THE "SECOND AMENDMENT OF FOOD": SOME REFLECTIONS ON AMERICAN LIBERALISM

In 2021, the State of Maine became the first in the nation to constitutionalize a right to food via a bipartisan coalition supported by legislators, small-scale food producers, and advocates. In its final iteration, the amendment was sponsored by a Republican state representative who dubbed it the "Second Amendment of food" to invoke an individual right to care and provide for oneself and one's family with minimal state oversight and regulation. In 2024, a Republican congressional representative proposed a similar amendment to the Federal Constitution. This Article explores the tensions in the idea of a right to food elaborated in an international human rights context and then rearticulated as a personal liberty in the United States. What has unfolded in Maine testifies to the persistence of an American version of liberalism that centers "freedom" over redistributive egalitarianism even when it comes to basic material necessities such as food.