This is one of those relatively rare, blue-on-blue battles that I certainly didn’t see coming and it’s unfolding across the state of New York. The Democrats in Gotham have been trying to ban foie gras for years, citing animal cruelty, climate change, and racism (probably). In fact, they passed such a ban in 2019, but it’s been tied up in the courts since then. While the appeals are being heard, the pro-foie gras camp has found an unlikely ally in Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul. She isn’t saying that foie gras is awesome or anything. She’s claiming (and the courts seem to agree thus far) that the city is overreaching, seeking to impose a ban that impacts nobody in New York City but would implode two duck farms located far away in the upstate region. (Politico)

With the New York state government’s ongoing legal attempts to block New York City from banning foie gras, critics say Gov. Kathy Hochul is treating Mayor Eric Adams like chopped liver.

Supporters of the ban on the fatty duck liver delicacy say this is more than just an animal rights issue — it’s a matter of letting New York City govern itself, without state interference.

“What Hochul’s done is just a massive abuse of her power,” said Allie Feldman Taylor, founder and president of Voters for Animal Rights, which advocated for the ban.

The two duck farms that would be gutted by such a ban are La Belle and Hudson Valley Foie Gras, both located in Liberty, New York. Liberty is a village with only 10,000 or so residents, while the ducks outnumber the humans by a factor of at least 15. Amazingly, those two farms supply almost all of the foie gras for the entire country. So if New York City succeeds in banning the dish, the impact will be felt nationally, not just statewide.

That supply chain issue shows up in the farms’ sales figures. New York City accounts for nearly one-third of both farms’ total sales. That is no doubt due to the density of expensive, high-end restaurants in the Big Apple. The farms’ owners claim that losing that much of their market overnight might shut them down entirely. But it also shows that demand for foie gras remains high in the city that is trying to ban it. (Mayor Eric Adams is mostly a vegan, though he does eat fish, and he would never eat foie gras, so the ban wouldn’t impact him personally.)

The governance issue here is mostly separate from the question of whether people find the preparation of foie gras problematic. I’m uncomfortable with the force-feeding of ducks to produce the dish, but then I’m uncomfortable with several aspects of animal husbandry, even having grown up working on farms. But human beings eat animals (or at least the vast majority of Americans do), and that requires the animals to be harvested. I have enjoyed foie gras on the rare occasions when I’ve ordered it, but it’s decadently rich and probably not the healthiest meal you could choose.

The bigger question for me is the overreach of New York City’s municipal government. If anyone wants to ban the force-feeding of ducks, it should be the voters of Liberty, New York. Or, looked at from a broader perspective, perhaps the state. If you allow the municipal government of Gotham to effectively ban something that takes place hundreds of miles away, what’s next? Our largest cities, almost entirely run by Democrats, control a vast share of many consumer markets. They could get together and ban all manner of things and cripple businesses around the nation in the process.

One last point can be taken away from this story and it involves the question of why Kathy Hochul would be jumping in on the side of the duck farms. It’s not that I believe she woke up one morning and suddenly became an advocate for government restraint. The reality is that she just skated through a much tougher election against Republican Lee Zeldin than she had ever anticipated. She really can’t afford to lose any more support in the upstate region if she wants to seek a second full term, and helping to shut down some local, rural farmers would be a bad look. That’s almost certainly what’s going on here.