Tech Donors Fund $40M Prop. 12 Campaign as Clocks Fall Back Nov. 1

Silicon Valley philanthropists and technology executives have helped raise $40 million to oppose a congressional Farm Bill provision aimed at curbing the interstate reach of California's Proposition 12 livestock standards, according to a RealClearWire investigation published by The Press (Brentwood), as Californians also prepare to turn their clocks back 1 hour when daylight saving time ends at 2 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 1, NBC Bay Area reported.

Silicon Valley's $40 Million Push Over California Proposition 12

California voters approved Proposition 12 in 2018, requiring that pork sold in the state come from breeding sows housed in stalls with at least 24 square feet of space. After the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the law in a 2023 opinion authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch — ruling that any interstate commerce dispute was up to Congress to address — the regulations took effect in 2024.

Although California accounts for less than 1% of U.S. pork production within a domestic industry valued at roughly $30 billion and projected to produce 27.6 billion pounds of pork in 2026, California residents consume roughly 13% of the nation's pork supply. Research from North Dakota State University found that since Proposition 12 took effect in 2024, pork prices in California have increased an average of 20%, costing California consumers approximately $353 million while state pork consumption declined by 16%. National Pork Producers Council President Rob Brenneman, a 68-year-old Iowa hog farmer, estimated that retrofitting barns to meet the 24-square-foot requirement costs between $2,000 and $3,000 per stall.

In April 2026, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a Farm Bill containing the "Save Our Bacon" provision, backed by House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn Thompson of Pennsylvania and Rep. Ashley Hinson of Iowa, which would bar states from using sales restrictions to impose livestock-raising standards on producers in other states.

In response, Silicon Valley donors mobilized a $40 million campaign to block the provision in the U.S. Senate, according to Lewis Bollard, head of the Farm Animal Welfare Fund at Coefficient Giving (formerly Open Philanthropy), founded by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and Cari Tuna. Key elements of the campaign include:

• Philanthropic Grants and Bay Area Fundraisers: Coefficient Giving provided $10 million to The Navigation Fund, a nonprofit established in 2023 by crypto entrepreneur Jed McCaleb and led by President David Coman-Hidy and former Mercy For Animals executive Jesse Marks, alongside Bay Area fundraisers supported by AI executive Avital Balwit and Nan Ransohoff.
• $30 Million Senate Ad Blitz: The American Meat Producers Association (AMPA) — formed last year as a 501(c)(3), 501(c)(4), and political action committee led by former Animal Wellness Action and Humane Society Legislative Fund lobbyist Holly Bice — announced a $30 million advertising campaign targeting Senate candidates and lawmakers in Iowa, Kansas, Arkansas, and Washington, D.C., alongside the Center for Responsible Food Business (which issued an Oct. 22 report citing $26 million in federal lobbying and PAC spending by Smithfield and Syngenta PACs) and the Animal Policy Alliance. Following the ad campaign, Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall withdrew his Senate sponsorship of the provision.
• Agricultural Pushback: Brenneman, Animal Agriculture Alliance CEO Hannah Thompson-Weeman, and former National Pork Producers Council President Lori Stevermer — who runs the 450-acre, 4,000-pig Trails End Farm in Easton, Minnesota — criticized the campaign's branding, while both the American Veterinary Medical Association and the American Association of Swine Veterinarians urged Congress to limit Proposition 12 to within California's borders.

Daylight Saving Time Ends Sunday, Nov. 1 at 2 a.m.

Across California and most of the United States, daylight saving time ends on Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026, at 2 a.m. local time, when clocks turn back 1 hour to 1 a.m. Because the time change falls on Halloween weekend this year, residents gain an extra hour between Saturday night and Sunday morning — a calendar overlap that will not happen again until 2036.

First enacted in the United States in 1918 and standardized nationwide when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Uniform Time Act of 1966, daylight saving time was extended by four weeks under an energy bill signed by President George W. Bush in 2005. Since 2007, clocks have sprung forward on the second Sunday of March and fallen back on the first Sunday of November, except in Hawaii, most of Arizona outside the Navajo Nation, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

In July 2026, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 308-117 to pass the Sunshine Protection Act — following a 48-1 vote in the House Energy and Commerce Committee in May — which would allow states to make daylight saving time permanent while retaining an option to opt out. The bill remains stalled in the U.S. Senate, where critics such as Virginia Rep. James Walkinshaw have cited winter morning darkness and sleep-health concerns tied to circadian rhythms.