Maine Passes Right to Food – Election Night Loss for Animal Rights Activists

November 3, 2021

Unless you live in New England, the quiet state of Maine may not cross your mind much. But a measure passed by voters could have reverberations across the country.

Last night, voters overwhelmingly passed a “Right to Food” amendment by a 61-39 margin. It’s the first such law in the country. The constitutional amendment guarantees:

“All individuals have a natural, inherent and unalienable right to food, including the right to save and exchange seeds and the right to grow, raise, harvest, produce and consume the food of their own choosing for their own nourishment, sustenance, bodily health and well-being, as long as an individual does not commit trespassing, theft, poaching or other abuses of private property rights, public lands or natural resources in the harvesting, production or acquisition of food.”

To most voters, that seemed reasonable.

But the measure was opposed vocally by Animal Wellness Action, an animal rights lobbying group founded by disgraced lobbyist Wayne Pacelle.

Pacelle is no stranger to using ballot initiatives and amendments to push his animal rights agenda, and is usually on offense. He created an initiative strategy in the 1990s that he used while an executive at the Humane Society of the United States, where he worked from 1994 until 2018,