Denver Post Letter to the Editor: Gestation crate laws shouldn’t impede interstate commerce for agriculture

Denver Post Letter to the Editor: Gestation crate laws shouldn’t impede interstate commerce for agriculture

The U.S. House language under debate does not and would not prohibit Colorado from banning gestation crates on Colorado farms.

Letter to the Editor published in The Denver Post on May 27, 2026.

Re: “Colorado led the way against farm animal cruelty. Now Congress will take us backward,” May 17 commentary

Krista Kafer’s column misstates the issue before Congress. Colorado remains free to regulate farms physically operating in Colorado. The question is whether one state may impose requirements on farmers in other states as a condition of access to a national market.

That distinction matters.

The U.S. House language under debate does not and would not prohibit Colorado from banning gestation crates on Colorado farms. It addresses something different: whether California, or any single state, can use its market access to regulate production practices occurring thousands of miles beyond its borders.

Denver voters themselves recently showed that these debates are more complicated than activists often suggest. In 2024, voters overwhelmingly rejected the ballot measures seeking to ban slaughterhouses and prohibit the sale of fur products in the city.

Even in a city with strong support for animal welfare, voters understand that proposals can go too far. Veterinarians do as well, and the American Veterinary Medical Association has said California’s approach on Prop 12 is unscientific and has no demonstrable benefit to animals.

Reasonable people can disagree about housing systems and animal welfare. But the current debate is not whether states may govern themselves. It is whether states may govern one another through interstate commerce.

States’ rights remain important. So do functioning national markets that keep food affordable and available at scale. Congress exists, supported by the Commerce Clause in the U.S. Constitution, precisely to manage these conflicts.

Andy Curliss, Des Moines, Iowa