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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2009 > July > 07
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Editorial: Animal lovers, farmers both wrong
The animal rights movement is coming to Ohio this fall.
Agricultural interests in the state are scared to death of a ballot proposal the Humane Society of the United States wants Ohioans to vote on a year from now, in 2010, that would prohibit farmers from keeping egg-laying hens, veal calves and pregnant pigs in the tiniest of cages and crates.
Voters have passed similar proposals in three states, most recently in California. Polling shows the idea would be an easy sell here, too.
In an attempt to head off that possibility, Gov. Ted Strickland and state lawmakers are supporting legislation that will ask voters this November if they want to amend the state constitution to create a board that would set rules about caring for livestock.
The hope is that this idea will pass and then Ohioans will be reluctant to turn around next year and vote against specific farming practices that the Humane Society says are cruel. Agricultural groups argue that a panel of experts knows better than voters how many inches of space a pregnant sow needs.
There’s also a more cynical consideration in play. If the amendment proposed by the governor and legislature passes, it arguably trumps any changes in law that the Humane Society could get enacted next year.
Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society, says his organization won’t be rolled over so easily. His group is investigating whether to take a harder position and likewise put its restrictions in the constitution.
You can love animals and farmers and think both of these campaigns are nuts.
Neither idea belongs in the constitution. But, in fact, it was the Ohio Farm Bureau and the state’s poultry and livestock associations that went nuclear first by looking for constitutional protection.
Consumers are becoming increasingly fussy about their food. They want to know more about growing and breeding processes, and many people are willing to pay more for products they think are better for them, better for the environment and, yes, that don’t involve what they consider mistreatment of animals (or workers).
The debates about what farming practices are safest and best are fierce. Some defenders of the crowding associated with factory farms, for instance, argue that new methods aimed at maximizing production actually prevent disease.
Critics say that’s ridiculous, and they insist that crating animals, for example, threatens the safety of the food supply.
The arguments have to be resolved according to the science — not emotion, and certainly not with profits being the only concern.
Ohio is important to both campaigns. We’re the second-largest egg-producing state in the nation; No. 9 in pork production and among the top five states in veal production.
The agri-business people insist the Humane Society’s measure will be a job-killer, while the Humane Society counters that, no, having stricter rules about how animals are treated will level the playing field for small farmers to compete and create jobs.
Meanwhile, the coming ad campaigns showing caged laying hens that aren’t ever allowed to spread their wings, and pregnant pigs stuffed in grates where they can take only a half-step forward and backward, will be hard to stomach even for carnivores.
Agriculture policy, like everything else, has to evolve. What worked or was acceptable yesterday won’t always be the way of the world. Deciding the rules requires all sides sitting down and looking at bona fide research and negotiating in good faith.
But nobody should be for settling food fights in the constitution.
Permalink | Comments (24) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Ellen Belcher, Ohio government, Ohio politics, Rural Communities
Editorial: Rules on police/fire diversity change too late for Dayton
A new U.S. Supreme Court decision about promoting firefighters in New Haven, Conn., raises questions about whether Dayton would ever have been confronted by the U.S. Justice Department last year if the court had acted sooner.
The Feds wanted to penalize Dayton because the city accepted the results of a test for police job applicants that resulted in almost no minority candidates making the cut. The two levels of government reached a settlement which included Dayton putting up $450,000 for disappointed applicants.
If the city had gone to court, it would have been in an odd position.
It would have been fighting against federal pressure to diversify its safety forces, even though the city commission strongly favors more diversity. The city just hasn’t found a way to achieve that. It certainly didn’t want a hot, racially tinged court battle.
How it would have fared in court cannot be known. But the Justice Department certainly knew the legal lay of the land.
Now the lay of the land has changed.
The New Haven Civil Service Board had decided not to abide by the results of a test for promotion of firefighters to lieutenant and captain. The test had resulted in almost no black or Hispanic promotions. A fair number of minorities had passed, but promotions only went to the highest scorers.
The firefighters who would have been promoted under the test sued. New Haven responded to that suit, in part, by saying that it felt it would have been sued by the other side if it had abided by the test results.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week, 5-4, that the city’s fear of a lawsuit wasn’t sufficient reason for rejecting the results. The majority said there had to be concrete reasons — independent of the test scores — for suspecting the test was a bad one. However, judges at two lower levels (including Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor) had accepted the city’s rationale.
And, writing for the Supreme Court minority, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that the civil service board seemed to honestly think that using the test would violate prevailing court decisions. After all, earlier courts had held that policies that result in “disparate impact” on racial groups can be judged prejudicial, even in the absence of prejudicial intent.
She noted that many jurisdictions achieve reasonable police and fire diversity by downplaying written tests. Instead, they put people into various scenarios and see how they respond. She said written tests may say more about access to education and to various forms of help in preparing than about fitness for a specific job.
At any rate, the question arises: Would the fed have sought the financial settlement if this year’s ruling had been in place earlier? To do so would have put Justice in a legal posture similar to New Haven’s — rejecting a test because of the outcome.
So we have a neat little irony: A city government run by liberals found itself having to pay a penalty that it might not have faced if the conservative Supreme Court had acted sooner.
Irony aside, the important question here is whether the court’s new direction is the best for racial progress. The jury’s still out. On the surface, the decision seems to make life harder for cities that want — as they should want — to achieve a reasonable degree of diversity in various safety-forces jobs.
But the response of those cities to the decision might be to move away from reliance on written tests. That might not be all bad.
Permalink | Comments (4) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Civil Rights, Editorials, Law Enforcement and Public Safety, Martin Gottlieb
