Source: POLITICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE, 1/23/20

The judicial branch has "effectively dismantled the most significant protections that Congress enacted to protect small farmers" and allowed large corporations to take over agricultural markets, argues a new analysis this week by Patty Judge, the former lieutenant governor of Iowa and state secretary of agriculture. Her co-author, Aaron Belkin, is director of Take Back the Court, which advocates for expanding the number of judges on the Supreme Court. The authors suggest that reforming the highest court may be the only option to prevent it from "wreaking additional havoc" on rural America.

The authors note that since 2005, when John Roberts became Chief Justice, the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of large corporations in antitrust cases 74 percent of the time, or 14 out of 19 cases. The report also said that even though the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921 was intended to prohibit monopolies in the meatpacking industry, a number of Supreme Court and lower court rulings since the 1970s paved the way for consolidation.

Given this history, the authors argue that the courts would strike down or curtail the rural revitalization agendas from Democratic presidential contenders — particularly efforts to strengthen antitrust enforcement. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, for example, supports new legislation that would require companies seeking a merger to show it wouldn't reduce competition, while Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren call for breaking up large pesticide and meatpacking companies.