Category: Environment

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Critters

Update on district counts

The Missouri Alliance for Animal Legislation (MAAL) has posted its own list of Proposition B votes by Senate district. It’s also in the process of posting the same vote distribution for the House of Representative districts, but you can see the list now, at the Humane Society Legislative Fund.

From the data, it looks like the folks went to each individual district and were able to get actual vote percentages. This would make their efforts more accurate than my own, which are based more on analysis of population density and vote comparison with surrounding counties than actual counts. However, the differences between the two sets of figures are small.

For the Senate districts, MAAL had 18 districts for Proposition B, 16 districts against. Where we differ is how District 26 voted: I have this district as Yes, they have it as No.

For the Representative districts, I was off on three No votes (which ended up being Yes), and six of the Yes votes. I had Districts 25, 129, and 137 as No, but they have them as Yes. And I had Districts 29. 36, 106, 109, 121, and 124 as Yes, but they have them as No. Instead of 91 voting yes and 72 No, it’s 88 voting Yes to 75 voting No.

All in all, I didn’t do too badly, and I’ve updated my initial results. The important fact to take away from this data is that the majority of Senate and House districts voted Yes for Proposition B. In addition, in the borderline districts, the split is close enough to 50/50 for the representatives in those districts to risk antagonizing a significant number of people in their districts if they override Proposition B. After all, even people who voted against Proposition B have been critical of the representatives seeking to overturn the vote of the people.

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Critters People

Jason Smith’s own Personal Interest in Proposition B

The legislation I talked about in the last article, HJR 17, is sponsored by Representative Jason Smith.

If you attended the House meetings on Proposition B bills in the last few weeks, you probably witnessed Representative Smith’s aggressive grilling of those testifying for Proposition B. Though not part of the committee holding the hearings, Representative Smith attended as an Ex-officio member based on his position as Majority Whip.

What you might not know, because he did not state this during the hearing, is that Jason Smith has a personal axe to grind about Proposition B.

In the weeks leading to the Proposition B vote, HSUS released a report called Missouri’s Dirty Dozen, describing several of the worst large scale commercial breeders in the state. Among them is a breeder named Mary Ann Smith.

I looked at Mary Ann Smith’s USDA inspection reports. Among the repeating violations are those that include sick and injured dogs, insufficient space, poor maintenance, as well as inadequate shelter from the cold for dogs in outdoor kennels.

Mary Ann Smith is also Jason Smith’s mother.

I was stunned when I read this information. I would have expected Representative Smith to recuse himself from actively participating in the hearing, considering his personal involvement. At a minimum, I would have expected him to say something to the people attending the hearing. He did neither.

Not only did Representative Smith actively participate in the hearing, he did so aggressively, and with a great degree of animosity, as perceived by those who attended the hearing. In my opinion, such actions are irregular, and highly unethical. What makes such behavior worse is that he’s a member of the House Ethics committee

Now, with his support of a Constitutional Amendment banning any citizen initiative related to animals (HJR 17), Representative Smith wants to ensure that people like him are the only people to ever make a decision about animals again in this state.

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Critters Legal, Laws, and Regs

No love for puppies from Missouri Senate on Valentine’s Day

The Senate agricultural approved bill to gut Proposition B, the combined SB 113 and SB 95, is up for perfection, which means debate on the Senate floor, Monday, February 14th.

Yes, the Missouri agribusiness sponsored representatives are moving quickly—trying to steal our vote before most of the people of Missouri are aware of what’s happening. With all the other contentious actions happening in Missouri—including several other bills that seem to be based on overriding the people—the agricultural committee is probably hoping their actions to gut Proposition B fly under the radar.

I do know that what’s happening with Proposition B has not received the notice from the mainstream media it should be getting. Perhaps because so many of the TV news shows are sponsored in part by the big agribusiness concern, Monsanto.

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Critters

Tony speaks and the House meets

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Another meeting on the House anti-Proposition B bill HB 131 will be held Tuesday, February 15th at 12pm in House Hearing Room 6. The meeting is an executive session, where those rascally representatives see how they can contrive to gut Proposition B but only make it seem as if they’re making minor modifications.

HB 131 not only removes all the provisions of Proposition B, it also redefines it so that the remaining scraps of text only apply to breeders with over 100 dogs. I just hope the representatives’ agribusiness masters give them their treats, pat them on the head for a job well done.

That’s a good Representative! Good rep! Want me to scratch your belly now?

A glimmer of light is seen, though, and the color of the light is red. Cardinal red, to be exact.

Cardinal’s manager Tony La Russa has come out, swinging yet again, in support of Proposition B.

Update My pardon, but I originally thought the meeting next Tuesday was a public hearing, but the meeting is an Executive session. Evidently the representatives found it too difficult to maintain a facade of openness.

So much easier to steal the vote from the people when we’re not watching.

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Critters Government Legal, Laws, and Regs

Another “while you were snowbound” agricultural committee public meeting

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Though not related to Proposition B (“What? You mean the Missouri state legislature has been working on other legislation!?”), Show Me Progress points out that the House agricultural committee also held another “public meeting” on yet another travesty of a bill: HB 209.

What HB 209 does is limit the actions on the part of those who are neighbors to a CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feed Operations) if the CAFO creates a public nuisance.

When all other committee public meetings were canceled during the snow and ice storm, presumably so that people can attend the public meetings when the weather improves, the agricultural committee barreled through most of its meetings it knew would generate a great deal of interest from those who don’t necessarily agree with the committee’s views.

That the committee would do so may be allowable according to the rules, but it is hardly open, and frankly, not particularly ethical.

update

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch Political Fix has more on the non-public public meeting for HB 209.