From that, my guess is that some form of ag gag can be done if carefully drawn; I don’t see a conclusion that no possible law would stand as consistent with the court’s prior decision in Food Lion.
I agree that the First Amendment makes much anti-corp campaign legislation much harder to pull off. My starting point was that the FA offers less protection to purely commercial speech, especially on stuff like product labeling, and so restrictions on what the company can say in advertising its products might pass muster. That could at least weaken corporate incentives.
My other theory is whether e.g. the pork industry could convince Congress that having various different animal-welfare standards based on various corporate policies disrupted the national pork market (akin to as how much a state policy allegedly would) and justified restrictions on those corporate policies. Sounds like a stretch, but if Congress can ban you from growing weed for personal use under the Commerce Clause (and it can under Gonzales vs Raich), the effects on interstate commerce seem much greater here...
Still, between the legal concerns and political realities, I’d estimate the hostile Congress risk for corp campaigns at roughly an order of magnitude less than the risk to state legislative initiatives (low confidence).
Quickly skimmed the recent Fourth Circuit ruling striking down an ag gag statute by 2-1 vote. See https://aldf.org/article/fourth-circuit-enjoins-north-carolina-ag-gag-law/
From that, my guess is that some form of ag gag can be done if carefully drawn; I don’t see a conclusion that no possible law would stand as consistent with the court’s prior decision in Food Lion.
I agree that the First Amendment makes much anti-corp campaign legislation much harder to pull off. My starting point was that the FA offers less protection to purely commercial speech, especially on stuff like product labeling, and so restrictions on what the company can say in advertising its products might pass muster. That could at least weaken corporate incentives.
My other theory is whether e.g. the pork industry could convince Congress that having various different animal-welfare standards based on various corporate policies disrupted the national pork market (akin to as how much a state policy allegedly would) and justified restrictions on those corporate policies. Sounds like a stretch, but if Congress can ban you from growing weed for personal use under the Commerce Clause (and it can under Gonzales vs Raich), the effects on interstate commerce seem much greater here...
Still, between the legal concerns and political realities, I’d estimate the hostile Congress risk for corp campaigns at roughly an order of magnitude less than the risk to state legislative initiatives (low confidence).