Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-468_5if6.pdf
Page Number: 26

20 

NATIONAL PORK PRODUCERS COUNCIL v. ROSS 

Opinion of the Court 
Opinion of GORSUCH, J. 

also concede that States may often adopt laws addressing
even “imperfectly understood” health risks associated with 
goods sold within their borders.  Reply Brief 13.  And, again,
no one disputes that some who voted for Proposition 12 may 
have done so with just that sort of goal in mind.  See, e.g., 
USDA  Proposed  Rule  To  Amend  Organic  Livestock  and 
Poultry  Production  Requirements,  87  Fed.  Reg.  48565
(2022) (affording animals more space “may result in health-
ier livestock products for human consumption”). 

So even accepting everything petitioners say, we remain 
left with a task no court is equipped to undertake.  On the 
one hand, some out-of-state producers who choose to comply 
with  Proposition  12  may  incur  new  costs.    On  the  other 
hand,  the  law  serves  moral  and  health  interests  of  some 
(disputable) magnitude for in-state residents.  Some might
reasonably find one set of concerns more compelling.  Oth-
ers might fairly disagree.  How should we settle that dis-
pute?  The  competing  goods  are  incommensurable.  Your 
guess is as good as ours. 

More accurately, your guess is better than ours.  In a func-
tioning democracy, policy choices like these usually belong
to the people and their elected representatives.  They are
entitled to weigh the relevant “political and economic” costs
and benefits for themselves, Moorman Mfg. Co. v. Bair, 437 
U. S.  267,  279  (1978),  and  “try  novel  social  and  economic 
experiments” if they wish, New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 
285 U. S. 262, 311 (1932) (Brandeis, J., dissenting).  Judges
cannot displace the cost-benefit analyses embodied in dem-
ocratically adopted legislation guided by nothing more than
their  own  faith  in  “Mr.  Herbert  Spencer’s  Social  Statics,” 
Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45, 75 (1905) (Holmes, J.,
dissenting)—or,  for  that  matter,  Mr.  Wilson  Pond’s  Pork 
Production Systems, see W. Pond, J. Maner, & D. Harris, 
Pork Production Systems: Efficient Use of Swine and Feed
Resources (1991).

If,  as  petitioners  insist,  California’s  law  really  does