Major players in horseracing & pig farming hoped to overturn laws bringing them under regulation
WASHINGTON D.C.––The U.S. Supreme Court on June 27 and June 30, 2025 twice in two business days corralled animal use industries hoping to evade regulation, reaffirming both the Horseracing Integrity & Safety Act of 2020 and California Proposition 12 requirements for raising pigs, adopted by voters in 2018.
The Supreme Court win for the Horseracing Integrity & Safety Act did not stop Frank Garrison, attorney for the anti-regulation Pacific Legal Foundation, from claiming “a win for our clients” in the horseracing industry.
Foes of regulation bizarrely claimed victory
Argued Garrison, “The Supreme Court vacated the Eighth Circuit’s decision upholding HISA,” the Horseracing Integrity & Safety Authority, “as a constitutional delegation to a private entity. This signals the Court is still interested in addressing the issue. We look forward to litigating this issue further.”
What the U.S. Supreme Court said was simply, “Motion for leave to file amicus brief filed by Cato Institute,” a Pacific Legal Foundation ally, DENIED,” in capital letters.
And then, “Petition GRANTED. Judgment VACATED and case REMANDED for further consideration in light of FCC v. Consumers’ Research.”
What did that have to do with horseracing, or horses at all?
The Paulick Report translates
Translated Andrew Cohen for the Paulick Report, widely considered the most authoritative media covering the horseracing industry, “By a 6-3 vote, the court ruled in favor of the Federal Communications Commission, a federal agency that appointed a private not-for-profit corporation to administer a fund to help provide ‘universal service’ to people who cannot otherwise afford it, or who live in rural areas where communication infrastructure is particularly weak.
“The government won. The plaintiffs lost.”
That verdict established a precedent.
“Then,” Cohen continued, “the Supreme Court issued a series of orders in the pending HISA cases. The news is not good for opponents of HISA. The justices refused to accept for review any of the three pending HISA cases before them. They refused to review the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that upheld HISA in its entirety. They refused to review the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that struck down HISA’s enforcement mechanism. And they refused to review the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that endorsed HISA’s constitutionality.
Rulings superseded
“Those three rulings now have been superseded, in effect, by the Consumers’ Research decision.
“That means,” explained Cohen, “that the horsemen’s groups and conservative legal groups who have challenged HISA will have to go back to those three lower federal appeals courts and make new arguments in light of the Consumers’ Research decision.”
This in turn, Cohen explained further, “means we are two years away, at least, from the U.S. Supreme Court again being ready to decide whether it wants to hear a HISA case. In the meantime, the status quo prevails. Good news for HISA supporters!”
Legislative attempt to dismantle HISA goes nowhere
Elements opposed to HISA continue also to try to dismantle it through legislation.
Reported BloodHorse.com on May 15, 2025, “Representative Clay Higgins, a Louisiana Republican; Representative Don Davis, a North Carolina Democrat; and Senator Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, have introduced to Congress the bipartisan Racehorse Health & Safety Act,” which would supersede HISA by establishing “an interstate compact to develop nationwide rules governing scientific medication control and racetrack safety.”
Higgins introduced the same bill in September 2023, “but the bill failed to pass out of committee,” BloodHorse.com mentioned.
“Horse racing is the safest it has ever been”
“Like that proposal,” BloodHorse.com said, “this bill is backed by the National Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association and its affiliates, as well as the North American Association of Racetrack Veterinarians. Those groups have opposed HISA.”
On the other side of the issue, BloodHorse.com observed, “National Thoroughbred Racing Association president and chief executive Tom Rooney “characterized the proposed legislation as a ruse that would move the sport backward if it became reality.
“Thoroughbred racing,” said Rooney, “is the safest it has ever been thanks to the Horseracing Integrity & Safety Authority and industry compliance. It is working.”
Rooney denounced the Higgins bill as “political gamesmanship.” With only two current cosponsors, it appears to be as dead in the 119th Congress as it was in the 118th.
Another win for pigs
Turning attention from horses to pigs, the U.S. Supreme Court on the morning of June 30, 2025 “turned away a second bite at the apple to review California’s law requiring pork sold in the state to come from pigs raised with sufficient living space,” reported Zach Schonfeld of The Hill only minutes after the court rejected an appeal from the Iowa Pork Producers Association.
The California law, established by Proposition 12, “makes it a criminal offense and civil violation to sell whole pork meat in California unless the pig it comes from is born to a sow who was housed within 24 square feet of space and in conditions that allow a sow to turn around without touching an enclosure. Proposition 12 applies to any uncooked pork sold in the state, regardless of whether it was raised in California,” explained Todd Neeley for Progressive Farmer.
“Financial windfall”
The Iowa Pork Producers Association, elaborated National Hog Farmer content producer Ann Hess, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to find that the phase-in time allowed for pig producers to comply with Proposition 12 “vastly benefited in-state farmers at the expense of out-of-state farmers, allowing them to capture market share in one of the largest markets of America, and at a financial windfall, to the detriment of out-of-state farmers where the market is largely concentrated.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in 2024 upheld Proposition 12, as had the U.S. Supreme Court in a separate case on May 11, 2023.
Pork producers claim to defend “cultivated meat” industry
The most recent appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court came about, Hess recounted, after “Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird led 23 states to file a brief in support of” the Iowa Pork Producers Association petition.
The Iowa Pork Producers Association “petitioners mentioned Florida, along with several other states, enacting variations of cultivated meat bans to protect in-state agricultural interests,” as “evidence of increased interstate hostility” alleged resulting from the existence of Proposition 12.
“Final judicial defeat for the pork industry”?
Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy suggested that the U.S. Supreme Court rejection of the Iowa Pork Producers Council case might be the “final judicial defeat for the pork industry in its years-long campaign to overturn California’s Proposition 12,” being “the 19th straight loss in federal court for pork producers and their allies challenging Proposition 12 and Proposition 2 i[a predecessor ballot initiative] in California and Question 3 in Massachusetts — all of which dealt with extreme confinement of farm animals.”
Summarized Wayne Pacelle, president of both Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy, “The pork industry has spent years and countless millions in the federal courts and Congress and it has not made an inch of progress. It is time for the industry to embrace animal-housing strategies that allow animals to stand up, lie down, and turn around in their pens.”
“Focus on higher welfare standards”
California voters approved Proposition 12 with 63% support, Pacelle pointed out, while Massachusetts voters passed Question 3 in 2016 “with a 78% supermajority”
Added Animal Wellness Action senior attorney Kate Schultz, “This is now the ninth major legal defeat for the pork industry in the federal courts over Proposition 12. Add to this the repeated courtroom losses the industry has experienced in its challenges to California’s Prop 2 and Massachusetts’s Question 3 and the message is clear: it’s time for industry leaders to stop wasting time and resources fighting the law and instead focus on meeting the growing consumer demand for higher welfare standards.”
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