(Beth Clifton collage)
Zombie bill to undo California law to ease conditions for farmed animals has already failed in six successive Congresses over 12 years, but keeps coming back
MERCED, California––Voters in the largely rural, agrarian California 13th Congressional District may have stopped the EATS Act, Animal Wellness Action and Center for a Humane Economy president Wayne Pacelle assessed on December 3, 2024.
With all the ballots finally counted in the last undecided Congressional race of the November 5, 2024 national election, Democratic challenger Adam Gray declared victory over Republican incumbent John Duarte.
“Gray prevailed in a nail-biter, winning by 187 votes out of 210,921 cast,” Pacelle assessed, after announcing that Gray had won in an email to Animal Wellness Action supporters about 24 hours before the result became official.
Stealth Rider. (Beth Clifton collage)
Still a slim chance of EATS returning as a stealth rider
The repeatedly reintroduced EATS Act, short for Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression Act, and five similar successors, introduced under different titles, have died––or apparently died–– in six successive Congressional sessions.
Although unlikely, there appears to be a slim chance that the EATS Act in some form might yet be revived in the last days of the current 118th Congress, as a stealth rider to an attempt to pass a Farm Bill before an even more divided 119th Congress convenes in January 2025, with a renewed Farm Bill two years overdue.
(See EATS Act: beware of zombie stealth attack on U.S. farmed animals.)
What the EATS Act would do is prohibit individual states from enacting standards for farmed animal care that producers in other states have to meet before selling animal products and byproducts into the states setting the standards.
(Beth Clifton collage)
What the EATS Act seeks to undo
The current version of the EATS Act was written in specific response to California Proposition 12, approved by voters in 2018.
Summarizes the Proposition 12 Final Rule, “California regulations require veal calves, breeding pigs, and egg-laying hens to be housed in systems that comply with specific standards for freedom of movement, cage-free design, and specified minimum floor space.
“These regulations also prohibit a farm owner or operator from knowingly confining these specific animals in a cruel manner, as well as prohibit a business owner or operator from knowingly engaging in the sale of shell eggs, liquid eggs, whole pork meat or whole veal meat from animals housed in a cruel manner.”
(Beth Clifton collage)
Pork industry tries to end-run the U.S. Supreme Court
The U.S. Supreme Court in May 2023 upheld the constitutionality of California Proposition 12, ruling in a 5-4 split decision that yes, individual states have a constitutional right to regulate agricultural practices, including how farmed animals are treated, and further have the right to exclude from commerce within state borders any products that are not produced in accordance with state law.
(See Supreme Court split verdict on California pig law sets up another round.)
But the Chinese-owned Smithfield pig-producing empire in June 2023 found 24 Republican cosponsors to try again to overturn Proposition 12 at the Congressional level via the EATS Act.
(Beth Clifton collage)
State’s rights
With the Republicans having won majorities in both the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives, the members of Congress who backed the EATS Act in the 118th Congress might be salivating at the chance to ram it through on president-elect Donald Trump’s coat tails in the 119th Congress.
Most of the Republicans in Congress, however, appear to oppose the EATS Act for the same reason the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the direct challenge to Proposition 12: it would override long established state’s rights, also a pretext for racial segregation.
The Republican Party has embraced the “state’s rights” theme since soon after then-U.S. President Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat, signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
(Beth Clifton collage)
“Only race in the nation focused on EATS”
“The defeat of John Duarte,” Pacelle exulted, “makes the effort to pass the EATS Act in the new Congress improbable.
“The EATS Act was a key issue in the California 13th Congressional District race,” Pacelle said, “and with our backing EATS Act opponent David Valadao, a Republican, in the neighboring California 22nd Congressional District, and with him winning, we will have key Republicans and Democrats from the leading agriculture region in the nation demanding that EATS be kept out of the Farm bill.
John Duarte. (Beth Clifton collage based on Facebook photo)
Duarte defeated over EATS?
“This was the only race in the nation that focused on EATS,” Pacelle explained, “and Duarte, a Republican member of the House Agriculture Committee, was defeated with that issue being highlighted. We targeted 50,000 animal welfare donors in the California 13th Congressional District, and it was that campaign,” Pacelle believes, “that pushed Gray over the finish line and Duarte,” a farmer, “into private life again.
“This outcome,” Pacelle assessed, “means that the Democrats will have picked up one seat in the House, making it 220-215, and the smallest majority for the party in charge in 90 years. The Republicans, when they are at full strength, can only afford to lose two votes if the Democrats hold together. We probably don’t have a single Democrat favoring EATS, and we will have at least 25 Republicans, and perhaps two or three times that number, opposing EATS.
(Beth Clifton collage)
“Top electoral priority”
“Defeating Duarte and helping to elect Gray was Animal Wellness Action’s top electoral priority,” Pacelle continued.
“During his single term in the U.S. House, representing a district spanning five Central Valley counties, Duarte refused to cosponsor a single animal welfare bill,” Pacelle reminded. “He wouldn’t even cosponsor the FIGHT Act to crack down on illegal animal fighting,” with both cockfighting and dogfighting notoriously common in the California 13th Congressional District for decades, “or the SAFE Act, which seeks to ban horse slaughter — a practice California outlawed by ballot initiative 26 years ago!
“Duarte voted to remove federal protections for wolves and to stop the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service from regulating the use of toxic lead ammunition in sport hunting on National Wildlife Refuges,” Pacelle added.
David Valadeo. (Facebook photo)
David Valadeo, Mark McAfee, & Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
David Valadeo, the Republican member of the House of Representatives whom Animal Wellness Action helped to re-elect, is a dairy farmer whose business is partially shielded by Proposition 12 from out-of-state competition.
Both Valadeo’s California 22nd Congressional District and the 13th Congressional District skirt Fresno, where Raw Farm LLC, the largest producer of unpasteurized milk in the U.S., is under quarantine by the California Department of Food & Agriculture due to repeated discoveries of contamination by the avian influenza H5N1.
Raw Farm LLC president Mark McAfee has indicated that he anticipates loosened regulation of raw milk products if and when ardent raw milker and anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. takes office as Donald Trump’s nominee to become cabinet Secretary of Health & Human Services.
Kennedy will, however, have to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, where he may not have the votes to be confirmed.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Lost in Colorado, but won on the coasts
Despite losing Colorado Proposition 127, an attempt to ban puma and bobcat hunting, at cost of close to $3 million, Pacelle celebrated that Animal Wellness Action in the November 5, 2024 election “helped to re-elect four dedicated animal advocates” to Congress, including Valadeo, while “toppling three anti-animal incumbents,” including Duarte.
“We helped defeat two incumbent lawmakers who refused to cosponsor the FIGHT Act,” Pacelle said. “Representatives Brandon Williams,” a Republican from New York, “and Michelle Steel,” a Republican from California, “lost to two pro-animal lawmakers after Animal Wellness Action ads showed their apathetic response to the FIGHT Act,” which would ban internet gambling on dogfights and cockfights, and would allow citizens including animal advocacy groups to initiate civil proceedings via lawsuit against dogfighters and cockfighters.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Fitzpatrick, Mace, & Davis
Pacelle heralded the re-election of Representative Brian Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican, identified as “author of the Kangaroo Protection Act and the Puppy Protection Act”; Representative Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican, identified as “author of the MINKS Are Superspreaders Act and the Snowmobiles Aren’t Weapons Act, and the lead Republican cosponsor of the ADD SOY Act”; and Representative Don Davis, a North Carolina Democrat.
None of the bills authored by Fitzpatrick and Mace that Pacelle mentioned have, as yet, come close to winning passage. All will have to be reintroduced to have a chance in the 119th Congress.
Allie Feldman Taylor of Voters for Animal Rights. (Facebook photo)
Voters for Animal Rights wins 26 of 27
In New York City, meanwhile, Voters for Animal Rights claimed success in using “the power of the polls to elect 26 of 27 of our endorsed candidates” for seats in the New York state senate and New York state assembly.
New York state senate winners endorsed by Voters for Animal Rights include Jabari Brisport, Samra Brouk, Jeremy Cooney, Nathalia Fernandez, Michael Gianaris, Kristen Gonzalez, Pete Harckham, Michelle Hinchey, Julia Salazar, James Skoufis, and James Tedisco.
New York state assembly winners endorsed by Voters for Animal Rights include Alex Bores, Harvey Epstein, Phara Souffrant Forrest, Emily Gallagher, Deborah Glick, Jessica González-Rojas, Pamela Hunter, Anna Kelles, Micah Lasher, John McDonald, Marcela Mitaynes, Gabriella Romero, Linda Rosenthal, Jo Anne Simon, and Claire Valdez.
Beth & Merritt Clifton with friends.
Among them, Glick appears to have the most distinguished record on behalf of animals, having in 2006 introduced a bill to end wildlife killing contests in New York state that finally won passage in December 2023, taking effect in November 2024.
Please help our work:
www.animals24-7.org/donate/
The post Did defeat of U.S. Representative John Duarte finally kill the EATS Act? appeared first on Animals 24-7.