Alert 3/22/07 Report From
There is no other way to say it
but that our animal welfare issues again were ignored by the
This session, we focused on working with the leadership in both houses as much as we were able. Anne Little was instrumental in getting access to Speaker of the House Bill Howell, Pat Weakland got us access to the President of the Senate John Chichester, Tammy Javier paved the way to Senate Ag Committee Chair Charles Hawkins, Holly Sternberg arranged our meeting with Senate Minority Leader Saslaw, Lana Westfall arranged support from the education community and Senator Potts, and Kim Kincheloe arranged for us to meet with House Ag subcommittee chairman Del. Bobby Orrock.
In addition, Debra Griggs worked to get Del. Alexander to patron VVAW bills. Sandy Echeverry and David Gaines arranged our meeting with Del. Caputo. Peyton Coyner got a meeting with Del Abbitt, and Peyton and Margaret Marsh were able to arrange a meeting with Sen. Deeds. Rosalie Lesser brought Del. Albo to us to patron a successful bill (HB 1900), and Lynne Rhode and Courtney Morano worked with both Del. McClellan and Sen. Lambert, both serving as patrons of VVAW bills. Diana Artemis, Grace Holden, Barbara Hutcherson, and Pam McAlwee worked successfully to gain the support of Sen. Whipple, who patroned both a bill and a resolution for VVAW. (There is always the possibility that someone has been left off this list, but we hope we have mentioned everyone who helped so much.)
What we hoped to do was win support from Del. Orrock before whose committee most if not all our bills would come, and if not, ask for Speaker Howell's support and assignment of our bills to a committee other than the House Ag subcommittee. At the same time, we asked for Speaker Howell's intercession with House Ag Subcommittee Chair Orrock and House Ag Committee Chair Cox. In the Senate, we pinned hopes on Chairman Hawkins's support, Chairman Potts's support, and strong patrons in senators Ticer and Whipple.
Our talks with Speaker Howell lead us to believe he would support the gas chamber ban and three other bills, and would not oppose a fuller legislative suite of 11 bills if we were inclined to promote that many. The VVAW Board consented to 11 bills, and to a 12th as well, a Privatization Bill of State Vet inspections and record keeping, so we moved forward on all. We ultimately found patrons only for 11, the Privatization Bill initially and mistakenly being called unconstitutional by Legislative Services. For that reason, it was essentially put aside (but without notice to us of this erroneously characterization by its hoped-for House patron, Del. McEachin). We quickly fixed the constitutional issues once we learned of this misunderstanding but it was by then too late to persuade our potential Senate patron, Senator Edwards.
And so we had 11 bills, some with new patrons (Del. Cline, Del. McClellan, Del. Wittman, Sen. Whipple, Sen. Lambert), and the rest with our stalwarts delegates Jim Scott, Kenny Alexander, Bob Hull, Clay Athey and Frank Hargrove, and senators Russ Potts and Patsy Ticer.
Our bills did NOT get assigned to subcommittees (or Committees) other than Ag for the most part. Even the humane education bill in the House went to the Ag Subcommittee. Our Senate humane education resolution, which passed in the Senate, was also referred to House Ag even after its passage by the House Rules Committee.
The gas chamber bill, on which we
had 41 co-patrons, also failed before this subcommittee, although the
considerable focus on gas chambers generated funding promises again this year
from Teresa Dockery. If Ms. Dockery keeps her word this time (she didn’t
in 2006), gas chambers will be voluntarily discontinued in
As before, we tried to work with our opposition. This time, under new leadership and without Ms. Dockery's adverse influence, we were able to find common ground and collaborate with the Virginia Federation of Humane Societies. The Virginia Animal Control Association showed signs of being more collaborative but then engaged Ms. Dockery for legislative work so it appears some ambivalence may well still prevail here. The Virginia Veterinary Associate did not return phone calls, nor did the Farm Bureau, Bob Murray of the Virginia Federation of Dog Clubs and Breeders was reached by me (much to his surprise) by telephone and quickly dismissed any notion of collaboration, or any need for it for that matter, Bob Kane of the hunting community and Walt Hutchens of the breeder community were both invited to our fall meetings and both declined to attend.
Our strategy has been to promote an ambitious agenda so we could educate the legislature, recruit people and groups to whatever part of our agenda they favored the most, and work as change agents alongside the established groups. That has failed. Far from being educated, legislators with established ties to other groups and contrary positions have declined to be educated and may even be said to have closed ranks.
The following illustrates this
all too clearly. Del. Orrock
publicly admonished some 30 people who came to
Now what?
We are having our regional meetings now. We shall see.
If we can effect change in the pending election cycle, or otherwise benefit from it, we may stand a chance, but if we don't get any such change, the choices appear to be narrowed to even greater mobilization, local efforts only, withdrawal, ballot referendums and/or legal action.
We shall see. Tell us what you think.
Don Marro