Rotten Eggs
August 22nd, 2008
This week, an illegally-funded three-million-dollar ad campaign against California’s Proposition 2 was temporarily put on hold following a lawsuit filed by the Yes on Prop 2 campaign. Prop 2 is a popular anti-cruelty ballot initiative that will simply provide more humane treatment of California farm animals—but it’s attracting opposition from factory farming interests.
The postponement was the result of an agreement made between Yes on Prop 2 and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the American Egg Board (AEB). The USDA had approved a three-million-dollar AEB ad campaign in California between now and election day—the very period when the Prop 2 campaign to phase out battery cages for laying hens (and to phase out veal and gestation crates) is at high tide. So Yes on Prop 2 filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in San Francisco to challenge this federal action.
As a federal commodity promotion program, the AEB is strictly prohibited from expending any checkoff program funds “for the purpose of influencing governmental policy or action.” 7 U.S.C. § 2707(h).
Under the agreement, no federally-funded print, television, or radio advertisements will run in California for at least one month while the court considers the campaign’s request for an injunction.
One source says that the series of ads for this California campaign may have even been produced by the same public relations firm handling the No on Proposition 2 campaign. And it appears that they’ll even have some of the same spokespersons, and use messaging from the very same script as the No on Prop 2 campaign.
Agribusiness firms are already spending millions to defeat Prop 2, and they hardly needed an illegal infusion of check-off funds authorized by the USDA to supplement their political campaign. The only reason AEB and USDA would spend $3 million between now and the election is to augment the formal No on Proposition 2 campaign. That is against the law, and it is highly unethical.
Wayne Pacelle is President and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States, a supporter of Yes on Prop. 2 – Californians for Humane Farms.
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