WASHINGTON − Bacon and pork chops are not back on the menu at the Supreme Court.
The high court on June 30 rejected another challenge to California’s controversial animal-welfare law, two years after narrowly upholding the state’s requirements on the sale of pork products.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh said he would have taken the case.
The Iowa Pork Producers Association argued the law discriminates against out-of-state producers, a claim based on a legal standard about when state laws overly restrict interstate commerce.
The Supreme Court in 2023 dismissed another challenge to California’s law made by the National Pork Producers Council that likewise relied on that standard.
But the Iowa pork farmers hoped that the fractured way the justices reached that 5-4 decision would give them an opening.
At issue was a 2018 ballot initiative, Proposition 12, that bans the sale of pork products in California unless the sow from which the butchered pig was born was housed in at least 24 square feet of floor space.
Iowa pork producers contend California gave its own farmers an unfair lead time to meet the new rules.
California said it doesn’t have enough pork farmers for Iowa to claim the state engaged in protectionism.
And much of the out-of-state pork industry moved quickly to comply with California’s rules so it could sell its products there, lawyers for the state said in filings.
In the court’s 2023 opinion, the justices in the majority had different reasons for dismissing that earlier challenge.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, who wrote the majority opinion, said the law treats California and out-of-state pork farmers equally.
“Companies that choose to sell products in various states must normally comply with the laws of those various states,” Gorsuch wrote for the majority. “While the Constitution addresses many weighty issues, the type of pork chops California merchants may sell is not on that list.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Supreme Court rejects challenge to California’s animal-welfare law
