MAINE'S FOOD BILL OF RIGHTS LEGALESE
My last post garnered the comment that this new constitutional amendment in Maine does not guarantee food commerce; the language speaks more to personal production and consumption.
The way I understand the legal framing of it, though, it IS about commerce because it uses the terms that give people legal standing. You cannot sue for redress of a right you don't have. The problem with unregulated food commerce has been that since we've not been given the right to choose our food, if somebody denies us that right--normally a government agency--we cannot sue for redress.
Numerous federal judges have ruled from the bench in food commerce cases that Americans have no right to acquire the food of their choice. In other words, we only have legal protection to acquire food sanctioned by the state. If the state denies us the food we want, tough luck.
So the Maine amendment recognizes at the outset an "unalienable right to food" and then further defines that in being able to "consume the food of their own choosing." In other words, I now have a legal right to consume food that I choose and nobody can deny me that right based on lack of inspection, safety or anything else. If I want raw milk from Farmer Jones, I now have legal standing to demand that right just like the right to demand a warrant before the sheriff searches my house.
This right is bounded by the section about trespassing, poaching, or abuses of property rights "in the harvesting, production, or ACQUISITION." Emphasis mine. So if you live in an apartment and don't grow any of your own food, this constitutional amendment puts YOU in the driver's seat of acquisition choice rather than the GOVERNMENT. Right now, you only have the right to choose food the government deems acceptable, and many of us who have fought these battles for years know that's a narrow access.
While the amendment does not specifically mention commerce or trade, which are all words we'd love to see, that is all implicit in the right to acquire by personal choice. This amendment precludes any law from getting in between my voluntary acquisition choice as long as I don't trespass, poach, or abuse property rights. While the word voluntary is also not in the amendment, it's implied by these prohibitions to the acquisition--both parties in the transaction must be willing accomplices: one by choice, the other by not having property trampled on.
I hope this isn't getting into the legal weeds too much, and for you attorneys out there, if I've misused a word here, forgive me. Having wrestled with these issues my entire life, I think I have a fairly good grasp of why these phrases were used, their implications, and the food commerce earthquake this simple amendment creates for the folks in Maine.
It means that if I want a pork chop from a pig Farmer Jones butchered in his yard, as long as Farmer Jones is willing to sell me the pork chop that I choose, nobody can prohibit that transaction. I now have a constitutional right to acquire this food. It's like nobody can deny me the right to vote if I'm a U.S. citizen. You can say I'm a fool, that I don't make good choices, that I'll harm the country, but if I'm a U.S. citizen, none of that matters. I can vote.
The big question now is what the federal government will do to force Maine to rescind it. I can't imagine the FDA or USDA will take this sitting down because if this caught on, it would spell the end of their stranglehold on what's accessible in the food marketplace.
I pray Maine will stand strong and that this will receive the publicity it deserves. Being friends with the grassroots organizers of this effort, I can tell you it's been a long time coming. Strategy sessions, late nights, frustration and ultimately, hope. I salute my friends in Maine who won this one. May it spread to every state in the nation.
Is there one item of food you'd like to buy right now, but you can't because it's illegal to sell? If so, what is it?