Campaign
for Family Farms
Fighting for family farmers, rural
communities and the environment
c/o Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement
2001 Forest Ave., Des Moines, IA 50311 Phone: 515/282-0484 Fax:
515/283-0031 Email: iowacci@iowacci.org
Contacts: Larry Ginter 641/493-2493
Iowa
Citizens for Community Improvement 515/282-0484
Farmers’
Legal Action Group 651/223-5400
10/19/04
Washington, D.C. –
The Campaign for Family Farms, joined by 49 farm groups with members
in all 50 states, filed an amici curiae (friend of the court) brief
with the Supreme Court today asking the high court to uphold lower
court decisions that found the mandatory beef checkoff unconstitutional
and terminated the program. The Court’s decision will likely
decide the future of many unpopular checkoff programs, including
the mandatory pork checkoff.
Disregarding lower court rulings on the
pork and beef checkoff, the Bush Administration opted to petition
the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of mandatory checkoffs.
By pursuing every legal option to preserve both the mandatory pork
and beef checkoffs, the Bush Administration has forced all farmers
to continue paying the non-refundable assessments.
“President Bush keeps telling us he’s against taxes,
but these mandatory checkoffs keep rolling along, propped up by
this drawn out legal battle being waged by his administration,”
said Larry Ginter, a family farmers from Rhodes and a spokesperson
for the Campaign for Family Farms. “If the Bush Administration
had not appealed these cases, the mandatory pork checkoff would
be over.”
Ginter is part of a lawsuit brought by independent
family farmers and the Campaign for Family Farms to end the mandatory
pork checkoff. Farmers initiated the lawsuit when the Bush Administration
cut a backroom deal with the National Pork Producers Council to
continue the program after a nationwide referendum of hog farmers
voted to terminate the fee 53% to 47%. Hog farmers have paid approximately
$187 million into the pork checkoff since Secretary of Agriculture
Glickman announced the results of the referendum in January of 2001.
“We fully support the beef checkoff
challenge,” said Ginter, “at the request of the Bush
Administration, the Supreme Court decided not to hear hog farmers
legal challenge to the checkoff, but through the amici brief we
are adding our voices to support independent cattle farmers and
ranchers in this important case.” The Western Organization
of Resource Councils and the Livestock Marketing Association filed
briefs opposing the mandatory beef checkoff today in U.S. Supreme
Court.
In 2002, U.S. District Judge Charles Kornmann
ruled the beef checkoff violated cattle producers’ First Amendment
rights by compelling them to pay for speech with which they disagreed.
In 2003, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Judge Kornmann’s
decision. In February 2004 Bush Administration asked the Supreme
Court to review the decision; in May, the Court agreed.
Independent hog farmers and the Campaign
for Family Farms began their challenge to the mandatory pork checkoff
in 1998, when the CFF initiated a national petition drive calling
for a hog farmer referendum to decide if the program should be ended.
That led to a vote conducted by the USDA in August-September 2000
in which over 30,000 U.S. hog producers voted 53% to 47% to terminate
the mandatory pork checkoff. Following the announcement of the vote
results in January 2001, the then U.S. Secretary of Agriculture
Dan Glickman ordered the termination of the program.
However, in a move that outraged hog farmers
around the country, newly appointed Secretary of Agriculture Ann
Veneman cut a backroom deal with the National Pork Producers Council
in February 2001, which lead to throwing out the results of the
democratic vote and forcing hog farmers to continue paying into
the checkoff program. This action led to CFF’s lawsuit against
the USDA, which specifically claimed the mandatory pork checkoff
violates hog producers’ constitutional rights by infringing
on the First Amendment.
In ruling the pork checkoff unconstitutional
in October 2003, the Sixth Circuit Court found that the pork checkoff
“compels [hog farmers] to express a message with which they
do not agree,” and struck down the entire Pork Act. Federal
District Court Judge Richard Enslen ruled in October 2002 that the
pork checkoff forces hog farmers to pay into a program that they
believe is contrary to their interests because it supports factory-style
hog production and corporate control of the industry. The checkoff,
therefore, is “unconstitutional and rotten,” Judge Enslen
ruled.
“Independent livestock farmers and
ranchers have a very strong case,” said Susan Stokes, legal
director for Farmers Legal Action Group and attorney for the CFF,
“With four unanimous lower court rulings, we are confident
that justice will prevail and both the pork and beef mandatory checkoffs
will be terminated soon.”
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments
on the mandatory beef checkoff on December 8, with a decision in
early 2005.
###
The amici brief and other
documents related to the pork checkoff case can be viewed at: http://www.flaginc.org/news/Checkoff/checkoff.htm
The Campaign for Family Farms
is a coalition of farm and rural groups leading the fight against
the corporate takeover of the hog industry and working for policies
supporting independent family farmers.
CFFE members groups include: Iowa
Citizens for Community Improvement,
Missouri Rural Crisis Center,
the Land Stewardship Project
(MN), Citizens Action Coalition
of Indiana, and the Illinois
Stewardship Alliance. Farmers’
Legal Action Group (FLAG) represents
CFF and the individual hog farmers in the checkoff lawsuit.
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