Taking the Initiative by Lee Pitts
A
s Californians are about to find out, there are repercussions for being gullible and ignorant. On January 1st residents of the golden state may wonder why there are no bacon and eggs in the grocery store. We’re betting they won’t even realize that this is not some COVID-bottleneck. No, this will be 100 percent their fault. PROPOSITIONING YOU
One of the reasons that California has gone off the rails so dramatically is that it’s relatively easy to get a proposition on the ballot for residents to then vote on. In this case we’re talking about Proposition 12, otherwise known as the Farm Animal Confinement Proposition. Back in 2018 Prop 12 was passed with two thirds of California’s voters overwhelmingly supporting it. The Proposition increased the minimum confinement area allowed for sows, egg-laying hens and veal calves: sows must be given at least 24-square-feet of space in their farrowing crates, veal calves a minimum of 43-squarefeet, and egg-laying hens must be cage-free by 2022. Four years ago the year 2022 probably seemed like a long way away, and in the meantime voters on the left-coast patted themselves on the back for being caring souls who equated the sows, hens and veal calves with the dog that sleeps in their bed and eats off their table. Now it’s almost 2022 when the Proposition they passed will go into effect. Here’s the bad news for Californians who like bacon and eggs. Besides giving farm animals more room, Prop 12 bans the sale of products from ANY farm, dairy or ranch that fails to meet those new standards no matter where in the United States they are. Currently California is a substantial net
importer of eggs, producing six percent of the So, in the New Year California consumnational total of table eggs and consuming ers will wail and complain about the price 12 percent. It wasn’t always this way. Once and availability of pork, eggs, and veal and upon a time California exported eggs to other demand that something be done, never realstates but due to increasing regulations egg izing that they created this mess. production there has declined substantially KILL A VOLE...GO TO JAIL since 1971. It’s been said that trends and fads start in The situation with pork is even more dire. Only 4 percent of hog operations in the entire California and then spread to other states. In country would be in compliance with the this case we can only hope that accepted wisnew California regulations but Californians dom is wrong but the evidence is not hopeful. consume about 15 percent of all the pork pro- Since Californians passed Proposition 12 duced nationwide. California currently pro- back in 2018 twelve other states have passed duces 45 million pounds of pork per month laws that restrict farm animal confinement. Two of California’s closest neighbors have while they consume 225 million pounds followed California’s lead and the Arizona monthly. Farm Animal Confinement Initiative could The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals appear on the 2022 ballot. It too would upheld Proposition 12 after several lawestablish minimum space requirements for suits by the National Pork Producers, Farm veal calves, sows and hens. It would also Bureau and others. The North American ban non-compliant product from other states. Meat Institute, the national organization for packers, filed its lawsuit in October 2019 If animal rightists gather up 237,645 valid and argued that the Proposition violated the signatures by July 8, 2022, the Initiative will Constitution’s Commerce Clause because it appear on Arizona ballots. California’s liberal neighbor to the north essentially imposes restrictions on ranchers and farmers across the United States. The is also trying to qualify an initiative that goes Commerce Clause supposedly protects free even further than California’s Proposition. Oregon’s Initiative 13 would make criminals trade among the states. Needless to say, animal rights groups out of hunters, veterinarians, AI technicians, were positively giddy about the court’s deci- pest control workers and any rancher who sion. Animal Legal Defense Fund’s Executive pulls a calf or a lamb. According to Tim Gruver writing for the Director Stephen Wells said after the victory, Washington Post, Oregon’s proposed initia“Courts have affirmed time and again that tive would restrict fishing, trapping and punstate laws to ban cruel products are constitutional and enforceable, paving the way for ish the “intentional injury” of an animal that would bring undue suffering. Research labs similar measures in new jurisdictions.” So unless the Supreme Court intervenes, would be prohibited from experimenting on which most experts think won’t happen, or “nonhuman mammals” like birds, fish, reptiles the state temporarily allows non-compliant and amphibians. If a vet put his hand inside pork and eggs to be sold on an emergency a cow to assist a difficult birth he would have basis, California will lose almost all of its to be labeled a sex offender. Ditto a rancher, pork supply, and a goodly portion of its eggs. AI technician or technician collecting embryDespite the inclination to believe that the os from a cow or semen from a bull. Gruver wrote that, “IP 13 organizers will pork and egg industries simply can’t afford have until July 2022 to gather the 112,020 to ignore the market demand from the fifth signatures needed to get the initiative onto largest economy in the world, we see no the November 2022 ballot.” David Andrew signs in Iowa that pork producers are paying to rearrange their farrowing barns. They’ll Michelson, the Portland animal rights activist probably just sell California’s share of pork behind the Initiative told reporters that the to the Chinese. If there is pork to be found state’s $5.7 billion farming industry would in the meat case after the first of the year it’s adjust to the laws. “Crop production,” the going to cost a ham and a soup bone. (An animal rightists said, “would likely rise to make up for falling meat supplies.” But lest arm and a leg.) you think the farmers come out smelling like According to the Associated Press, costs a rose at the rancher’s expense, if a farmer could increase as much as 60 percent which traps or kills voles, beaver or other animals would make a package of bacon that cost he or she would also be made a criminal. $6 on December 31, 2021, cost $9.60 the very next day. This despite the fact that A BRIEF PAUSE FOR PAUSE California officials have readily admitted that It seems states are engaged in a nasty Proposition 12’s arbitrary animal housing game of trying to outdo each other in who standards are NOT based on any science. 2021 Fall Marketing Edition
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