At the Senate Ag Committee hearing on HJR 86 last Wednesday, one savvy observer of Missouri politics who was sitting next to me told me that the big divide in this state isn’t between Republicans and Democrats but between rural and urban Missourians. As a suburbanite, I’m only vaguely aware of that conflict and our bloggers–city folk all except for one who grew up in a small town–focus almost solely on the enmity between political parties, usually oblivious to the other divide. But as I sat through that hearing, everything I heard bore out what the gentleman sitting next to me had said: these rural senators feel their way of life endangered by policies that city people try to impose on them.
So the Ag Committee senators from both parties–all of them farmers as far as I could tell–support a constitutional amendment that would eliminate the initiative petition process when it comes to those who raise livestock. In other words, they don’t want city dwellers to pass initiatives that tell them how to run their business. They’ve narrowed the bill to focus on animals and not mention crops. The relevant portion (in the last version I saw) said:
[N]o state law criminalizing or otherwise regulating the welfare or breeding of any domesticated animals shall be valid unless it has been enacted by the general assembly or promulgated by administrative rule….
[emphasis mine]
Which is a roundabout way of saying ‘keep your damned initiative petitions out of our face and off our land.’
There were lots of polite observations from the senators and those testifying about how urban people fail to grasp basic facts about raising animals. The bill’s sponsor, Republican Representative Tom Loehner, reminded listeners that lambs are born with eight inch tails that need to be docked. City people think that’s cruel. Rural people know that 40-50 percent of the lambs will die if their tails aren’t docked. Republican Senator Chuck Purgason responded that farmers just want to be able to raise animals and survive at it. They don’t go into farming to get rich; they go into it because they want to feed people. Then he mentioned that California had had an initiative petition to allow hunting of mountain lions. It passed in every county except Orange County. (Translation: ignorant city folk kept livestock breeders from protecting their animals.)
Democratic Senators Frank Barnitz and Wes Shoemyer concurred with those ideas. In fact, returning to Purgason’s comment that farmers just want to be able to survive, not get rich, Shoemyer (pictured at left) offered the notion that he does know how to make a small fortune at farming: start with a big fortune. Then Shoemyer took the argument one step further. He’s upset that the Humane Society (HSUS) is pushing an initiative petition to rein in Missouri’s puppy mill industry. He believes they’re doing it basically because dog breeders are the easiest target for interfering city folk to go after. He further believes that rural Missourians must unite, must be like a herd protecting a calf from a predator. “Once we whup ’em on this fight, they’ll go elsewhere,” said Shoemyer. There was much nodding of heads.
His attitude about dog breeders is that many farmers were forced into that business because the factory farms made it virtually impossible for independent livestock breeders to make a living raising hogs or chickens. Like Leslie Holloway, a witness from the Farm Bureau, he insisted that he doesn’t condone mistreating dogs. He and Holloway want more state regulators on the job finding and eliminating the bad actors. But the contempt for HSUS in that room was palpable. They believe that the initiative petition campaign is nothing more than a way for HSUS to raise money. Witness Dale Ludwig of the MO Soybean Assn. asserted that HSUS raises $100 million a year with campaigns such as this and that only $1 out of every $200 raised actually goes to pet care.
On the other side of this question about dog breeders is the Better Business Bureau’s recent scathing report. It says that one third of the federally licensed dog breeders in the country (as well as many unlicensed facilities) are in Missouri and that half of the complaints made to BBB nationwide are about puppies bought from Missouri breeders. Horror stories about abominable conditions in some facilities have surfaced, as well as many complaints about sick puppies who die soon after they are bought. But our cash strapped state has only 13 regulators to oversee all this.
Rather than a constitutional amendment to forbid initiative petitions that would restrict the puppy mill industry–in fact, rather than supporting an initiative petition–BBB has different ideas about how to alleviate the problems. It suggests:
- That both the U.S. and Missouri Departments of Agriculture more aggressively pursue penalties against repeat offenders.
- That Missouri consider raising annual licensing fees which have remained the same since the program of regulating dog breeders and sellers began 17 years ago.
- That in seeking a puppy, consumers also consider “adopting” a pet from an animal shelter.
- That Missouri consider legislation, if necessary, to streamline the process for penalizing repeat offenders, while still allowing for due process.
BBB’s solutions, however, may be coming too late. The Humane Society’s initiative petition campaign is gaining steam. Eighty-five percent of those polled support it. And so, senators on the Ag Committee see no way to stop further interference in their business than to negate the petition with a constitutional amendment that would void its results.
I’m not without sympathy for their viewpoint, but there are major problems with such a bill. First, it voids the results of initiative petitions only if they are aimed at livestock breeders. Anybody can start an initiative petition on any other subject. Whoa. That’s not exactly equal treatment to all Missourians, and it’s likely to be unconstitutional.
Furthermore, consider this wording in the bill:
No state law criminalizing or otherwise regulating the welfare or breeding of any domesticated animals shall be valid … unless it is consistent with scientific and economic standards generally accepted within the agricultural community.
Really? Who gets to decide what scientific standards are “generally accepted”? The Farm Bureau with some bogus study that supports the notion that CAFOs do no harm? No, this wording virtually guarantees that disagreements will frequently end up in court. Much as the Missouri legislature drives me crazy with many of its decisions, at least legislators are subject to pressure from the voters. Remember, those very voters pressured legislators to remove the “no local control of CAFOs” provision from this amendment. Try calling a judge before he rules on one of these issues and see how far you get.
In general, I oppose state constitutional amendments anyway. The ones that are proposed–including this one–seldom merit being enshrined in the state constitution, and it’s relatively easy to get them passed. (Think of the unnecessary, because it was already illegal, ban on gay marriage.) BBB’s suggestions for solving the problem of inhumane dog breeders, if taken to heart, would solve the problem–and a helluva lot better than this amendment would. This constitutional amendment would do nothing to alleviate those problems. All it does is say, “Hands off.”
That’s not a solution. It’s just a way of dodging an issue that needs to be dealt with.
Ideally–and I’m dreaming, I suppose–senators on the Ag Committee would propose the legislation that BBB suggests. It is sensible. But if that’s not going to happen, I sincerely hope this amendment dies a slow death from several more revisions. Whether it dies or it doesn’t, though, the other problem remains: that the initiative petition to rein in puppy mills is likely, as the gentleman in the seat next to me warned, to create a culture clash in this state like no other we’ve witnessed.
Thank you for this excellent post! This is the first intelligent discussion I’ve seen on this whole issue in MO media. You have definitely hit some of the important but often not discussed aspects of this political conflict.
But HR86 is a 3-card Monty designed to draw Missouri citizens’ eyes away from those who are making a great deal of blood money off puppy mills.
While I agree that there is an urban/rural split in MO that we often overlook I have to say that is not the real root of HR 86. The supporters of HR86 are NOT the base of rural Missourians. The REAL supporters are those people making a ton of money off puppy milling and the pain it causes both the animals living in those hells and the humans who unknowingly buy a short lifetime of heartache and sky-high vet bills due to poor breeding and even poorer breeding conditions. You have only to look at the very wealthy Hunte Corporation in western Missouri to see that the people making the real money in puppy mills are not the small farmers “forced” into torturing dogs to make their dollars. These wealthy corporations encourage other people to do the dirty work and then these corporations act as middle men moving the abused and often sick puppies out to the unethical pet stores like Petland which still sell puppies at exorbitant prices.
Corporations like Hunte use rural Missouri and small puppy mills as a whitewash for their craven actions. And let’s get this VERY clear; puppy mills are NOT sweet little farms where dogs live in idyllic rural settings as they nurse cute little puppies. Dogs are kept in horrible conditions where they often NEVER touch ground, forced to live in their own feces in wire cages set off the ground. The females are bred every time they come in season, often being dumped on rescues or sold at auction with extremely damaged reproductive organs.
Who cleans up after these puppy millers and corporations? All of us do as these dogs get dumped on rescues (many of them in rural areas struggling to maintain humane conditions). Our tax money goes to clean up after these millers and their cruelty. People who buy dogs from pet stores may spend $1000 for a dog only to find themselves spending another $5000 to keep him alive.
And don’t tell me that most rural Missourians think puppy mills should be protected! I know better. I volunteer in animal rescue and have heard from rural rescue groups all over Missouri and many surrounding states who find themselves cleaning up after and taking care of the dogs from these mills. They want puppy mills shut down. Rural rescuers often risk their own safety and spend their own money to take care of dumped dogs.
Maybe the HSUS bill is not the best we could have. We need more inspectors and stronger penalties. And yes, HSUS spends funds on things other than direct rescue. HSUS is very active in fighting for animal protection legislation at the national and international levels, something that is also badly needed. But HSUS is NOT the issue here; Missouri puppy mills are the issue and should be kept in the glare of the public spotlight.
In short, do not be fooled into thinking that there is a rural/urban split on those who support or oppose the puppy mill disgrace. There is only a split between those who squeeze tainted dollars from the blood of tortured and abused dogs in the hellholes known as puppy mills and those of us who work for these sites regulation and, hopefully,ultimate extinction.
refrain that people are moved to stop “interference in their business” by some category of folks who don’t know any better (city people i this case, ivory tower scientists when it comes to global warming) – I am sure that there were valid economic reasons for slavery, and efforts to stop it were seen as “interference in their business” by the cotton lords in the South too. This line of argument is self-serving and when those who use it fail to address the legitimate issues that have been raised by the “interferring” parties, it should raise a red flag. Where issues can’t aren’t dealt with honestly, there will always be a “culture clash.”
The fact is that there is a serious issue of animal abuse in Missouri and that until the HSUS came along, nobody was going to deal with it – although I do faintly remember the legislature contemplating (or even enacting?) something that would make it impossible for people to photograph conditions these puppy mills, thus making it difficult to collect evidence of abuse – this type or complicity in the abuse indicates how long one would have to wait to see legislative activity.
1. Farmers are “forced” to raise puppies because CAFO’s have put them out of the hog and cattle business??? Well, why aren’t the loyal Farm Bureau members and the state ag dept running those CAFO’s out of the state or at least limiting the number of animals thay can produce so that the “family” farmers can make a living. Gimme a break.
2. Any business that deals with living, sensient beings must be regulated BIG TIME. I’ve been drivng thru Georgia and South Carolina all day. Every 100 miles or so, there’s a sign announcing some “historic” plantation. It’s not hard to imagine the Africans who were treated like animals working in those swamps to make their masters rich. Slaves were considered less than human and often treated like beasts of burden. Fast forward 180 years. Most Americans have evolved to the point where they realize that not only humans but other senient beings also feel pain and have physical needs.
3. I don’t believe the numbers given about how much of the Humane Society’s income goes for animal welfare programs. I’ll research that. The problem with those legislative hearings is that anyone can say anything and not be challenged.
4. The rural-urban divide is not new. It goes back to the original 13 colonies and was especially vicious in the late 19th-early 20th century with the rise in immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. “City slickers” have always been viewed as evil, and “country bumpkins” have always been viewed as behind the times. (Remember “City Mouse, Country Mouse”?) Big deal. Rural folks will always be afraid of the “big city.” Deal with it.
5. ALL citizens of Missouri have the right to circulate initiative petitions. Rural people force their demands on the urban and suburban folks. E.g., why can’t urbanite gays and lesbians get married in Missouri if they want to? This is what the rural people call “freedom”?? And now they want a fertilized human egg to have all the rights and protections of the same laws and courts that serve the people. (see Personhood Missouri petitions) Excuse me, but their hyprocrisy blurs my view of the rationale behind their complaints about the puppy mill petitions.
Hotflash,
I wasn’t implying that you should refute lies/misleading statements the surface during legislative hearings. What happens is that the chair of a committee sets up the witnesses and allows nonsense to be spewed forth without any attempt to find witnesses with different points of view and “facts.” With the Repugs in charge of committees, they will stack the deck in their favor regardless of the issue.
This is why we must take back the House in November.