By DOUG SCHMITZ

Iowa Correspondent

DES MOINES, Iowa — A judge with the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Iowa has denied Iowa’s motion to dismiss a pending lawsuit that challenges the constitutionality of the state’s existing “ag-gag” law.

“The federal court case doesn’t actually look at whether or not anyone actually violated Iowa’s law,” Jennifer Williams Zwagerman, associate director of the Agricultural Law Center at Drake University Law School in Des Moines, Iowa, told Farm World.

“Instead, the plaintiffs in the current case are saying that the law itself is unconstitutional and that the mere fact it exists chills and restricts people and organizations from using their free speech rights.”

In October 2017, a coalition of public interest groups led by the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Iowa, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the Center for Food Safety, Public Justice and the law office of Matthew Strugar filed the lawsuit, which names Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and Attorney General Tom Miller.

“The federal court disagreed with the state’s argument, and found that the organizations had provided sufficient evidence that they would have been conducting various undercover operations in the state but for Iowa’s law,” Zwagerman said. “The fact that the law prevented them from engaging in this activity was enough to give them the right to challenge the law’s constitutionality.”

Passed in 2012, the law made it illegal for individuals to misrepresent themselves by conducting undercover investigations while employed at farms or meat processing plants.

“The motion to dismiss filed by the state in this case was asking the federal court to throw out the suit because these were not proper plaintiffs, that none of them had standing to bring the challenge because none of the plaintiffs had been directly impacted by the law,” Zwagerman said.

“The state also argued that there was not enough evidence to support the two constitutional violation claims, related to the First Amendment (free speech) and the 14th Amendment (equal protection).”

Federal courts in Idaho, Utah and Wyoming have already struck down similar laws, collectively called “ag-gag” measures, as unconstitutional.

“The central objective of Iowa’s ag-gag law is to prevent whistleblowers from collecting information about these facilities and distributing that information to the public,” a Feb. 27 statement by the ALDF in Cotati, Calif., read. “The animal agriculture industry lobbies to pass these laws in order to hide cruel practices and violations of laws designed to protect animals, employees and consumers.”

In the years leading up to the passage of the law in 2012, there were at least 10 undercover investigations of farms in Iowa. Since the law’s passage, there have been none, the ALDF charged.

“Iowa’s ag-gag law has succeeded in hindering free speech and stamping out exposés of the animal agriculture industry,” the group stated.

While some argue the groups are unfairly targeting agricultural operations with an agenda that goes beyond animal welfare, Zwagerman said others contend agriculture is receiving protection from undercover operations that other industries don’t enjoy (i.e., in hospitals, schools or manufacturing facilities).

“The question at the heart of the lawsuit is if that 2012 law went too far in limiting the speech in this particular area of agricultural operations and the animal industry,” she said.

She said Iowa’s law has some similarity to Idaho’s and Utah’s, but some differences as well. “Both Idaho and Utah saw parts of their laws struck down as unconstitutional, and it remains to be seen if the court here will find similarly, if it disagrees with the previous cases, or if Iowa’s law differs enough to survive the challenge.

“Particularly after reviewing the court’s initial discussion of the First Amendment challenges to Iowa’s law, I think there are indications that Iowa’s law faces an uphill battle in this challenge,” she added.