When Marvin Horne told the United States Raisin Administrative Committee (yes, there’s a raisin administrative committee) that he wasn’t going to turn over nearly 30 percent of his crop to the government in exchange for nothing, he probably didn’t expect his case would go to the Supreme Court—twice. That little act of civil disobedience was thirteen years ago, and the Hornes now stand on the precipice of vindicating an important constitutional right—the Fifth Amendment right not to have your property taken without just compensation—as well as putting a wrench in the gears of what Justice Elena Kagan called “the world’s most outdated law.”
Like much of our agricultural policy, the Raisin Administrative Committee (RAC) is a relic of New Deal-era cartelization schemes. Trying to understand the logic behind American agricultural policy is like trying to find the logic in a Marx Brothers movie—it can’t be done and you’re better off just sitting back and laughing at the antics. Yet our agricultural policy has real-world effects on farmers like the Hornes, who are subject to the whims of the RAC as it tries to stabilize the price and supply of raisins. Sometimes the RAC pays for the raisins it takes, and sometimes not. In 2002-2003, the RAC offered far less than the cost of production for 47 percent of the Hornes’ raisins, and in 2003-2004 they offered nothing for 30 percent of the raisins. The Hornes had had enough, and they refused the order, arguing the seemingly simple point that the confiscation would be a taking without just compensation under the Fifth Amendment.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/grapes-wrath-california-raisins-are-back-supreme-court
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