Amicus Curiae Brief — Iowa Pork Producers Association, Petitioner v. Rob Bonta, Attorney General of California, et al.

No.24-728

23-50

No.

IN THE

Supreme

Court

of the

United

In the Supreme

Court

of the

United States

States

_________

_______________

CHIAVERINI

et al.,

IOWA JPASCHA

ORK PRODUCERS

A,SSOCIATION

,

Petitioners,Petitioner,

v.

v.

C,ITY

,O

HIO, et AS

al.,ATTORNEY

IN OF

HISN

OAPOLEON

FFICIAL C

APACITY

ROB BONTA

Respondents.

GENERAL OF CALIFORNIA

, ET AL.,

_________

Respondents.

On Writ

of Certiorari to the

_______________

UnitedFOR

States

Court

AppealsTO THE

ON PETITION

A WRIT

OF Cof

ERTIORARI

for

the

Sixth

Circuit

UNITED STATES

COURT OF APPEALS

_________

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

BRIEF AMICI CURIAE STATES OF IOWA

_________________________________

ALABAMA,

ARKANSAS, FLORIDA, GEORGIA,

BRIEF

OFIDAHO,

IOWA AND

22 OTHER

STATES

KANSAS,

INDIANA,

KENTUCKY,

LOUISIANA,

OHIO,

AS AMICIMONTANA,

CURIAE INNEBRASKA,

SUPPORT OF

OKLAHOMA,

SOUTH

CAROLINA,

SOUTH

GRANTING THE PETITION

DAKOTA, TENNESSEE, TEXAS, AND UTAH

______________________________________________

SUPPORT OF RESPONDENTS

_________

BRENNA BIRD

Attorney General of Iowa

BRENNA BIRD

PATRICK C. VALENCIA

ERIC WESSAN

Attorney General

Deputy Solicitor General

Solicitor General

ALEXA DEN HERDER

Counsel of Record

Assistant Solicitor General

ERIC WESSAN*

BREANNE STOLTZE

Solicitor General

IOWA DEPT. OF JUSTICE

Assistant Solicitor General

Hoover Office Building

1305 E Walnut Street

Des Moines, Iowa 50309

Des Moines, IA 50319

(515) 823-9117

(515) 823- 9117

eric.wessan@ag.iowa.gov

eric.wessan@ag.iowa.gov

Counsel for Amici Curiae

Counsel for Amici States

(additional counsel

listed in addendum)

*Counsel of Record

i

QUESTIONS PRESENTED

1. Whether a party alleging that Proposition 12

discriminates against interstate commerce, both

directly and under Pike v. Bruce Church (among many

other viable counts), states a claim, as most Justices

concluded in Ross?

2. Whether federal courts evaluating fractured

opinions from this Court consider all Justices’ opinions

to determine the majority position on a legal issue as

the First, Third, Fourth, and Eighth Circuits hold, or

whether lower courts are limited to consider only

opinions concurring in the result as the District of

Columbia, Second, Fifth, Sixth, Ninth, Tenth, and

Eleventh Circuits hold.

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................. i

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES ........................................ii

INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE ............................. 1

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT ..................................... 2

ARGUMENT ................................................................ 3

I. PROPOSITION 12 HARMS AGRICUTURAL

STATES AND CONSUMERS .................................. 3

II. PROPOSITION 12 HAS STARTED AN

INTERSTATE RACE-TO-THE-BOTTOM .............. 8

III. PROPOSITION 12 VIOLATES THE

CONSTITTUTION ................................................. 12

CONCLUSION .......................................................... 15

iii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Cases

Baldwin v. G.A.F. Seelig, Inc.,

294 U.S. 511 (1935) .................................... 10, 12, 13

Brown v. Maryland,

25 U.S. 419 (1827) .................................................. 17

Camps Newfound/Owatonna, Inc. v. Town of

Harrison,

520 U.S. 564 (1997) ................................................ 17

Carroll v. Lanza,

349 U.S. 408 (1955) ................................................ 19

Comptroller of Treasury of Md. v. Wynne,

575 U.S. 542 (2015) .......................................... 17, 18

CTS Corp. v. Dynamics Corp. of Am.,

481 U.S. 69 (1987) ............................................ 10, 11

H.P. Hood & Sons, Inc. v. Du Mond,

336 U.S. 525 (1949) ................................................ 14

Healy v. Beer Inst., Inc.,

491 U.S. 324 (1989) .......................................... 10, 12

Hughes v. Oklahoma,

441 U.S. 322 (1979) .................................................. 9

Michelin Tire Corp. v. Wages,

423 U.S. 276 (1976) ................................................ 10

National Pork Producers Council v. Ross,

598 U.S. 356 (2023) .... 1, 3, 4, 5, 9, 13, 15, 17, 18, 19

Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc.,

397 U.S. 137 (1970) .................................................. 1

Woodruff v. Parham,

75 U.S. 123 (1869) .................................................. 17

Statutes

Colo. Rev. Stat. § 40-2-124 ........................................ 14

iv

U.S. Const. art. I, § 10, cl. 2 ...................................... 16

U.S. Const. art. IV, § 1 .............................................. 19

Regulations

Cal. Code. Regs. Tit. 17, § 95481 .............................. 14

Or. Admin. R. 340-253-0040...................................... 14

Other Authorities

Equal Citizens of Equal and Territorial States: The

Constitutional Foundations of Choice of Law,

92 Colum. L. Rev. 249 (1992)................................. 20

Importing Energy, Exporting Regulation,

83 Fordham L. Rev. 1357 (2014) ........................... 14

State Extraterritorial Powers Reconsidered,

85 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1133 (2010) ...................... 20

The Import-Export Clause,

68 Miss. L.J. 521 (1998) ......................................... 16

INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE 1

Amici curiae States of Iowa, Alabama,

Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas,

Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana,

Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio,

Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee,

Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming (“amici States”)

submit this brief in support of Petitioner, Iowa Pork

Producers, urging this Court to reverse the Ninth

Circuit’s decision. That decision declined to answer a

question with vital implications for State sovereign

interests: whether one State may discriminate against

commerce in other States with the fig leaf of neutral

domestic application. See App. 1a-15a. Purportedly

relying on this Court’s decision in National Pork

Producers Council v. Ross, 598 U.S. 356 (2023) and its

own circuit precedent, the Ninth Circuit declined to

follow this Court’s decision in Pike v. Bruce Church,

Inc., 397 U.S. 137 (1970). This Court should remedy

what has become a muddy jurisprudential sty.

Amici States have few interests as vital as the

authority to regulate health and safety—and

agriculture—within their own boundaries. Now, that

fundamental aspect of our constitutional order is

being challenged. Iowa is the number one porkproducing state in the United States and the top state

for pork exports. In Iowa, the pork industry employs

more than 147,000 Iowans and contributes billions of

dollars annually to the economy. Beyond Iowa, the

pork industry is a major economic driver in many

States. Proposition 12 has already disrupted the

Pursuant to Rule 37.2, amici provided timely

notice of their intent to file this brief to all parties.

1

2

industry by imposing stringent requirements

inconsistent with industry practices on pig farmers

and pork processors in Iowa and other pork-producing

states. Mandating luxury accommodations for pigs

may sound nice in California but it has real costs

across the country. This costly mandate has already

snarled supply chains and imposed substantial

burdens on the national pork market, increasing the

price of pork for all Americans. This mandate also

undermines Iowa regulators’ expertise in establishing

safe and humane standards for raising healthy,

affordable, and delicious pork. For these reasons, the

States have a critical interest in the outcome of this

litigation.

The Ninth Circuit’s approach declines to

address the arrogation of authority and abrogation of

other States’ sovereign authority imposed by

Proposition 12. This Court should grant certiorari and

allow the Petitioners’ case to proceed.

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

California has fired the first shots in what could

be an interstate trade war. Rather than respect her

sister States’ regulatory approach to raising pork in

their own States, California seeks to substitute its own

inexpert judgment for what regulations are best.

California does not produce meaningful amounts of

commercial pork—but it is the nation’s top consumer.

Proposition 12 requires pork producing States to

oversee massive disruption in vital businesses to

establish two supply chains: one to sell pork in

California and one to sell everywhere else.

Even if California’s trade war on best practices

was limited only to California it would be a major

3

problem. Prices in California have spiked over the past

two years, making feeding California’s nutritious and

healthy pork even more expensive. But other States

are imposing their own nationwide regulations that

pork produced outside of their States must follow or

risk being prohibited from sale. Not yet are there

conflicting regulations between those States, but a

establishing a patchwork of mandatory regulations

across the fifty States risks undermining one of the

core pieces of our federalist system. Mutual respect

rather than imperious regulation should be the norm.

And unlike this Court’s earlier case in National Pork

Producers v. Ross, Petitioners here have raised and

preserved the discrimination and interest-balancing

claims at issue. This Court should find that the

balances weigh against allowing Californians to tell

States across the country how to raise hogs.

Beyond those precedents, there are many

potential constitutional infirmities with Proposition

12. On remand, with this Court’s instruction, the

district court can fully address those constitutional

issues in the first instance. To reach some of those

issues, this Court need address precedents that violate

the original understanding of the clauses that they

interpret.

The amici States respectfully request that the

Court reverse the Ninth Circuit to enjoin enforcement

of Proposition 12.

4

ARGUMENT

I.

PROPOSITION 12 HARMS AGRICULTURAL

STATES AND CONSUMERS

Proposition 12 has already forced out-of-state

farmers to endure enormous compliance costs.

Economic studies estimate that compliance will cost

hog producers in the United States between $294

million and $348 million. Brief of Iowa Pork Producers

Ass’n, et al. as Amici Curiae, p. 17, Nat’l Pork

Producers Council, 598 U.S. 356.

To contextualize those numbers, an “average

barn might cost $1,600 to USD 2,500 per sow, or $3

million to $4.5m million in total.” Erica Shaffer,

Rabobank: California’s Prop 12 a Call to Lead on

Animal

Welfare,

MEAT+POULTRY

(2021),

https://perma.cc/TUZ5-SX5V. But Proposition 12 will

raise those costs to “averag[e] as much as $3,400 per

sow.” Id. Farmers’ costs will double—causing some

farmers to go out of business and dramatically raising

consumer costs. That stems from legal changes like

elevated

building

costs

of

these

luxury

accommodations. See id.

Small, independent hog farmers will be

devastated. Most pig farmers continue to operate

independent farms, with 52,984 independent pig

farms holding 25.6 million pigs in inventory, according

to the 2022 Agricultural Census. Nat’l Agric. Stat.

Serv., 2022 Census of Agriculture: U.S. Nat’l Level

Data, Table 23, https://perma.cc/M3FE-KJA9. Of

those farms, about 90 percent had fewer than 100 pigs

in inventory. Id.

5

Proposition 12 will disproportionately affect

those farms because small farmers generally have “a

lower return to investments and therefore will likely

realize less favorable terms of credit.” Barry K.

Goodwin, California’s Proposition 12 and its Impacts

on the Pork Industry (May 13, 2021), at 8–9. Thus,

they “will be the least able to undertake the changes

that would make facilities comfortable.” Id.

Proposition 12 thus places an added burden on a

substantial and already contracting segment of the

industry. From 2017 to 2022, the number of

independent farms with herds of fewer than 100 pigs

dropped by about 9 percent. Compare Nat’l Agric. Stat.

Serv., 2022 Census of Agriculture: U.S. Nat’l Level

Data, Table 23 with Nat’l Agric. Stat. Serv., 2017

Census of Agriculture: U.S. Nat’l Level Data, Table 23,

https://perma.cc/D3TY-62EJ.

Expensive regulations will “hasten the

concentration of the hog Industry, with smaller

farmers exiting the sector, leaving a US hog industry

that has fewer but larger farms.” Goodwin, supra, at

10.

Indeed, the problem is not isolated to

California. In the wake of National Pork Producers,

other States have imposed their own, different, porkrelated mandates. The potential financial effect on

farmers will continue to increase if other States

impose similar unworkable regulations with their own

idiosyncrasies inconsistent with those in California.

For example, farmers in Iowa could invest millions of

dollars to remodel their hog farms to comply with

California’s requirements only to find Massachusetts

enacting a law imposing larger housing requirements

6

per pig. See Brief of Iowa Pork Producers Ass’n, et al.

as Amici Curiae, p. 17.

How many States with different and perhaps

conflicting regulations must hog farmers comply with?

There is a real risk of forcing those farmers to

continuously “invest millions of dollars in capital

expenditures” to “comply with everchanging

standards that other states choose.” Id. at 18.

While Proposition 12 is expensive, noncompliance may cost pork producers even more. If

farmers and pork processors do not adjust to the new

rules, they may be shut out of California entirely. And

similar regulations threaten shutting farmers out of

entire regions. For example, Massachusetts wants to

impose its new requirements on any pork transiting

through the State. Because Massachusetts “is [the]

distribution hub for Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode

Island and Maine,” Proposition 12 “could affect the

production and sale of pork across a broad swath of the

country.” The Editorial Board, Massachusetts Wants

Your Bacon, WALL STREET JOURNAL, (Aug. 10, 2022),

https://perma.cc/9HR8-9KDQ.

And hog farmers probably will not be the

hardest hit. The increased costs on raising and

processing pork will make American consumers

squeal. Pork prices are already high enough. In 2021,

pork prices rose 12.1 percent from the previous year.

Brian Deese, et al., Addressing Concentration in the

Meat-Processing Industry to Lower Food Prices for

American Families, THE WHITE HOUSE (Sept. 8, 2021),

https://perma.cc/AJ7F-XFAA. And in October 2022,

pork prices hit a record level of $5.05 per pound.

Jennifer Shike, Here’s a Look at Pork Price Spreads,

7

PORK

BUSINESS

(May

https://perma.cc/N23H-CA5H.

15,

2023),

Costly regulations mean expensive pork.

Indeed, early data on California’s Proposition 12

already shows that consumers are seeing higher pork

prices at the grocery store. Three USDA economists

analyzed preliminary retail scanner data and found

that pork prices in California rose 20 percent on

average since July 1, 2023, when the State began

implementing the new regulations. See Hannah

Hawkins, Shawn Arita, & Seth Meyer, Proposition 12

Pork Retail Price Impacts on California Consumers,

U.C. Giannini Found. of Agric. Econ., ARE Update

27(3), 5–8 (2024), available at https://perma.cc/Z8ETD4Q4.

The price of some pork products increased even

more. For example, after Proposition 12 went into

effect, the price of pork loins rose by more than 40

percent. Id. at 5. That means California consumers are

paying an extra $1.04 per pound for bacon, $0.54 per

pound more for ribs, and an additional $1.42 per

pound for pork loin—the three most-purchased pork

products by California consumers. Id. at 7. Those price

increases continued after the regulations were fully

implemented on January 1, 2024. More regulations

will continue to inflate prices.

High pork prices disproportionately affect

lower-income households. Laws like Proposition 12

may “lead to a decline in the number of options” and

“make certain pork products too expensive for lowerincome people.” Alicia Wallace, Pork Is Already Super

Expensive. This New Animal-Welfare Law Could Push

Prices Higher, CNN BUSINESS (Oct. 17, 2021),

https://perma.cc/42YJ-CF7J. That shift will hurt the

8

pocketbooks of folks who have long relied on pork as a

low-cost, high protein option for feeding their families.

Proposition 12 also jeopardizes Americans’

health and safety. Scientific literature suggests that

animal-confinement

regulations,

like

those

Proposition 12 mandates, could worsen animal health

and welfare and introduce extra risk to standardized

sanitary

practices.

Counter-intuitively

for

nonfarmers, sometimes larger pens increases the risk

of injury and illness for hogs. For example, housing

hogs in larger individual stalls increases the risk of

disease transmission. Those spaces mean that pigs are

more likely to come into nose-to-nose contact and

share water and feeding systems. See Brief for

American Association of Swine Veterinarians as

Amicus Curiae, p. 4–19, Nat’l Pork Producers Council,

598 U.S. 356. Therefore, Proposition 12 has real risks

for human health.

II.

PROPOSITION 12 HAS STARTED

INTERSTATE RACE-TO-THE-BOTTOM.

AN

The Framers’ “central concern . . . for calling the

Constitutional Convention” was “the conviction that,

in order to succeed, the new Union would have to avoid

the tendencies toward economic Balkanization that

had plagued relations among the colonies and later

among the States under the Articles of

Confederation.” Hughes v. Oklahoma, 441 U.S. 322,

325 (1979). “One of the major defects of the Articles of

Confederation . . . was the fact that the Articles

essentially left the individual States free to burden

commerce both among themselves and with foreign

countries very much as they pleased.” Michelin Tire

Corp. v. Wages, 423 U.S. 276, 283 (1976). Yet,

9

Proposition 12—and ballot initiatives like it—

reinvigorate those isolationist tendencies and

undermine the economic union the Framers created.

“The entire Constitution was ‘framed upon the theory

that the peoples of the several states must sink or

swim together, and that in the long run prosperity and

salvation are in union and not division.’” Healy v. Beer

Inst., Inc., 491 U.S. 324, 336 n.12 (1989) (quoting

Baldwin v. G.A.F. Seelig, Inc., 294 U.S. 511, 523

(1935)). Proposition 12 sows this division in multiple

ways:

First, Proposition 12, creates a “risk of

inconsistent regulation by different States.” CTS

Corp. v. Dynamics Corp. of Am., 481 U.S. 69, 89 (1987).

Here, California requirements for pig farms and pork

processors deviate from lawful industry practices

across the country. California itself has few hog

farmers or pork producers—most live elsewhere. That

means, in effect, that the State is trying to regulate a

market in which it lacks expertise and economic stake.

Iowa, for example, produces a lot of pork. In

2020, the pork industry contributed $40.8 billion in

output, and more than 147,000 jobs to Iowa’s economy.

2020 Iowa Pork Industry Report, at 7 (May 2020),

available at https://perma.cc/8PB8-QYLY. Hogs

generated $893 million in state and local taxes and

$1.3 billion in federal taxes. Id. That same year, Iowa

had more than 5,400 pig farms and housed nearly one

third (almost 25 million) of the nation’s hogs. Id. at 6.

Contrast Iowa with California, which produces

very few of its own pigs. “Although California makes

up less than one percent of the total U.S. pork

production, it accounts for 13% of the national pork

consumption.” California Pork Producers Association,

10

Commodity Fact Sheet Pork (April 2020), available at

https://perma.cc/5U2G-BKT4. California is the

nation’s largest consumer of pork. John McCracken &

Ben Felder, With California’s Prop 12 Now Law, Pork

Producers Adapt While Lobbying Groups Continue to

Fight, INVESTIGATE MIDWEST (March 6, 2024),

available at https://perma.cc/5MYU-TEX8.

California’s imposition comes at a cost and

affects every link on the supply chain. The market

segmentation that Proposition 12 causes directly

undermines the “maintenance of a national economic

union unfettered by state-imposed limitations on

interstate commerce” that the Framers sought to

establish. See Healy, 491 U.S. at 335–36.

Second, upholding Proposition 12 could drag

other States into a regulatory “race to the bottom” that

extends beyond just pork. As Justice Cardozo once

warned, allowing one State to project its regulation

into another would mean “the door has been opened to

rivalries and reprisals that were meant to be averted

by subjecting commerce between the states to the

power of the nation.” Baldwin, 294 U.S. at 522. For

example, imagine Washington—the State with the

highest minimum wage—refusing to allow sale of

products from States with a lower minimum wage. Or

imagine a State prohibiting “the retail sale of goods

from producers that do not pay for employees’ birth

control or abortions.” Brief of Indiana and 25 Other

States as Amici Curiae, p. 33, Nat’l Pork Producers

Council, 598 U.S. 356.

Upholding Proposition 12 invites States to

upend national markets based on “flavor of the day”

policy preferences and so “effectively force other

States to regulate in accordance with those

11

idiosyncratic state demands.” Nat’l Pork Producers

Council, 598 U.S. at 407 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring

in part and dissenting in part).Vague State appeals to

health and economic welfare should not suffice. “To

give entrance to that excuse would be to invite a

speedy end of our national solidarity.” Baldwin, 294

U.S. at 523.

Indeed, State efforts to exert unilateral control

over large sectors of the national economy already are

increasingly common. For example, in the field of

energy regulation, Oregon and California regulate

greenhouse gas emissions along the electricity supply

chain leading to those states. Cal. Code. Regs. Tit. 17,

§ 95481; Or. Admin. R. 340-253-0040; see also James

W. Coleman, Importing Energy, Exporting Regulation,

83 Fordham L. Rev. 1357 (2014). Meanwhile, Colorado

regulates the renewable energy portfolios of power

companies selling electricity for the State’s use. Colo.

Rev. Stat. § 40-2-124. Laws and ballot initiatives like

Proposition 12 thus invite States to revert to a time

when “each state would legislate according to its

estimate of its own interests, the importance of its own

products, and the local advantages or disadvantages

of its position in a political or commercial view.” H.P.

Hood & Sons, Inc. v. Du Mond, 336 U.S. 525, 533

(1949) (internal quotation omitted).

Third, California’s energy efficiency efforts

show “how even well-intentioned regulation presents

a temptation toward protectionism.” Coleman, supra

at 1386. During its implementation, California altered

the standard to break ethanol into two geographic

categories, “California” and “Midwest,” assigning a

higher carbon intensity score to Midwest ethanol

compared to ethanol produced the same way in

12

California. Id. at 1386–87. California’s desire to be the

nation’s regulator cannot be what the compact

between the States intended when they joined the

Constitution. Even then, because California could not

stomach such strict regulations on an industry present

in the state “so it exempted unconventional oil despite

its similar emissions profile.” Id. at 1387. The pork

producers are not so lucky.

State policy “experiments” like Proposition 12

are “fertile ground for protectionist measures that

would at best forfeit the efficiency and reliability

benefits of integrated . . . markets, and at worst, could

ignite state-to-state and even international trade

wars.” Id. at 1399.

III.

PROPOSITION

CONSTITUTION.

12

VIOLATES

THE

Beyond the Commerce Clause, Proposition 12,

and other laws like it, may also implicate other

constitutional provisions such as the Import-Export

Clause and the Full Faith and Credit Clause. See Nat’l

Pork Producers Council, 598 U.S. at 408 (Kavanaugh,

J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).

Under the Import-Export Clause, “No State

shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any

Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what

may be absolutely necessary for executing it’s

inspection laws.” U.S. Const. art. I, § 10, cl. 2. “The

Import-Export Clause was the principal remedy

proposed by the Philadelphia Convention to remedy

the commercial strife that characterized the relations

among the states under the Articles of Confederation.”

Boris I. Bittker & Brannon P. Denning, The ImportExport Clause, 68 Miss. L.J. 521, 521 (1998). In

13

particular, the Clause was designed to stop the

“exploitation of the inland states by the seaboard

states,” which were imposing taxes on arriving goods

destined for other states. Id. at 522.

This Court should return to the Clause’s

original meaning. See Nat’l Pork Producers Council,

598 U.S. at 408 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring in part and

dissenting in part); Comptroller of Treasury of Md. v.

Wynne, 575 U.S. 542, 573 (2015) (Scalia, J.,

dissenting); Camps Newfound/Owatonna, Inc. v.

Town of Harrison, 520 U.S. 564, 621–637 (1997)

(Thomas, J., dissenting); Brown v. Maryland, 25 U.S.

419, 438−439, 449 (1827); but see Woodruff v. Parham,

75 U.S. 123 (1869) (limiting the Import-Export Clause

to foreign trade). That type of return means that

discriminatory actions taken by one State to require

regulations in another State could require clearing a

higher hurdle. Indeed, “not all duties were taxes:

Some were imposed not for revenue but merely to

regulate (or effectively prohibit) trade in particular

articles.” Robert G. Natelson, What the Constitution

Means by “Duties, Imposts, and Excises”—and “Taxes”

(Direct or Otherwise), 66 Case W. Rev. 297, 320 (2015).

Justices Scalia and Thomas have explained

that the Import-Export Clause prevents States “from

imposing certain especially burdensome taxes” and

duties on imports from other States and not just from

foreign countries. Wynne, 575 U.S. at 573.

Here, Proposition 12 conditions the sale of pork

on “the use of preferred farming, manufacturing, or

production practices in another State” where the pork

originated. Nat’l Pork Producers Council, 598 U.S. at

408 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring in part and dissenting

in part). That could be construed as a tax or duty

14

under the original understanding of the ImportExport Clause. Because that may conflict with the

Import-Export Clause’s original meaning, the issue

warrants reconsideration. See id.

Proposition 12 may also violate the Full Faith

and Credit Clause, which requires each State to afford

“Full Faith and Credit” to the “public Acts” of “every

other State.” U.S. Const. art. IV, § 1. It prevents States

from “adopting any policy of hostility to the public

Acts” of another State. Carroll v. Lanza, 349 U.S. 408,

413 (1955). According to Justice Kavanaugh, “[a]

State’s effort to regulate farming, manufacturing, and

production practices in another State (in a manner

different from how that other State’s laws regulate

those practices) could in some circumstances raise

questions under that Clause.” Nat’l Pork Producers

Council, 598 U.S. at 408 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring

in part and dissenting in part); see also Mark D. Rosen,

State Extraterritorial Powers Reconsidered, 85 Notre

Dame L. Rev. 1133, 1151-53 (2010); Douglas Laycock,

Equal Citizens of Equal and Territorial States: The

Constitutional Foundations of Choice of Law, 92

Colum. L. Rev. 249, 290, 296–301 (1992).

While the Full Faith and Credit Clause does not

have so broad a scope as to encompass any law that

has extraterritorial effect, the lower courts can assess

whether the Full Faith and Credit Clause is

implicated when an agricultural regulation conflicts

with another State’s laws about how pork may be

produced in that State in the first instance.

California created the precise scenario about

which Justice Kavanaugh warns. Proposition 12

regulates pork production in States, like Iowa, in a

manner different from how those States regulate pork

15

production. See Elizabeth R. Rumley, States’ Farm

Animal Confinement Statutes, Nat’l Agric. Law Ctr.,

https://perma.cc/C9GZ-PZ3U. Indeed, Proposition 12

explicitly prohibits certain States from engaging in

otherwise legal practices encouraged by those States’

laws if they want to sell pork in California. Thus, the

Full Faith and Credit Clause should preclude

California from enacting its agricultural regulations

that conflict with Iowa’s laws and that of other top

pork-producing states.

CONCLUSION

This Court should grant certiorari to reverse

the Ninth Circuit Court’s judgment.

Respectfully submitted,

BRENNA BIRD

Attorney General

State of Iowa

ERIC WESSAN*

Solicitor General

BREANNE STOLTZE

Assistant Solicitor General

(515) 823- 9177

eric.wessan@ag.iowa.gov

January 29, 2025

*Counsel of Record

APPENDIX

APPENDIX TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Additional Counsel .............................................. 1a

1a

ADDITIONAL COUNSEL

STEVE MARSHALL

Attorney General of

Alabama

LYNN FITCH

Attorney General of

Mississippi

TIM GRIFFIN

Attorney General of

Arkansas

ANDREW T. BAILEY

Attorney General of

Missouri

CHRIS CARR

Attorney General of

Georgia

RAÚL R. LABRADOR

Attorney General of

Idaho

TODD ROKITA

Attorney General of

Indiana

KRIS KOBACH

Attorney General of

Kansas

RUSELL M. COLEMAN

Attorney General of

Kentucky

LIZ MURRILL

Attorney General of

Louisiana

AUSTIN KNUDSEN

Attorney General of

Montana

MICHAEL T. HILGERS

Attorney General of

Nebraska

JOHN FORMELLA

Attorney General of

New Hampshire

DREW WRIGLEY

Attorney General of

North Dakota

DAVE YOST

Attorney General of

Ohio

GENTNER DRUMMOND

Attorney General of

Oklahoma

2a

ALAN WILSON

Attorney General of

South Carolina

MARTY JACKLEY

Attorney General of

South Dakota

JONATHAN SKRMETTI

Attorney General of

Tennessee

JASON S. MIYARES

Attorney General of

Virginia

JOHN B. MCCUSKEY

Attorney General of

West Virginia

BRIDGET HILL

Attorney General of

Wyoming