Captured by undercover investigators and released in 2012, the above video depicts a disturbing scene inside a large Idaho dairy facility. We see workers committing various acts of violence against cows: kicking and punching them, beating them with rods, twisting their tails, and, most graphically, wrapping a chain around the neck of a downed cow and dragging it with a tractor. The exposed dairy promptly fired five workers in the aftermath, but behind the scenes, Idaho’s $6.6 billion dairy industry quietly began working with its friends in the state legislature on a different response, according to US District Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill.
In a decision released Monday, Winmill wrote that the Idaho Dairymen’s Association “responded to the negative publicity by drafting and sponsoring” a bill that criminalizes the “types of undercover investigations that exposed the [violent] activities.” Known as ag gag legislation—check out Ted Genoways’ must-read Mother Jones piece on the phenomenon—it sailed through the Idaho Legislature and became a law in 2014.
Winmill declared the law unconstitutional in his decision, stating that its only purpose is to “limit and punish those who speak out on topics relating to the agricultural industry, striking at the heart of important First Amendment values.” Moreover, the judge ruled, the law violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, “as well as preemption claims under three different federal statutes.” Ouch.
According to Food Safety News, seven other states have similar ag gag laws on the books. “This ruling is so clear, so definitive, so sweeping,” Leslie Brueckner, senior attorney for Public Justice (co-counsel for the plaintiffs in the case), told ThinkProgress. “We couldn’t ask for a better building block in terms of striking these laws down in other states.”
