The Petition Clause and Food Advocacy

Abstract

The right to petition is a rhetorically interesting but understudied portion of the First Amendment. Scholars and the lay public usually focus on freedom of speech as the key aspect of the First Amendment. While freedom of speech (expression) is an important topic, we argue that the right to petition also is a rich topic in communication studies, as it is linked to social advocacy and is an inherently interactive activity with potentially significant policy implications. This essay offers a definition of petition, touches on historical exemplars of petition, and presents a nine-part model of petition that is applied to California Proposition 37. The authors also discuss the unintended consequences of petition and emerging forms of petition, such as online petitions. In linking the Petition Clause to the growing field of Food Studies, the essay breaks some new ground and also promotes the conversation between the First Amendment scholars (and other communication scholars) and scholars from many fields.