An Act to Prevent Cruelty to Farm Animals, more commonly known as Question 3, was the third initiative on the 2016 Massachusetts ballot. The measure requires Massachusetts farmers to give chickens, pigs, and calves enough room to turn around, stand up, lie down, and fully extend their limbs. It also prohibits the sale of eggs or meat from animals raised in conditions that did not meet these standards.
In 2016, eleven other states had enacted laws against some of these forms of confinement, and California had a law prohibiting the sale of any eggs from chickens kept in small cages. The measure was supported by the Humane Society of the United States and its allies, and opposed by regional and national animal agriculture groups. Proponents argued that the initiative represented a modest animal welfare reform that would benefit food safety, while opponents rejected both claims and warned that the regulations would sharply increase the price of animal products, harming low-income Massachusetts residents.
The measure was overwhelmingly approved by voters, with 77.6% of votes in favor, becoming the broadest statute against farm animal confinement in the country. It took full effect on January 1, 2022.
Question 3 has been the subject of two legal challenges. The first, attempting to block it from the ballot for procedural reasons, was ruled against by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in July 2016. The second was filed with the U.S. Supreme Court by a coalition of agricultural states, claiming Question 3's provisions violated the dormant Commerce Clause; the Court declined to hear the case in January 2019.
Background
Intensive animal confinement in the U.S.
Modern animal agriculture in the United States is dominated by indoor-housing systems in which animals are kept at very high densities, in order to maximize economic profit. These systems decrease land use requirements and increase feeding efficiency, but they restrict animals' movement, prevent animals from engaging in natural behaviors, and can lead to production-related diseases.
Three such systems have been the focus of most regulatory debate: battery cages for egg-laying hens, gestation crates for pregnant sows, and veal crates for male dairy calves. Battery cages are stacks of wire crates that contain one to eight or more hens, with each hen typically being allotted less space than a sheet of printer paper; according to U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates, this practice accounted for over 90% of commercial U.S. egg production in 2016. Gestation stalls are not much larger than the sows they confine, and were used by more than 80 percent of U.S. pork producers. In the dairy industry, both male and female calves are taken from cows within a few days of birth to maximize milk yields, and kept in crates that limit their movement and ability to interact with other calves.
In the decade before Massachusetts Question 3, a number of large American food chains, retailers, and animal agriculture corporations had voluntarily committed to plans phasing out the use of battery cages in egg production and gestation crates in pork production.
Previous farm animal protection regulations
No federal legislation protects the welfare of U.S. farm animals except during transportation and slaughter, and poultry are excluded from the latter regulations. This lack of regulation has sometimes been attributed to the influence of agricultural interest groups at the federal level.
Between 2011 and 2013, the animal protection group Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and the industry group United Egg Producers (UEP) jointly lobbied for compromise legislation that would have phased out the use of battery cages, implemented minimum space requirements for cage-free systems, and prohibited the sale of eggs produced in conditions that violated these standards. A bill with these provisions was introduced by Oregon Representative Kurt Schrader in 2012 as 3789 and received a hearing. However, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association and National Pork Producers Council lobbied against the bill, believing it could set a precedent for regulation of other animal industries, and it was not brought to a vote. After this failure, and did not renew their agreement, and HSUS returned its focus to state-level regulations.
State-level regulations
Eleven other U.S. states had imposed or planned restrictions on one or more of these intensive animal confinement practices, beginning with Florida in 2002. Five of these policies were implemented by legislative action, one by executive action, and five by public referendum. These policy changes were largely driven by the activities of along with other animal-welfare groups, who used a strategy of initially targeting coastal, relatively liberal states with little animal agriculture activity. This strategy, and the use of broad-based, non-partisan messaging, allowed consistent success for ; at the time of the 2016 election, voters had passed every state ballot measure banning similar "cruel" confinement. However, most of the states with the most intensive animal farms continued to allow these practices, have no mechanism for public ballot initiatives, and were perceived by animal welfare activists as having legislatures friendly to agricultural interests. As a result, this activity was unlikely to be affected except by other states' restrictions on the sale of such products.
In 2008, California voters passed ballot Proposition 2 with a 63.5% majority. This initiative prohibited confining hens, pigs, and calves so that they could not turn around, lie down, stand up, or fully extend their limbs. Although Proposition 2 did not restrict the sale of animal products produced using these practices, it was amended by an accessory bill passed by the California Assembly in 2010 that banned the sale of eggs from intensively confined hens. Supporters of this law argued that it was necessary to "level the playing field" and prevent California egg producers from being placed at a competitive disadvantage with out-of-state producers. When both laws went into effect in 2015, they were the first comprehensive restrictions on farm animal confinement conditions, both during production and when selling animal products, including those imported from outside the state. Later laws in several states, including California Proposition 12 in 2018, applied similar requirements to other animal products.
After California's laws went into effect, the number of hens kept and eggs produced in the state both decreased while the price of eggs rose; however, these effects were partly attributable to a widespread outbreak of bird flu at approximately the same time. As a result of this, and the historical variability of egg prices, there was considerable uncertainty about the effects of California's laws on egg prices at the time of the 2016 election.
The attorneys general of six agricultural states filed a lawsuit challenging California's ban on the sale of eggs produced under intensive confinement in other states, on the grounds that it violated the federal government's Constitutional authority to regulate interstate commerce and preempt state laws. This case, Missouri v. Harris, was pending before the Ninth Circuit appeals court during the 2016 election.
Previous efforts in Massachusetts
Prior to Question 3, there were no laws governing the confinement of farmed animals in Massachusetts.
In 1988, a ballot question in Massachusetts would have required the Department of Food and Agriculture to regulate surgical procedures such as castration and de-beaking, methods of transportation, slaughter, diet and housing for farm animals. If passed, it would have been the first state law requiring that farm animals be treated humanely. The measure was defeated by a vote of 66% to 27%,Massachusetts Secretary of State, " Statewide Ballot Questions — Statistics by Year: 1919 – 2012", accessed 2020-05-14.
In each session of the Massachusetts legislature between 2009 and 2015, bills were introduced that would have prevented chickens, calves, and pregnant sows from being confined so that they could not turn around or extend their limbs. These bills were not brought to a vote.An Act prohibiting the cruel confinement of certain farm animals, H. 815, 186th Leg., Reg. Sess. (Mass. 2009) An Act to prevent farm animal cruelty, H. 458, 187th Leg., Reg. Sess. (Mass. 2011) An Act to prevent farm animal cruelty, S. 786, 187th Leg., Reg. Sess. (Mass. 2011) An Act to prevent farm animal cruelty , H. 1456, 188th Leg., Reg. Sess. (Mass. 2013)An Act to prevent farm animal cruelty, S. 741, 188th Leg., Reg. Sess. (Mass. 2013) An Act to ensure continued humane animal care in Massachusetts, S. 2232, 188th Leg., Reg. Sess. (Mass. 2013) An Act to ensure continued humane animal care and support family farms, H. 1555, 189th Leg., Reg. Sess. (Mass. 2015)An Act to ensure continued humane animal care and support family farms, S. 439, 189th Leg., Reg. Sess. (Mass. 2015) In 2013 and 2015, State Representative Stephen Kulik introduced bills to create a state commission that would issue standards for livestock treatment;An Act to promote the care and well-being of livestock, H. 753, 188th Leg., Reg. Sess. (Mass. 2013) An Act to promote the care and well-being of livestock, H. 713, 189th Leg., Reg. Sess. (Mass. 2015) this proposal earned the support of the Massachusetts Farm Bureau.
Path to the ballot Supporters of the initiative, led by the , formed a committee to support it on August 28, 2015. The text of the proposed question was submitted to the office of Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey for certification that it complied with the state's constitutional requirements, and received approval on September 2, 2015.
Supporters then had to gather 64,750 registered Massachusetts voters' signatures in order to present the proposal to the state legislature. They collected over 130,000 signatures, saying in a press release that they did so without paid assistance; the office of Secretary of State William F. Galvin certified 95,817 of them, more than for any other initiative that year, and sent the bill to the Massachusetts General Court as H. 3930 on December 18, 2015. The legislature held a hearing in February 2016, at which free-range farmers, veterinarians, and animal protection advocates spoke in favor of the initiative, while representatives of egg and pork producers testified against. The Democratic and Republican co-chairs of the hearing, the latter of whom owned a beef farm, said afterwards that they were concerned about potential Commerce Clause issues, and would favor Rep. Kulik's bill establishing a state commission governing the treatment of farm animals instead.
The legislature's failure to adopt the initiative by May 3, which was expected given its history with similar bills, initiated the next stage of the process, in which proponents had to collect the signatures of 10,792 additional voters by June 22. They gathered 40,000, again more than for any other question, and in July the initiative was certified by Secretary Galvin as the third of four 2016 Massachusetts ballot measures.
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court challenge Opponents of the initiative filed a lawsuit on April 25, 2016, claiming that Attorney General Healey had erred in certifying the initiative and requesting that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court bar it from the ballot under the Single Subject clause. This provision of the Massachusetts Constitution requires that ballot initiatives only contain subjects "which are related or which are mutually dependent". It is intended to prevent controversial proposals from being unfairly bundled together with more popular ones to increase their chance of passing; for example, in 2006 the Court struck down a proposed initiative that combined a ban on dog racing with an increase in penalties for abusing dogs.