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Wednesday, January 23, 2002 Constitution issues: Life, liberty and humane pig farmingFOOTNOTE | by Mark Lane Let's talk hogs and constitutional theory. The Florida Supreme Court was called upon last week to ponder mistreatment of pregnant pigs and whether Florida voters can change the state's constitution to address barnyard practices. The pregnant-pig amendment is one of 29 ballot proposals active in Florida. Most of these will go away quietly, unable to attract 488,722 petition signatures from bona fide voters. But a porcine rights law just might succeed where most amendments have failed. The drive has verified 28 percent of the signatures required. Its promoter, Floridians for Humane Farms, has raised about $730,000 for the effort. The group wants to ban "gestation crates." These are narrow metal stalls only a little bigger than the pigs liv ing in them. On larger factory farms, a pig will spend a couple of years facing one way in the crate, never leaving it. Florida doesn't have many large-scale hog-production operations that use these things. At least, not yet. Amendment supporters see this as a preventative measure. It's an inhumane practice even a pig shouldn't endure, but it does seem a bit odd for lawyers and justices of the state Supreme Court to be discussing the best way to raise hogs. In its ruling, the court checked off the things a ballot initiative must do to pass mus ter — cover only one issue, not be deceptive, have a title of not more than 15 words ... — and found nothing amiss. Justice Barbara Pariente, however, issued a concurring opinion with something of a did-I-go-to-law-school-to-be-doing-this? tone to it. "The merits or wisdom of the proposal is irrelevant to whether the proposed amendment may be placed on the ballot," she wrote. "However, I cannot help but observe that the issue of whether pregnant pigs should be singled out for special protection is simply not a subject appropriate for inclusion in the state constitu tion; rather it is a subject more properly reserved for legislative enactment." She then quoted from the court's ruling in another good and reasonable measure that has no business in the state's constitution, the gill-net fishing ban. The state's initiative process allows a majority to act when the Legislature won't. This is a good thing. Humane treatment of farm animals is nowhere on the Legislature's to-do list. Just as the need to protect the few fish left in Florida waters held no particular interest to legislators in 1994 when voters overwhelmingly approved the net ban. Likewise, legislators unwilling to address congestion on the state's major roadways suddenly found themselves having to fund a high-speed rail amendment. The Legislature is at the beck and call of Big Tobacco, so an anti-secondhand smoke amendment drive now is under way. And don't forget the push for constitutionally mandated class-size limits. When the Legislature won't do its job, the electorate will step in. That's in the best democratic spirit. But at this rate, the state constitution, shiny and new in 1968, is getting a cluttered, patchwork look. At any time, petitions for at least three gimcrack anti-tax proposals are circulating. And the gambling industry continually uses the initiative process to try to open Florida to casinos and slot machines. And still the amendments keep coming. We are witnessing the Californiazation of Florida politics and the trivializing of the state's governing charter. Maybe, as Justice Pariente suggests, it's time to allow ballot initiatives to be plain old laws instead of constitutional add- ons. But that, of course, would have to go on the ballot as another constitutional amendment. HICI Special Report — Food(s) for Thought: Animal? Vegetable? Mineral? |
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