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The Supreme Court rediscovers humility -- in a case about pigs
VoxThe Supreme Court’s decision in National Pork Producers Council v. Ross, which the Court handed down Thursday morning, reads like a breath of fresh air. For once, the justices decided not to make themselves even more powerful than they already are.
National Pork involved very difficult questions about just how much impact one state’s laws may have on residents of other states. In 2018, California enacted Proposition 12, a ballot initiative that imposes some of the strictest animal welfare rules in the country. Among other things, Prop 12 forbids pork farmers from confining a breeding sow “with less than 24 square feet of usable floor space per pig.” And it forbids any pork from being sold in California if it was produced on a farm that does not comply with this rule.
Because California is such a large state — its residents buy approximately 13 percent of all pork sold in the United States — the pork industry claimed that this law would require pork farms throughout the country to change their practices to ensure that their products would not be excluded from the California market, and that this would drive up the price of pork nationwide. Indeed, the industry claimed that Prop 12 would “increase farmers’ production costs by over $13 per pig, a 9.2% cost increase,” and those costs will need to be passed on to the consumer.
To save itself from paying these predicted costs, the pork industry sued, invoking a doctrine known as the “Dormant Commerce Clause,” which places some limits on each state’s ability to enact laws that impact other states.
The problem with this legal theory, however, is that all state laws will have some impact on other states. If one state legalizes recreational marijuana, for example, residents of nearby states where cannabis remains illegal will inevitably cross the border to buy weed and bring it back to their home state. If a state raises its minimum wage, that could lead residents of neighboring states to cross the border and work for businesses there instead. If it lowers the speed limit on its highways, that could marginally depress commerce in other states because it will take slightly more time for people and goods to travel in those states.
National Pork involved very difficult questions about just how much impact one state’s laws may have on residents of other states. In 2018, California enacted Proposition 12, a ballot initiative that imposes some of the strictest animal welfare rules in the country. Among other things, Prop 12 forbids pork farmers from confining a breeding sow “with less than 24 square feet of usable floor space per pig.” And it forbids any pork from being sold in California if it was produced on a farm that does not comply with this rule.
Because California is such a large state — its residents buy approximately 13 percent of all pork sold in the United States — the pork industry claimed that this law would require pork farms throughout the country to change their practices to ensure that their products would not be excluded from the California market, and that this would drive up the price of pork nationwide. Indeed, the industry claimed that Prop 12 would “increase farmers’ production costs by over $13 per pig, a 9.2% cost increase,” and those costs will need to be passed on to the consumer.
To save itself from paying these predicted costs, the pork industry sued, invoking a doctrine known as the “Dormant Commerce Clause,” which places some limits on each state’s ability to enact laws that impact other states.
The problem with this legal theory, however, is that all state laws will have some impact on other states. If one state legalizes recreational marijuana, for example, residents of nearby states where cannabis remains illegal will inevitably cross the border to buy weed and bring it back to their home state. If a state raises its minimum wage, that could lead residents of neighboring states to cross the border and work for businesses there instead. If it lowers the speed limit on its highways, that could marginally depress commerce in other states because it will take slightly more time for people and goods to travel in those states.
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