Research

Ag-Gag Laws: Making Criminals Out of Whistleblowers

ABSTRACT

In recent years, several states have either passed or attempted to pass “ag-gag” laws that criminalize or otherwise harshly penalize whistleblowing activities exposing animal abuses that occur on factory farms. Existing literature tends to evaluate ag-gag policies or their constitutionality, but none have quantified the effect of industry campaign contributions on voting outcomes. Despite strong public opposition to ag-gag policies, North Carolina’s Assembly passed H.B. 405, which allows factory farmers to seek substantial damages resulting from undercover investigations.

Using the Narrative Policy Framework and OLS regression analysis, I determined that in most cases campaign contributions received from specific agricultural sub-industries did not play a significant role in determining voting outcomes and that being a Republican was far more explanatory.