No on Prop 2 Campaign Funded by the Same Out-of-State Egg Producers that the Campaign Claims would Benefit if Prop 2 Passes?

One of the most repeated talking points by the No on Prop 2 campaign suggests that California's egg production will somehow collapse under a post-Prop 2 world. Here's how the No campaign explains it in a FAQ on their campaign page:

"The proposition wipes out Californians’ access to locally grown, fresh eggs, and harms consumers by driving up prices at grocery stores and restaurants and creates a dependency on eggs shipped from other states and Mexico."

They also claim it will "wip[e] out almost all modern egg production in the state." Who would do such a thing to our fair state? The widely-respected Humane Society of the United States of course, which is, according to the FAQ though not mentioned by name, a "well-funded, Washington, DC-based special interest group." Like the American Heart Association and the AARP.

So that's the message: Prop 2, backed by out-of-state interests, will devastate California's egg industry. Surely out-of-state egg producers are chomping at the bits to see Prop 2 passed then, since they anticipate a flood of new business as California's egg producers are put out of business, right? Curiously, no:

"Thirteen Iowa companies have made nearly a quarter of a million dollars in donations to “Californians for SAFE Food - No on Prop2,” a coalition organized to fight a ballot measure amending the state’s health and safety code in relation to the confinement of livestock."

Ok, I'm confused. Riddle me this factory farmers: why would 13 Iowa egg producers dump a quarter million dollars into an opposition campaign to a California proposition that would increase Iowa egg producers' market share? If the No campaign's talking points were true, Iowa egg producers (along with donors from factory farms in Nebraska, Maine, Colorado, Utah, Missouri, Arkansas, Alabama, and well, every state in the country with battery cage egg production), if anything, would be giving money to the Yes side. That's business, right? Make your profits where you can by digging into the markets of your competitors.

Something doesn't fit here. Maybe, just maybe, the outside egg producers that have dominated the finances of the No campaign are afraid that the old adage, 'as California goes, so goes the nation,' applies in this situation. And if that's the case, then far from exporting our egg production to other states, Prop 2 actually exports our more humane farming practices to other states, hence the fervent opposition from folks who love to squeeze as much profit as they can from stuffing six-to-eight hens in cages so small that they cannot turn around or expand their wings. After all, if they don't have the basic decency to treat the animals in their possession with that minimal level of respect, why would they be so generous as to throw so many golden eggs into the basket of their competitors time zones away for a proposition that the opposition claims will help those same out-of-state producers' business?

The logic of the talking point doesn't add up, but the adding up of checks from out-of-state factory farms continues unabated. The only question that remains is whether California voters will see through this shell game on election day.

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