Missouri and 12 other states are renewing their challenge to California’s Proposition 2 and AB 1437 laws concerning eggs produced and sold in California.
Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley announced it would again challenge the California laws. Proposition 2 requires that all eggs produced in California come from hens that have adequate room to stand up, sit down, turn around and extend their limbs without touching another bird or the sides of the cage. AB 1437 requires that eggs from all other states that are sold in California be raised according to Proposition 2 standards.
The laws have previously been challenged by Missouri and other states, but all previous challenges to California’s mandates have been unsuccessful.
In 2016, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Missouri and the other plaintiff states lacked standing to pursue their claims. A new filing in the U.S. Supreme Court answers this by providing a careful economic analysis that establishes the impact of these burdensome regulations, Hawley stated in a press release on his website.
According to Hawley, a Republican who is also running for the seat in the U.S. Senate currently held by Democrat Claire McCaskill, the new suit claims that California’s regulations violate both a federal law prohibiting states from imposing their own standards on eggs produced in other states, and the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which gives Congress exclusive authority to regulate commerce among and between states.
Hawley believes that the California law is unfair to egg producers and consumers in other states, as costs of Proposition 2 compliant egg production is higher, and therefore the prices of eggs sold at retail will also be higher.
“This discrimination against Missouri farmers will not stand. I will continue to defend our farmers and protect the interests of Missouri consumers,” Hawley stated.
The first challenge to Proposition 2 was pushed by Hawley’s predecessor, Chris Koster, a Democrat, in 2014.
Other states joining Missouri in its challenge to the California regulations are Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota.
