floor space for hens would be determined by the cage-free guidelines of the trade group United Egg Producers.