05/31/05 Beef check-off stays, Pt 1

05/31/05 Beef check-off stays, Pt 1

So now that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the Beef Check-off program run by the Cattlemen's Beef Board is a form of government protected speech, and therefore, is constitutional, what does that mean to the beef industry, commodities involved in mandatory check-off and assessment programs, and the consumer? Terry Stokes of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, which contracts with the Cattlemen's Beef Board to implement marketing programs funded by the Beef Check-Off, says the ruling clearly demonstrates just how well the law creating the C.B.B. and Beef Check-Off was written when created two decades ago. STOKES: What you see in the decision is that when the Act and Order was established, it provided the necessary authority for Congress and U.S.D.A. to provide oversight, and to implement this government speech principal. And that clearly is articulated in the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Livestock Marketing Association's challenge of the constitutionality of the Beef Check-Off had created a long drawn out legal process. But for state beef promotion organizations like those in the Northwest, it has been business as usual as far as implementation of promotions. Those many advertising programs would have come to an immediate halt if the Supreme Court ruled against the Beef Check-off. And that is still the wish of individual ranchers and producers who believe the principal of the government telling them how their money should be used for advertising, let alone how their advertising message should be crafted, is not right. One such person is Minnesota's Mark Schultz of the Land Stewardship Project. SCHULTZ: One of the things they said is that the record indicates that the Secretary approves each and every word of every ad. Well, in the Pork case we know that's not true, and that the records show in the lower cases the judge's found that any review of the ads, for instance, was prefunctionary at best. We're taken aback by the ruling. We're looking at it closely and we're going to see if the Pork check-off case is a different case, what our legal options are. And while there are some different issues such as freedom of association to consider in the Pork Check-off case, considering how many have said a Supreme Court ruling on the Beef Check-off would influence the outcome of cases involving the Pork Check-offand other mandatory commodity assessments, legal options for opponents may be limited at best. Even the Livestock Marketing Association, while deeply disappointed with the ruling, says it will move on. How it plans to do that, and the efforts for reconciliation in the beef industry over this ruling, is discussed in our next program.
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