But get Horne talking about the national raisin reserve, and the spirit stirs. Suddenly he can’t find a metaphor hairy enough to express his contempt. It’s robbery. It’s socialism. It’s communism. It’s feudalism. It’s... “It’s a cartel. Let’s use the power of the government to operate a cartel,” said Daniel Sumner, director of the University of California’s Agricultural Issues Center. Congress had given the USDA the authority to operate reserves during the New Deal: Other reserves existed for almonds, walnuts, tart cherries and other products. Then, time passed. Wars came and went. The New Deal faded from memory. The raisin reserve survived. In Horne’s case, Leighton argued that the raisin reserve was flatly unconstitutional. The Fifth Amendment says that private property may not be taken without just compensation. This, he believed, was not that. “It’s basically theft,” Leighton said. Horne tried that argument on an Agriculture Department hearing officer. He lost. He appealed that decision. He lost. He appealed to a U.S. district court judge. And lost. “The Government does not force plaintiffs to grow raisins,” the court ruled. “If they grow and market raisins, then [contributing to the reserve] ... is the admissions ticket.” Then he appealed the federal district court’s decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. And lost. Finally, the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court. And things changed. The justices seemed sympathetic to Horne. And mystified by the whole idea of the raisin reserve. “What it does is it takes raisins that we grow — in effect, throws them in the river,” Justice Stephen G. Breyer said, puzzling it out. Later, he said, “I can’t believe that Congress wanted the taxpayers to pay for a program that’s going to mean they have to pay higher prices” for raisins. The court’s ruling, however, didn’t settle the question of whether Horne is right about the law being unconstitutional. Instead, it told the 9th Circuit to settle that question now (the lower court had rejected Horne’s case, saying that a quirk of the raisin law meant it did not have jurisdiction).
Posted on: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 03:24:11 +0000
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