U.S. Supreme Court rejects Prop 12 case

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. 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. 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.