In Oregon, archaeologists have found traces of bison and extinct camel remains at the ancient habitation site of Rimrock Draw, indicating that people have been hunting in the area for at least the last 18,000 years. Much later, the coastal peoples of the Pacific Northwest built their shared cultures and lifeways around the seasonal pulse of salmon runs, a tradition that has endured in Oregon to the present. Today, most residents rely on the agricultural industry for meat, dairy, poultry, and fish products. However, fishing and hunting still underpin the lives of hundreds of thousands of Oregonians from all backgrounds.
A ballot initiative aims to change all of that. The People for the Elimination of Animal Cruelty Exemptions (PEACE) Act would extend existing animal cruelty laws to every animal in the state, including wild animals and livestock. This would effectively criminalize hunting, fishing, agricultural livestock farming, pest control, and most other animal-based commercial activities. An organization of animal welfare advocates has gathered more than enough signatures to place the proposal on the ballot in Oregon’s November election. The Oregon Secretary of State still has until August 2, 2026, to verify signatures and confirm ballot qualification.
In a time of political polarization, the PEACE Act has provoked instant bipartisan opposition from almost everyone concerned. However, the organizers understand how unlikely success is, and they are planning a longer-term strategy — one that has proved successful for many causes on the right and the left alike.
First, though, a quick note on the legislative process in Oregon. The Oregon Legislature has no role in referring the PEACE Act to the ballot. The measure is a citizen initiative, not a legislative referral, so it bypasses the legislature entirely and goes straight to voters if it clears signature verification. The legislature cannot block, veto, or preemptively kill a certified citizen initiative. However, opponents can challenge the validity of submitted signatures, issue legal challenges to the ballot's title or scope, and lawmakers could pass a competing bill to give voters an alternative. In the unlikely event it were to pass, the legislature could still amend or repeal it later through the ordinary legislative process. However, the most likely scenario is that voters will simply reject the proposal.
What the Proposal Would Do
According to the state government, Oregon has already been “considered a leader among states in protecting animals.” It maintains extensive animal welfare laws and penalizes some animal abuse offenses as felonies. Even so, unless someone commits “gross negligence,” Oregon’s laws against animal abuse or neglect do not apply to most animal-centered industries and practices: poultry farming, livestock transport, scientific research, pest control, and so forth. Nor do the laws apply to “lawful fishing, hunting and trapping activities.”
The PEACE Act, also known as Initiative Petition 28, would remove almost all of these exemptions, excepting only veterinary practice and self-defense. In the organizers’ words: “Animals on farms, research labs, exhibitions, and in the wild would no longer be allowed to be intentionally injured or killed (abused), nor would they be allowed to be forcibly impregnated (sexually assaulted). Animals in transport trucks … could no longer be deprived of adequate food, water, and shelter (neglected) either.”
The Act also provides for a Humane Transition Fund for those working in animal industries, redirecting planned state subsidies to needs such as career retraining, providing for livestock, and food assistance to workers. (Importing meat or animal products for sale in Oregon would not be against the PEACE Act.)
The Reactions and the Point
This is not the first time a similar measure has been proposed. Organizer David Michelson and other animal rights advocates have put two similar proposals since 2020. Only in 2026, on its third attempt, has it gathered the 120,000 signatures necessary for the November ballot.
A wide swath of Oregonians have already come forward against it. All state House Democrat lawmakers have joined organizations like the Oregon Hunters Association, the Oregon Farm Bureau, and the Coastal Conservation Association in opposing the measure. The Oregon Hunters Association states that if the PEACE Act passed, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife would lose millions from the sale of hunting and fishing licenses. Without that income, it argues, the Department would not have crucial funding for its wildlife conservation work.
According to the OHA, hunting and fishing bring $1.9 billion in economic activity to the state. And these are no hobbies to the rural Oregonians who depend on venison, wild-caught fish, and other privately sourced animal foods. Oregon’s Native peoples have their own separate fishing and hunting rights, vital to their cultures and long fought for, that critics also say would be put at risk if the ballot passes.
'Commence the Conversation'
Michelson, as the Act’s chief proponent, understands that the measure is unpopular and unlikely to pass. He compares the PEACE Act to early efforts to legalize women’s suffrage, decades before the Nineteenth Amendment secured the federal right. Michelson writes, “In just the same way that the world began considering whether to ‘let’ women have the right to vote, I want the world to earnestly consider whether to ‘let’ animals have the right to a life free from slaughter, hunting, experimentation, confinement, forced breeding, and other forms of exploitation.”
Michelson does not necessarily intend to pass the Act, but to “commence the conversation.” This is shifting the Overton window: introducing “fringe” viewpoints that expand the spectrum of acceptable political and social beliefs. In the past decades, both progressives and conservatives have shifted the Overton window for various causes through litigation and long-term political pressure, including ballot initiatives.
Today, or five years from now, the PEACE Act may have little chance of passage. But the animal rights advocates in support of it are investing in the conversation of ten or twenty years from now.
