California Proposition 2 (2008)

Proposition 2 was a California ballot proposition in that state's general election on November 4, 2008. It passed with 63% of the votes in favor and 37% against. Submitted to the Secretary of State as the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act, the initiative's name (as with others such as Proposition 8) was amended to officially be known as the Standards for Confining Farm Animals initiative. The official title of the statute enacted by the proposition is the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act.

The proposition adds a chapter to Division 20 of the California Health and Safety Code, Sections 25990-25994, to prohibit the confinement of certain farm animals in a manner that does not allow them to turn around freely, lie down, stand up, and fully extend their limbs. The measure deals with three types of confinement: veal crates, battery cages, and sow gestation crates.

Having been passed by the voters on November 4, 2008, the key portion of the statute became operative on January 1, 2015. Farming operations had until that date to implement the new space requirements for their animals, and the statute now prohibits animals in California from being confined in a proscribed manner.

Few veal and pig factory farm operations exist in California, so Proposition 2 mostly affects farmers who raise California's 15 million egg-laying hens.

The California Secretary of State's summary from the Official Voter Information Guide of Proposition 2 is as follows:

Summary of Legislative Analyst's Estimate of Net State and Local Government Fiscal Impact:

The Humane Society and other animal protection advocates have been working with the California legislature over the last twenty years to achieve the passage of laws to prohibit cruel treatment of farm animals. They say that the bills for animal protection that they supported have been repeatedly killed in committees where agribusiness has great power.

Animals under stress, including the stress of intensive confinement, have compromised immune systems, and thus higher levels of pathogens such as Salmonella in their intestines.

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