In Parts One and Two I did my best to explain that history has demonstrated the flaws in democracy, and why our founders preferred a “republican form of government”. I assume it’s not necessary to explain that ‘democratic’ and ‘republican’ in this context refer to forms of government, rather than political parties.
The Constitution that united the States under the federal government also requires those States do be republican as well. “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.” (Art IV, Section 4).
The requirement of republican government prevents any State from adopting an Athenian form of direct democracy. The delegates to the convention were not only conversant in historical dangers inherent in direct democracy, but had witnessed its potential consequences in Shay’s Rebellion and the movement to erase debt.
But the States, while having a republican form of government, are not prohibited from some forms of direct democracy, such as “citizen initiatives”, which permit voters to decide some issues independent of their elected representatives. Florida, for example, allows amendment of our state constitution through citizen initiative, which brings us to pregnant hogs.
There’s a famous quote which is popular among those who consider themselves “activists” that proclaims “Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed individuals to change the world” which is commonly attributed to anthropologist Margaret Mead.
More often accurate than Mead’s speculation, is comedian George Carlin’s observation: “Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.” That’s certainly a more accurate premise when it comes to the ‘Pig Amendment’ to the Florida Constitution.
Florida’s ‘citizen initiatives’ are authorized in Article XI, Section 3, of the Florida Constitution, which provides “The power to propose the revision or amendment of any portion or portions of this constitution by initiative is reserved to the people… It may be invoked by filing with the custodian of state records a petition…” then goes on to list the requirement of a valid petition.
In 2001, animal rights activists obtained sufficient petition signatures to place the Pig Amendment before the voters in the 2002 election.
“Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed individuals…”
I recall the debate over that proposed amendment. Proponents used ads with pictures of the poor pregnant sows, with sad looks on their faces, confined in restrictive cages (“gestation crates”). The photos were accompanied by graphic descriptions of their suffering. Not even those opposed to the amendment denied it was animal cruelty.
There was no organized opposition to mount a counter public relations campaign — largely because few people took the proposed amendment seriously, or believed it would actually pass. Also… who wanted to appear to favor animal cruelty?
For those few of us opposed, who did take the pig amendment seriously, our opposition was based on constitutional principles. We understood the true agenda of the “animal rights” activists pushing this amendment. The cruelty of the gestation crates could easily have been outlawed by simple act of the State legislature, and likely would have been, were it to come before them, without the need to amend the Constitution.
But getting the legislature to outlaw the gestation crates would not have accomplished the true goal of the activists, which was to insinuate the absurd concept of animal “rights” into the organic structure of the state government.
So the opposing sides of the debate over the Pig Amendment were those in favor, who were using graphic images showing the cruelty of confinement in gestation crates, versus those if us agreeing it was cruel, but arguing constitutional principles. The amendment passed.
The margin for adoption of the pig amendment was 54% in favor, to 46% opposed. That margin became the real lasting impact of the amendment, rather than the effect on the pregnant sows.
Few had taken the amendment seriously until it was to late. The idea that supposed ‘rights’ of pregnant sows could be included in the Constitution startled the voters, particularly when the advocates of the amendment publicly gloated how they had (in essence) fooled the voters into recognizing that animals have the same rights as humans.
The public reaction was swift.
Another way to amend the Constitution is for the legislature to propose an amendment, and put it before the voters. In 2005, the legislature proposed an amendment requiring that citizen initiative amendments must get a super-majority of 60% to pass. The primary concern of legislators was that well-bankrolled special interest groups could get their agenda inserted into the organic structure of the State.
During the 2006 election, when the legislature’s proposed “60% amendment” was on the ballot, public irritation over the pig amendment was fresh in voters’ minds. The 60% amendment, which only required a simple majority to pass, received 58% support (4% more than the Pig Amendment).
The legislature’s concern with well-financed petition efforts manifested in 2024, when a citizen initiative amendment to legalize recreational use of marijuana was on the ballot. Florida already permitted medicinal marijuana use, so passage of the recreational use amendment seemed likely. As it turned out, the recreational marijuana citizens’ initiative had been financed from the outset by two large marijuana-growing corporations. and if the amendment passed, it would give them a monopoly on state licensed growing and sales. Because that monopoly would be in the Constitution, neither the legislature nor the Courts would be able to prevent price gouging.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis led a public relations campaign exposing that monopoly, which eroded support among conservatives.
When I learned about the monopoly that would result from passage of the amendment, I voted against it. I wasn’t alone. The recreational marijuana amendment received only 56% support, and thus failed to pass. Post-election analysis revealed opposition to the monopoly underlay the margin of defeat.
There was another citizen initiative on the 2024 ballot that failed due to the fallout from the Pig Amendment. Protection of pregnant sows resulted in limitation on the rights of pregnant human women. The status of abortion rights in Florida is somewhat unique. Unlike the United States Constitution, and the constitutions of all but a few other state, the Florida Constitution includes a specific “right of privacy” vis-à-vis the government. Article I, Section 23 provides, “Every natural person has the right to be let alone and free from governmental intrusion into the person’s private life.”
That amendment was adopted by popular vote in 1980, and in 1989, the Florida Supreme Court, following the reasoning of the United States Supreme Court decision in Roe v Wade, ruled that Florida Right to Privacy protected abortion through the second trimester.
https://law.justia.com/cases/florida/supreme-court/1989/74143-0.html
Then in 2022, the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, and approved a Mississippi law restricting abortion after 15 weeks (the Dobbs decision).
Because the Florida ‘Right to Privacy’ amendment seemingly created a State right to abortion independent of what had been under Roe v Wade, the Dobbs decision did not necessarily have to impact abortion in Florida. But in 2022, consistent with the Mississippi statute upheld in Dobbs, the Florida legislature passed a fifteen-week limitation on abortion (with a few exceptions), “A physician may not knowingly perform or induce a termination of pregnancy if the physician determines the gestational age of the fetus is more than 15 weeks unless one of the following conditions is met…” That 15-week limitation was challenged based on the previous Florida Supreme Court decision that our constitutional Right to Privacy protected abortion rights in Florida through the second trimester.
Abortion advocates should not have challenged the 15 week limitation, because the challenge gave the Florida Supreme Court the opportunity to re-consider their original 1989 ruling.
In early 2024, the Florida court receded from its 1989 decision on the grounds that its reasoning was based on Roe v Wade — which was no longer valid. The 15-week limitation was determined not to violate the constitutional Right to Privacy.
Following that ruling upholding the power of the legislature to place a limit on abortion, the legislature shortened the time limit on legal abortion to six weeks.
That set the stage for the fallout from the Pig Amendment.
While that case had been pending before the Florida Supreme Court, a citizen’s initiative placed a proposed amendment on the 2024 ballot that provided “… no law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.”
It got a majority of the votes – but it only 57%, so it failed to pass. Apparently, protecting pregnant sows in 2002 subsequently prevented the protection of abortion rights of human women in 2024.
As George Orwell predicted in Animal Farm, the pigs are the most equal of all.
It was direct citizen democracy that put the Pig Amendment in the Florida Constitution — just as it had been the direct democracy of the Athenian assembly that condemned Socrates to death for political incorrectness.
It was the direct citizen democracy of Shay’s rebellion, and efforts to excuse debtors from their responsibility to repay their debts, that contributed to the delegates at the Constitutional Convention giving us “a Republic, if we can keep it”, rather than a democracy.
So the next time you hear someone speak of a “threat to democracy”, you can ask what sort of democracy are they are referring to. If their answer is “our democracy”, ask them to explain what that is.
In Florida, pursuit of constitutional rights for pregnant sows, by supposedly ‘enlightened’ animal rights activists, may have resulted in limiting the options of human women. In the sphere of reproduction, the enlightened have unintentionally elevated pigs above humans.
Direct citizen democracy resulted in pigs being the most equal of all.