In 2021, when he was a law student at Yale, Colorado state Rep. Manny Rutinel told an animal welfare panel at the school, “The factory farming of animals is one of the largest sources of suffering on the planet.”
That statement is indisputably true. Cattle, chickens, pigs and other livestock are sentient beings that feel pain and can suffer. Widespread factory farming practices — in which animals are confined in small spaces, experience from birth to death nothing of the natural environment they evolved to inhabit, and are slaughtered young — by any measure inflict suffering. Billions of these animals are slaughtered every year in the U.S. alone.
It’s an enormous source of suffering with few parallels. That’s beyond question. The only question lies in how one responds.
Rutinel responded by fighting Big Ag. He was a passionate activist on behalf of animals. He campaigned admirably against factory farming, both to end its ghastly treatment of livestock and to curb its massive contribution to global warming.
Then he did a one-eighty. Why the change of heart? Rutinel says he has gained a new perspective, but it happened to coincide with his run for Congress in a district with one of the most active factory-farm economies in the country.
And it wasn’t Rutinel’s only flip-flop, which gives voters reason to be skeptical of his positions. All politicians must compromise, and people can change their mind on the basis of experience and new facts, but the reversals in Rutinel’s case suggest a calculated move for power over principles.
His animal rights and environmental agenda at one point was part of his identity. As a student at the University of Florida in 2016, Rutinel promoted veganism, shirtless, as part of activism in support of the Student Animal Alliance. As a law student at Yale, he was part of a select group of students who studied animal law. He co-founded Climate Refarm, which declared, “Shifting to a predominantly plant-based food system is critical for ecological and human health.”
The organization’s website today contains no mention of Rutinel, but archived images of it do.
Rutinel once testified before state lawmakers in Connecticut that, “The globe must dramatically shift away from animal products and towards fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains and nuts.”
During that 2021 panel, Rutinel asked listeners to consider what a pig on a factory farm experiences. Raised in a small cage, it’s “constantly impregnated,” treated as a “lifeless machine,” subjected to a “series of mutilations without anesthetics … before getting sent to slaughter.”
“The issue of animal welfare looks to be one of the most important issues of our time and its importance cannot be overstated,” he said.
Rutinel later worked as a lawyer for Earthjustice, the public interest environmental law group, before being appointed to a seat in the Colorado House. Shortly after that appointment, Rutinel told law students at the University of Denver that mistreatment of animals on farms was one of the reasons he got involved in politics, according to The Colorado Sun.
Nothing about Rutinel’s animal activism is shameful. Far from being scandalous, Rutinel showed courage in stating inconvenient ecological facts and highlighting society’s moral violations against animals, which increasingly offend Americans and someday could be found repugnant by mainstream voters.
But all that’s out the window now.
Rutinel, a Democrat, announced his run for Congress early last year. The 31-year-old Commerce City resident won the Democratic primary election last month and will face incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans to represent Colorado’s 8th Congressional District. Of all districts in the country an anti-factory farm activist could choose to campaign in, the 8th might be the most hostile. It’s home to some of the country’s largest meat and dairy producers, including Five Rivers, reputedly the largest cattle feedlot in the world, and an enormous JBS meatpacking plant.
In an interview with Newsline, Rutinel said his perspective on factory farming has shifted as he has toured Colorado ranches, talked to producers and visited farmers markets. He has concluded that meat and dairy producers in Colorado are doing it the right way.
“I think that this is across the board. Colorado’s ranchers are engaging in the best practices across the world,” he said.
He contrasts the good methods practiced in Colorado with the bad methods used elsewhere, such as forms of extreme animal cruelty and deforestation abroad, which he says he remains opposed to. In Colorado, he said, “They’re grazing appropriately and they’re using sustainable watering practices and they’re sourcing their feed from sustainable sources.”
The practical realities of legislating are also a factor. He said the intense kind of protest he once engaged in was part of “the honored tradition of the college experience.”
“But now, you know, I’m an adult and serving Coloradans in the state House and hoping to do so in Congress,” he said. “I would argue that providing an evolved perspective like that is something that many politicians are failing to offer or acknowledge. And I think we’re needing folks who have wide perspectives and people in Congress who didn’t curate their entire lives to become a politician.”
Legislating involves incremental change and negotiation, he said, adding, “People aren’t looking for ideological politicians. They’re looking for people who get results, and that’s ultimately who I’ve always been.”
Fair enough. But the activist Rutinel used to be wouldn’t have allowed for categories of good ranchers and bad ones, because his previous positions for years cast corporate farms, not just bad apples, as inherently objectionable. That’s not so much an evolution as it is a complete break.
And it’s not just factory farms. A major feature of his campaign is questions about multiple past positions he has seemingly abandoned.
During a candidate debate before the primary, Kyle Clark of 9News asked Rutinel about his shapeshifting. It got awkward. Clark challenged Rutinel on his progressive-to-moderate transformation on such topics as fracking, single-payer health insurance, student debt and climate change. Rutinel was evasive.
It might be hard for voters to believe Rutinel so sweepingly changed his mind in the name of truth rather than his rhetoric in pursuit of power.
Evans has his own challenges with truth-telling, and he has been a stalwart MAGA supporter of President Donald Trump’s agenda, including mass deportations. Voters will decide whose offences are greater. But their ballots will bear the names of two candidates they might find untrustworthy.
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