Judge strikes down lawsuit over California egg law

• A federal judge has thrown out the lawsuit filed by Missouri and five other states that asked the court to bar California from preventing the sale of eggs brought into California from other states that are not Proposition 2 compliant.
  The ruling, handed down Thursday, is a victory for California in a battle between animal rights advocates and the economic interests of Southern and Midwestern egg producers.
  The judge said the states involved in the lawsuit – Alabama, Iowa, Kentucky, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Missouri -- lacked legal standing to sue because they could not show that California’s law does harm to their citizens instead of possible future damage to some producers.
  "It is patently clear plaintiffs are bringing this action on behalf of a subset of each state’s egg farmers," the judge wrote in the decision, "not on behalf of each state’s population generally."
  The states can appeal the decision, but the suit cannot be refiled or amended.
  Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster said in a statement that the case is "not just about farming practices" but about "whether elected officials in one state may regulate the practices of another state’s citizens, who cannot vote them out of office."