Michael Markarian: Animals & Politics

A Radical Federal Attack on States’ Rights

The House Agriculture Committee will take up the Farm Bill tomorrow morning, and will consider an amendment offered by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, that seeks to negate most state and local laws regarding the production or manufacture of agriculture products. It’s a radical federal overreach that would undermine the longstanding Constitutional rights of states to protect the health, safety, and welfare of their citizens and local businesses.

The amendment takes aim at state laws such as California’s Proposition 2, approved overwhelmingly by voters across the state in 2008—to ban extreme confinement of egg-laying hens, breeding pigs, and veal calves in small crates and cages—and a law passed subsequently by a landslide margin in the state legislature, with the support of the egg industry, to require any shell eggs sold in California to comply with the requirements of Prop 2. In addition, the King amendment seeks to nullify state laws in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maine, Michigan, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington (and a bill that could be signed into law soon in New Jersey) dealing with intensive confinement of farm animals. It could also undo laws on horse slaughter and the sale of horsemeat in California, Florida, Illinois, Mississippi, New Jersey, Tennessee, and Texas, bans on the sale of foie gras produced by force-feeding ducks and geese, bans on possession and commerce of shark fins in California, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Oregon, Washington, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, a series of farm animal welfare regulations passed by the Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board, and potentially even bans on the sale of dog and cat meat.

Legal safeguards and standards that protect by far the majority of Americans, maybe all Americans depending on ultimate interpretations, as well as protections for untold millions of farm animals, would be upended by this power grab. All of these laws were duly passed by legislators, voters, or regulators. It’s not the proper role of Congress to eviscerate what the states are doing, especially when so many lawmakers say they are for states’ rights. The states have a role in agriculture policy, too.

In fact, Rep. King’s proposal violates the Tenth Amendment’s guarantee that the states’ sovereign rights cannot be abridged by Congress, and tries to eliminate states’ police powers within their borders, destroying the fundamental principles of federalism that have guided our nation since its founding. It would force states to allow commerce in products they have banned. As the Supreme Court has made clear, the Commerce Clause allows Congress to regulate commerce; it doesn't give Congress the authority to mandate its creation, nor to require anyone to participate in commerce they find objectionable.

The King amendment is most directly an attack on the Egg Products Inspection Act Amendments, H.R. 1731 and S. 820, which would ratify an agreement between the egg industry and animal welfare groups. Historically, when Congress preempts state laws it is in order to replace them with a uniform national standard, and that is the idea behind the egg bill. If there is a problem with interstate commerce caused by conflicting state laws, such as on the housing of egg-laying hens, it should be solved with a uniform national standard that provides regulatory certainty and is supported by the key stakeholders—the egg industry, veterinary groups, animal welfare groups, and consumer groups—as is H.R. 1731/S. 820. Rather than having a reasonable national standard, King wants no standards at all, state or federal.

While the King amendment ostensibly seeks to target animal welfare, it is so broad and vague that it could be interpreted to nullify an entire swath of state laws dealing with food safety, labeling, labor, and environmental protection. It could trigger expensive court cases about any state law related to agricultural products. Here are just some examples of state laws under the King amendment’s ax:

• Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Washington laws requiring labeling of farm-raised fish
• Vermont’s ban on BPA in baby food jars and infant food containers
• Maryland’s ban on arsenic in poultry feed
• California’s Proposition 65 requiring the state to publish a list of chemicals known to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm, and businesses to notify citizens about significant amounts of chemicals in products, homes, workplaces, or released into the environment
• state pollution standards, such as bans on spraying sewage on crops directly before they are fed to people, and laws such as Minnesota’s requiring farmers to hire a licensed sludge applicator and restricting when and how sludge can be applied to cropland or pasture
• bans on use of dangerous pesticides on crops, such as California’s ban on methyl iodide use for strawberries
• Iowa’s labeling requirements and germination standards for seeds
• Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Wisconsin laws restricting firewood transported into the state in order to protect against invasive pests and damage to local forests
• Iowa’s prohibition on sale of raw milk
• Iowa’s ban on use of any fat or oil other than milk fat in milk, cream, ice cream, and certain other dairy products
• Iowa’s requirement for labeling of artificial sweeteners in products
• South Dakota’s label requirements for distiller’s grains sold as livestock feed to specify sulfur percentage
• various laws concerning agricultural employment, including child labor laws, standards for inspections and certification programs, laws governing use of dangerous farm machinery (such as Washington’s mandate for certain guards on farm field equipment including tractors), and health and safety standards for agricultural employees (such as Washington’s code regulating issues including field sanitation, pesticides, respiratory hazards, and hearing loss prevention)

Now is the time for every citizen concerned about animal welfare, food safety, labeling, environmental requirements, labor standards, and other issues to take action. Call your U.S. Representative at (202) 224-3121, especially if he or she serves on the House Agriculture Committee, and tell them to reject the King amendment and its radical assault on duly-enacted state laws covering a broad spectrum of concerns.

Felony Cruelty Laws in 49 States and Counting

This week, Gov. Jack Dalrymple signed Senate Bill 2211 into law, making North Dakota the 49th state in the nation to establish some felony-level penalties for malicious acts of animal cruelty. It was a long time coming, and a follow up to last year’s Measure 5 campaign, which put the issue of animal cruelty on the public agenda and spurred action by state lawmakers.

Every major newspaper in the state called on legislators to honor their word to voters and get the job done, or else prepare for another ballot initiative in 2014. The bill was watered down by the North Dakota Farm Bureau and other agribusiness interests during the legislative process, and fell short of the comprehensive reform that was promised to voters, but it’s a major step forward and is cause for celebration.

Now, only one state in the nation remains without any felony law for even the most vicious and intentional acts of cruelty: South Dakota. In the broader sense, it has been a tremendous march of progress over the last three decades, as animal advocates across the country have worked to upgrade and fortify the state anti-cruelty statutes, and have completely reshaped the legal framework on crimes against animals.

Prior to 1986, only four states (Massachusetts, Michigan, Oklahoma and Rhode Island) had felony provisions for animal cruelty. Since then, 45 states have taken action to enact felony penalties for malicious acts of cruelty—an average of five new states every three years. In the last decade alone, eleven states have moved from the misdemeanor to felony category—Kentucky, West Virginia and Wyoming (2003), Kansas (2006), Hawaii (2007), Alaska and Utah (2008), Arkansas (2009), Mississippi (2010), Idaho (2012) and North Dakota (2013).

Research indicates that people who abuse and kill animals are more likely to similarly abuse humans, and animal cruelty is a known predictor and indicator of other violent crimes. Studies have found that there was animal abuse in 88 percent of families who were under state supervision due to the physical abuse of their children, and a U.S. Department of Justice study beginning in 1987 found that animal abuse predicted which children would exhibit anti-social and aggressive behavior later in childhood, adolescence, and then adulthood. Passage of felony-level animal cruelty laws is a critical initial step in halting the progression of violent crime before it escalates.

Now that all but one state have felony cruelty laws, our movement must focus on South Dakota, which has become an outlier because of its weak penalties for malicious cruelty. And now that stronger laws are on the books in so many states, we must focus on training programs for police, sheriffs, and prosecutors on effective investigation, case-building, and prosecution of animal cruelty, to make sure the statutes are properly utilized and adequately enforced.

The 700 Club

The animal protection movement hit a major marker this week, with 700 new animal protection laws enacted in the states since 2005. Two bills signed into law in New Mexico—allowing the purchase of protective equipment for police dogs and the adoption of the dogs after their retirement—ushered in the 699th and 700th new state policies during that time period.
 
Since the launch of the Humane Society Legislative Fund in 2005, we and our partners, including The HSUS, Doris Day Animal League, and state and local animal welfare groups around the country, have helped to reshape the legal landscape for animal protection in the states. Dogfighting is now a felony in all 50 states, and cockfighting is illegal in all 50 and a felony in 40. All but one state (Montana) have criminal penalties for animal fighting spectators, all but two (North Dakota and South Dakota) have felony-level penalties for malicious animal cruelty, and all but three (New York, Texas, and West Virginia) make it a felony to possess fighting dogs. All but six states (Alabama, Nevada, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, and Wisconsin) now restrict the private ownership of dangerous wildlife such as big cats, primates, wolves, bears, and venomous snakes, to one degree or another, to protect public safety and the animals themselves who are caught up in the trade. Seventeen states require the addition of a bittering agent in antifreeze and engine coolant to prevent the poisoning of animals, and this lawmaking led to a voluntary agreement with the industry to change the sweet-tasting product nationwide.
 
We are marching forward to close the gaps in the legal framework where they exist, and increase the penalties and provide additional tools for law enforcement. Hundreds of new laws have been passed to protect pets and service animals, help animal shelters, crack down on abuses at large-scale commercial puppy mills, and protect wildlife and equines. And issues that were perceived as very difficult just eight years ago, such as improving the treatment of animals on industrial factory farms, are making progress as well: Nine states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Maine, Michigan, Ohio, Oregon, and Rhode Island) now ban the extreme confinement of breeding pigs in metal gestation cages where they can’t turn around for virtually their entire lives, and four (California, New Jersey, Ohio, and Rhode Island) ban the practice of dairy cow tail-docking, the routine and painful amputation of cows’ tails. 
 
More issues are on the move this year, and just yesterday, the New Jersey Assembly overwhelmingly approved A. 3250 to ban gestation crates, by a vote of 60 to 5. The bill now goes to the Senate for concurrence and then to Gov. Chris Christie, and if enacted, will make New Jersey the tenth state to address this abusive pork industry practice. This week, the West Virginia Senate Natural Resources Committee passed S.B. 466 to ban dangerous wild animals as pets—moving the state one step closer in cracking down on this unregulated practice. This morning, the Maryland House Environmental Matters Committee passed H.B. 1148 to ban the trade in shark fins—a critical step toward Maryland becoming the first Atlantic state to join California, Hawaii, Illinois, Oregon, and Washington in cracking down on the brutal practice of cutting off sharks’ fins at sea and leaving them to die slow and painful deaths for shark fin soup. Other priority bills that lawmakers will consider this year including banning toxic lead ammunition that poisons wildlife and the environment in California, prohibiting hound hunting and trapping of bears in Maine, and protecting dogs and their families from a dangerous policy that discriminates against pit bulls in Maryland.

We are blocking policies that harm animals, too: We and our coalition partners with Keep Michigan Wolves Protected are preparing to submit more than 225,000 signatures of Michigan voters to qualify for the statewide ballot and repeal the legislature’s authorization of a sport hunting and trapping season on wolves, a species just beginning to recover from the brink of extinction.
 
Join us in celebrating this milestone for animal protection policymaking, and help usher in more laws to prevent cruelty and abuse, by contacting your state lawmakers today.

Michigan Voters to Make their Voices Heard on Wolf Hunting

I’ve just returned from western and northern Michigan, where I joined animal advocates, tribal leaders, and conservationists at kick-off meetings to launch the Keep Michigan Wolves Protected ballot measure campaign, and to turn back the state legislature’s recently passed bill authorizing the trophy hunting of wolves for the first time in nearly 50 years. Dozens of volunteers in Grand Rapids, Traverse City, Marquette, and other communities have joined the “Wolf Pack,” each pledging to gather 687 signatures of Michigan voters—one for every wolf in the state’s fragile and recovering population.

Those volunteers are hitting the streets in frigid winter temperatures, and bringing us closer to our goal of collecting 225,000 signatures over the next two months to qualify the referendum for the November 2014 ballot. Gathering the necessary signatures and securing a place on the ballot would stay the legislature’s bill from taking effect for the next two years—until Michigan voters have the opportunity to have their say on the issue in November 2014—potentially saving hundreds of wolves from recreational hunting and trapping. And if Michigan voters ultimately say “No” to the wolf hunting bill, they could save thousands of wolves over the next decade or more.

Wolves have been protected under the Endangered Species Act for decades, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Congress recently stripped the species of all federal protections in the Great Lakes and the Northern Rockies, respectively, turning over management to states with hostile and aggressive hunting and trapping plans. Idaho, Minnesota, Montana, Wisconsin and Wyoming all rushed to kill these rare creatures, allowing especially cruel and unfair practices, such as painful steel-jawed leghold traps, hunting over bait, and using packs of dogs to chase down and kill wolves—even killing Yellowstone’s celebrated wolves that had been studied for years. Michigan lawmakers rushed a bill through in the lame-duck session over the holidays to add to this carnage, but Michigan may become the first state in the country where the voters, not the politicians, will make the final decision on whether to open a wolf hunting season. 

It’s not right to spend decades bringing the wolf back from the brink of extinction only to turn around and allow them to be killed for sport. What’s more, it’s already legal in Michigan to kill wolves in order to protect livestock or dogs, and allowing the killing of wolves just for sport is unnecessary and will accomplish nothing. People don’t eat wolves, and it’s just pointless trophy hunting for no good purpose.

If you live in Michigan, please join the campaign to save wolves from the same reckless sport hunting and persecution that put these animals on the endangered species list in the first place. Kick-off events are being held this week in Lansing, Kalamazoo, Flint, Ann Arbor and Detroit—you can attend one closest to you, or sign up here to volunteer. With your help, we can send the message that voters want wolves protected, not persecuted.

Paid for with regulated funds by the committee to Keep Michigan Wolves Protected,
5859 W. Saginaw Hwy. #273, Lansing, MI 48917

Election Wrap-Up: Mixed Results for Animals, Hope on the Horizon

Last night’s election returns ushered in some important changes for our country, but with the existing political alignment largely retained—and, in this case, with some new names and faces and with more Democrats in each chamber of Congress. The big story was, naturally, that the American public re-elected President Obama, and we congratulate him and look forward to working with his administration to build on his animal protection record. A number of pending regulatory actions are in the pipeline on puppy mills, downer veal calves, chimpanzees in research, and other animal protection issues, and we hope to get these over the finish line soon and to jumpstart other issues in the next four years. But the election again showed the continuing partisan divisions in the country, and that division is a reminder that HSLF must, more than ever, remain committed to a bipartisan approach to drive forward an animal protection agenda and to figure out ways to conduct the business of the country without causing abuse and harm to animals.

U.S. Senate

Senate candidates endorsed by HSLF won 15 of 18 state contests, for an 83.3 percent win rate. We helped to elect strong supporters of animal protection from the House to open Senate seats in competitive states—including Reps. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc. (with 51.4 percent of the vote), Martin Heinrich, D-N.M. (51 percent), and Chris Murphy, D-Conn. (55 percent)—who will grow the ranks of animal advocates in the Senate. We also helped to re-elect some of our leading champions on animal protection bills—including Sens. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., Ben Cardin, D-Md., Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Bob Menendez, D-N.J., Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.—all of whom will be coming back for another term. The alternatives in some of those races would have been hostile to animal protection issues, including former Gov. Tommy Thompson, R-Wisc., who campaigned with hunting enthusiast and NRA board member Ted Nugent, and Rep. Connie Mack, R-Fla., who has opposed most animal welfare bills. 

We lost a leader for animal protection in the Senate with the defeat of Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., and we thank him for his strong support of animal welfare issues during his time in office; we expect the winner of that seat, Elizabeth Warren, to be a supporter of animal protection. We also were unsuccessful in Arizona and Nevada, with Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., defeating Dr. Richard Carmona, and Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., defeating Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., in competitive races. We will reach out to the winners of those contests as well as to other Senate victors in states where HSLF had not made any endorsement, and look forward to working with them in the 113th Congress.

U.S. House

House candidates backed by HSLF appear poised to win in 166 of 180 congressional districts, for a 92 percent win rate. With aggressive direct mail, phone banking, and grassroots outreach, we helped lawmakers from both sides of the aisle win re-election in very competitive seats—including Reps. Mike Fitzpatrick, R-Pa. (with 56.6 percent of the vote), Michael Grimm, R-N.Y. (52.8 percent), Jerry McNerney, D-Calif. (54.1 percent), Gary Miller, R-Calif. (55.3 percent), Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo. (53.3 percent), and John Tierney, D-Mass. (winning with a plurality of 48.3 percent, by just 3,650 votes). A number of former House members, backed by HSLF, are coming back to Congress—including Dan Maffei, D-N.Y., Carol Shea-Porter, D-N.H., and Dina Titus, D-Nev.—all of whom had outstanding records on animal protection when they previously served, and we are pleased to have them back in office. And some state legislative champions of animal protection, such as Assemblywoman Grace Meng, D-N.Y., who sponsored a bill in New York to ban the trade in shark fins, will be new members of the 113th Congress.

One race still appears too close to call, but HSLF-backed candidate Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., who was the leading animal advocate in the Arizona Legislature, is currently ahead of her opponent by about 2,100 votes. We lost several House members who were strong supporters of animal protection and were in highly competitive races—including Reps. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., Howard Berman, D-Calif., Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., Bob Dold, R-Ill., Nan Hayworth, R-N.Y., and Betty Sutton, D-Ohio—and we thank them for their public service and their strong leadership on the humane treatment of animals. We have strong expectations that the winners of those races, with the exception of Rep. Jim Renacci, R-Ohio, will be advocates for our cause.

One of the top priorities for HSLF was the race between Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, and Christie Vilsack in Iowa’s newly drawn 4th Congressional District. King has been one of the leading opponents of animal protection in Congress, and he survived his race last night, defeating Vilsack by a vote of 53.2 to 44.6 percent. HSLF ran TV ads in the district, letting voters know about King’s voting record on animal fighting, pets in disasters, and other animal protection bills. Although King won, the race became much more competitive than it had originally been, and animal issues became part of the discourse in rural western Iowa. Four of the five major newspapers in the district opposed King in their endorsements, and voters—about half of whom are represented by King for the first time due to redistricting—are now aware of his record on animal protection and will hopefully hold him accountable on future votes. Animal issues are being discussed even in the most rural, conservative parts of the country, and HSLF does not shy away from taking on these tough fights.

State Races

HSLF made endorsements only in select state races, where the candidates were especially strong animal advocates and leaders for our cause. We are pleased to report that former Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., backed by HSLF, has the lead in Washington’s gubernatorial race, and Kathleen Kane, with a strong record on prosecuting animal cruelty cases, has won the attorney general’s post in Pennsylvania. State Rep. John Maher, R-Pa., lost his bid for auditor general, but we look forward to continuing to work with him in the legislature as the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee in the Keystone State.

Other longtime animal advocates in state legislatures were victorious, with help from HSLF, including Rep. Hans Dunshee, D-Wash., who has led the effort to retain voter-approved prohibitions on bear baiting, cougar hounding, and steel-jawed leghold traps; Assemblyman Paul Fong, D-Calif., who led California’s effort to ban the trade in shark fins; and Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Calif., who authored a bill to prevent landlords from forcing tenants to de-claw cats and de-bark dogs, and helped pass California’s ban on hound hunting of bears and bobcats as chair of the Senate Natural Resources Committee. A chief opponent of animal protection, Rep. J. Paul Brown, R-Colo., who had introduced a bill to allow sport hunting of bears during the spring when mother bears are nursing dependent cubs, was defeated by 768 votes, thanks to the work of animal advocates.

Ballot Measures

As I wrote last night, North Dakota voters rejected Measure 5, but they did not reject the idea that there must be a felony animal cruelty law in the state. It’s largely a settled matter due to this ballot initiative campaign, and the opponents of the measure have pledged to pass legislation in 2013 to establish felony-level penalties for malicious cruelty. We consider that a win for animals, and will work hard to make sure it happens next year. California voters approved Prop 30, by a vote of 54 to 46 percent, which protects future funding for law enforcement, including animal protection and anti-poaching laws.

You can see the full list of HSLF-endorsed candidates and outcomes in our Voter Guide. All in all, while the results were mixed for animals in races across the country, and some contests have yet to be decided, we have great hope and optimism that the cause of animal protection will continue to make gains in Congress, in state legislatures, and with regulatory agencies. Animal protection issues are being discussed as part of the political discourse like never before, and voters in every corner of our country—red states and blue states—are becoming aware of the challenges facing animals and the steps needed to protect them and prevent large-scale cruelty and abuse. Thank you to everyone who voted, volunteered, and got the word out for humane candidates across the country—your efforts continue to make a difference.

Building a Consensus on Animal Cruelty in North Dakota

There is disappointing news from North Dakota tonight, as Measure 5 appears to be going down to defeat. The opponents of this measure, mostly ranching and farming trade associations, were able to cast doubt among voters and tell them the proposed felony animal cruelty law was written by “outside” groups, as if the language morphs into something different depending on who backs it. Would any reasonable person expect anything but that HSLF and The HSUS would back an upgrade of the anti-cruelty law? 

But the good news is that supporters and opponents agreed that North Dakota needs a felony cruelty statute, and Measure 5 was the catalyst for that discussion. Even the newspaper editorials opposing Measure 5—parroting our opponents—said the legislature must enact a strong and comprehensive law and make North Dakota the 49th state with felony-level penalties for malicious animal cruelty.

The North Dakota Legislature has failed for years to strengthen North Dakota’s weak anti-cruelty law, and last year even voted down a bill to study the issue. Now there’s an emerging consensus on the subject, and we hope it’s just a matter of time before the worst acts of cruelty are penalized with more than just a slap on the wrist. This issue is now on the public agenda because of the Measure 5 campaign, and the work of the dedicated North Dakota volunteers who gathered signatures and drove the public discussion on the need to protect animals in the state.

Even in one of the most rural, agriculture-oriented states in the country, like North Dakota, animal protection issues are now part of the public discourse. We may have lost the short-term vote, but animal advocates are gaining long-term ground by planting the seeds of reform and building a network of advocates and supporters who are fighting for this cause.

Our opponents said during this campaign they plan to enact a strong and comprehensive felony cruelty statute to protect all animals in 2013. We plan to hold them accountable on that pledge, and they will find our coalition ready to help. If they fail to pass a felony cruelty bill, however, we should expect to see another ballot measure in 2014, and the voters will know how hollow their promises were. These issues are ascendant, even in tough states, and are not going away.

Trust the People, Not the Politicians

North Dakotans will vote next week on Measure 5, to make it a felony to maliciously and intentionally harm a dog, cat or horse. Lawmakers in neighboring states such as Montana and Minnesota adopted felony-level penalties for malicious cruelty years ago, and Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Oklahoma took action in the 19th century! In fact, 48 states have done it, and it’s embarrassing that North Dakota is such an outlier.

Opponents of this common-sense anti-cruelty measure have put forward the false and flimsy argument that voters should not pass any animal cruelty law, because the legislature should handle it instead. Really?

North Dakota legislators have had decades to upgrade weak penalties in the state’s anti-cruelty law, and last year, the state House of Representatives voted down the idea of even studying the issue. That’s right, S.B. 2365, the bill to study whether to make animal cruelty a felony, failed in the House by a vote of 36 to 56.

YEAS: Amerman; Anderson; Boe; Dahl; DeKrey; Delmore; Glassheim; Gruchalla; Guggisberg; Hanson; Hawken; Hogan; Holman; Hunskor; Johnson, N.; Kaldor; Keiser; Kelsh, J.; Kelsh, S.; Kilichowski; Klemin; Kreun; Kroeber; Meier, L.; Metcalf; Meyer, S.; Mock; Mueller; Nelson, J.; Onstad; Sanford; Steiner; Wall; Williams; Winrich; Zaiser

NAYS: Beadle; Bellew; Belter; Boehning; Brabandt; Brandenburg; Carlson; Clark; Conklin; Damschen; Delzer; Devlin; Dosch; Frantsvog; Froseth; Grande; Hatlestad; Headland; Heilman; Heller; Hofstad; Johnson, D.; Karls; Kasper; Kelsch, R.; Kempenich; Kingsbury; Klein; Koppelman; Kreidt; Kretschmar; Louser; Maragos; Martinson; Monson; Nathe; Owens; Paur; Pietsch; Pollert; Porter; Rohr; Ruby; Rust; Schatz; Schmidt; Skarphol; Streyle; Thoreson; Trottier; Vigesaa; Weiler; Weisz; Wieland; Wrangham; Speaker Drovdal

ABSENT AND NOT VOTING: Nelson, M.; Sukut

Now, do you get why North Dakotans to Stop Animal Cruelty filed Measure 5, and why more than 25,000 North Dakotans signed petitions to place it on the ballot?

Measure 5 is an opportunity for North Dakotans to enhance some protections for animals right now, and the legislature can still make further upgrades to the cruelty law in 2013, if lawmakers have a turn-around from their past intransigence on the issue. North Dakotans should trust the people, not the politicians, and vote YES! on Measure 5.

No Form of Animal Abuse that Ag Groups Find Intolerable

It’s just about one week left before Election Day, and one of the battleground states for animal protection is North Dakota. Measure 5 would make it a felony to maliciously and intentionally harm a dog, cat or horse, and would bring North Dakota’s cruelty law in line with those of 48 other states that previously adopted felony penalties for extreme animal abusers.

Shockingly, state and national agribusiness groups have launched a scorched-earth campaign opposing the measure, and are fighting to keep penalties weak for extreme acts of cruelty against pets in North Dakota. It’s more proof that they have no credibility on animal welfare, since they don’t think it’s important to have felony penalties for malicious acts of cruelty—acts that have occurred in North Dakota, such as slicing a cat’s throat with a box cutter, or beating a Chihuahua to death during a home invasion.

The opposition campaign is funded in considerable part by Forrest Lucas, a millionaire from Indiana who owns Lucas Oil and who also put in hundreds of thousands of dollars in his failed effort to defeat Prop B, to crack down on large-scale puppy mill abuses, in Missouri in the 2010 election. And their opposition coalition has received donations from defenders of animal abuse from all over the country, including recently from the Missouri Farmers Care PAC, which also emerged in the Prop B fight over puppy mills. The Indiana and Missouri state legislatures both established felony penalties for animal cruelty in the 1990’s, so why do these folks want to prevent North Dakota from doing the same thing nearly two decades later? Is there no form of animal abuse that these people find intolerable?

North Dakotans to Stop Animal Cruelty, the coalition group urging a YES! vote on Measure 5, has just released a new TV ad featuring North Dakota veterinarian Dr. Shelley Lenz. She sets the record straight on the ballot measure, and tells voters that the law will help animals now, and has nothing to do with hunting or agriculture. The opponents of Measure 5 have been the very forces to urge the legislature to kill proposals to establish felony penalties for malicious abuse. They now claim they are converts to the cause and want to see an anti-cruelty bill enacted in Bismarck. If that’s true, then we’ll join them, but it’s no argument to kill a very modest effort on the ballot next week.

Please share this ad with your friends and family in North Dakota, and help fight back against the national agribusiness interests that want to leave North Dakota’s pets to fend for themselves. If you would like to help out and support the YES! on Measure 5 campaign, please email me and I’ll put you in touch with the campaign staff.

North Dakota: Vote YES! on Measure 5 to Stop Animal Cruelty

Just two decades ago, only seven states had felony-level penalties for animal cruelty (California, Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin). Fortunately, there has been a steady drumbeat of lawmaking on this issue over the last 20 years, mostly led by The HSUS, HSLF, and state and local animal welfare groups, and now 48 states punish some forms of animal abuse as a felony offense, with Mississippi and Idaho being the most recent states to upgrade their anti-cruelty statutes.

But there are still two hold-out states—North Dakota and South Dakota—that punish even the worst forms of animal cruelty with just a slap on the wrist. That could change this November, as voters in North Dakota will have the opportunity to do what the legislature has failed to do, and toughen up the state’s anemic and outdated animal cruelty law.

Today, North Dakota Secretary of State Al Jaeger officially certified Measure 5 for the November 6th statewide general election ballot, after volunteers gathered more than 25,000 signatures of North Dakota voters. Thanks to the outpouring of support from North Dakotans, the North Dakotans to Stop Animal Cruelty campaign exceeded the number of signatures needed to qualify for the ballot by 88 percent.

Measure 5 would make it a class C felony for any individual to maliciously and intentionally burn, poison, crush, suffocate, impale, drown, blind, skin, beat to death, drag to death, exsanguinate, disembowel, or dismember any living dog, cat, or horse. At the discretion of the court, violators could be ordered to undergo mandatory psychological or psychiatric evaluation and counseling, including counseling in responsible pet ownership or animal cruelty prevention, and ordered not to own or possess a dog, cat, or horse for up to five years after the date of the sentencing. The law would provide appropriate penalties for the worst types of cruelty, but would not alter the existing misdemeanor law for less serious offenses such as unintentional neglect.

It reflects a sense of misplaced priorities when it’s currently a felony to spray paint a building if you cause $2,000 in damages, but only a misdemeanor to set a puppy on fire. The current animal cruelty law is extremely weak and completely out of sync with North Dakota values, and it’s long overdue for a course correction. Help support the YES! on Measure 5 campaign in North Dakota, and bring us one step closer to making extreme animal cruelty a felony in every state.

Paid for by Humane Society Legislative Fund

Tuesday's Primary Results Fare Well for Animals

A number of states held primary elections yesterday, including competitive open seats and incumbent-versus-incumbent races, and there were several important outcomes for animal protection advocates. Here is a wrap-up of some of the noteworthy election results:

Gary Peters won the Democratic primary
for Michigan's 14th Congressional District.

U.S. Rep. Gary Peters was the victor over U.S. Rep. Hansen Clarke in the Democratic primary for Michigan’s 14th Congressional District, by a vote of 47 to 35 percent. Peters has been a leading champion for animal protection in Congress since he was elected in 2008, after defeating eight-term Rep. Joe Knollenberg in part due to HSLF’s campaign exposing Knollenberg’s extreme record on animal cruelty. Peters has sponsored legislation to ban the trafficking in obscene animal “crush” videos, to stop wealthy trophy hunters from shooting threatened polar bears in the Arctic and importing their heads or hides, and to save millions of tax dollars by ending subsidies for lethal predator control for ranchers, and worked to end the U.S. Army poisoning of monkeys for chemical warfare training. HSLF mailed to primary voters in support of Peters, and a dedicated group of volunteers canvassed the district for months letting thousands of households know about Peters’ leadership on animal protection.

Also in Michigan, U.S. Rep. Fred Upton won the Republican primary in the 6th Congressional District, and U.S. Rep. John Conyers won the Democratic primary in the 13th Congressional District, both by wide margins. HSLF endorsed both Upton and Conyers, who were facing competitive primary contests, and communicated with voters in the Kalamazoo and Detroit districts. Upton is the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over many animal protection policies, and he has co-sponsored bills on crush videos, animal fighting, puppy mills, fur labeling, and others. As the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, Conyers has helped to pass legislation on crush videos and animal fighting, and has sponsored legislation to ban horse slaughter for human consumption.

In state legislative races, HSLF supported a campaign to defeat puppy mill industry lobbyist Barbara York, who ran in a competitive Republican primary for an open seat in the Missouri House of Representatives. It would have been a setback for animal protection advocates in Missouri to have a leading opponent of animal welfare elected to serve in the state legislature. York lost her bid to move from lobbyist to lawmaker, and former Bates County Commissioner Randy Pike won the Republican race in the rural 126th District with 61.5 percent of the vote. On the other side of the state in St. Louis County, State Rep. Scott Sifton, backed by HSLF, won his Democratic primary for State Senate in the 1st District by a vote of 55 to 45 percent.

In June, HSLF helped to defeat
Iowa “ag gag” sponsor Joe Seng.

Tuesday’s election results continued a largely successful primary season for animal advocates. In June, HSLF helped to defeat Iowa State Sen. Joe Seng, who had led the effort to pass the state’s notorious “ag gag” law to punish whistleblowers at factory farms, and he lost in the Democratic primary to U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack for Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District. HSLF also ran independent expenditure campaigns to help leading supporters of animal protection with their primaries, such as U.S. Rep. Jim Moran, co-chair of the Congressional Animal Protection Caucus, in Virginia’s 8th Congressional District; former U.S. Rep. Dina Titus, who had a strong record on animal welfare when she previously served, in Nevada’s new 1st Congressional District; and New York State Assemblywoman Grace Meng, who sponsored the state bill to ban the trade in shark fins, in the open seat for the Queens-based 6th Congressional District.

In other election-related news from yesterday, North Dakotans to Stop Animal Cruelty, a coalition working to strengthen the penalties for extreme cruelty to dogs, cats, and horses, submitted 25,318 signatures to the North Dakota Secretary of State—88 percent more than the number needed to qualify the measure for the November 2012 ballot. North Dakota is one of only two states (South Dakota is the other) that does not have felony-level penalties for even the worst acts of cruelty—such as maliciously or intentionally burning, crushing, suffocating, impaling and dismembering companion animals. The North Dakota ballot initiative will be a top priority for animal protection advocates, to bring us one step closer to having strong penalties against animal abuse nationwide.