Warning for Senate Republicans: MAHA voters oppose Save Our Bacon Act

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) generated significant media attention with her successful MAHA-backed work to remove pro-pesticide policies from the House version of the Farm Bill. But despite attracting less attention, her rejected amendment to remove the so-called Save Our Bacon Act may prove to be even more consequential for congressional Republicans.

The SOB Act is a provision that was inserted into the House version of the Farm Bill that would nullify state laws setting for how animals are treated, particularly with regard to how much space pigs in factory farm confinement are allowed (laws such as California’s Prop. 12, for example, mandate that pork sold in California be derived from pigs that have enough space to at least stand up and turn around).

It is the exact type of consumer-be-damned special-interest-catering swamp provision that ignited the MAHA movement into action against the pro-pesticide policies, but with the added features of entrenching widespread animal cruelty and supplanting state laws across the country with federal regulations that solely benefit the largest industrial agriculture operations (including, most alarmingly, China-owned Smithfield Foods).

As evidenced by the grassroots effort that led to her pesticide victory, Luna has been consistently adept at staying in touch with her voter base and with the MAHA movement in particular. Her opposition to the SOB Act should signal enough where the populist sentiment is, but more evidence is not hard to find.

Tomi Lahren, who, like Luna, has clearly had her finger on the pulse of the MAHA movement, has been among the most adamant and forceful in opposing the SOB Act, committing several X posts, a podcast episode, and a segment with Luna on the Big Weekend Show to the effort. But other veritable base barometers on the Right, as wide-ranging as Michael Cernovich, Christina Hoff Sommers, and Rob Schneider, have also spoken out on this.

Senate Republicans should consider these voices and those of their constituents. Unlike the House version, the base version of the Senate Farm Bill is not expected to contain the SOB Act language, but in all likelihood, the language will be proposed as an amendment. It would be a costly mistake for Senate Republicans to support such an amendment.

The SOB deserves to be voted down from a purely conservative perspective: Simply put, this is federal legislation unabashedly written to override state laws, intentionally subverting powers constitutionally afforded to the states and the people. That is a blatant and intentional rejection of the foundational principles of federalism.

It also deserves to be voted down because it represents a cold cruelty that is beneath the values and character we share as Americans: At our core, Americans believe in protecting the vulnerable and defenseless, and for years, animal protection measures have been passed with bipartisan support in every state in the nation. We should not support legislation that undoes those protections and undermines our values.

ANNA PAULINA LUNA CALLS OUT THUNE OVER PESTICIDE WARNING IN FARM BILL

But if the Senate requires a more cynical calculus than these principled reasons to oppose the SOB Act, then they would do well to consider the emerging power of the MAHA movement and recognize that support for the SOB Act could cost them their job.

From the Tea Party to MAGA, when an antiestablishment movement in the Republican Party emerges, primaries soon follow. The MAHA movement has already demonstrated its political clout, forcing Luna’s amendment to stop pro-pesticide policies; voting for the SOB Act could be ample ammunition when the MAHA primaries begin.

Liam Gray is the founder and executive director of the Wilberforce Institute, the first conservative animal advocacy nonprofit organization in the U.S. Liam served in the U.S. Army, both as an Infantry Paratrooper in the 82d Airborne and as a Human Intelligence Collector. He was previously an editor at the Daily Caller.