Contributions by ‘Andrew Jordan’

In 2018, California passed a law prohibiting the in-state sale of any pork that was raised inhumanely. This law was quickly challenged by the pork industry on the grounds that it unduly burdened interstate commerce under the Supreme Court’s Pike balancing test. In a fractured decision that pitted animal welfare concerns against the economic interests of out-of- state pork producers, the Supreme Court upheld California’s animal welfare law. Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for a plurality of the Court, invoked a common objection to Pike balancing: It requires the impossible—the balancing of incommensurable goods (here, animal welfare and economic benefits).