Page 1 of 330 The Monthly National Legislation Report 7/5/2010 ...

The Monthly National Legislation Reporthttp://mnlreport.typepad.com/Page 34 of 3307/5/2010requirements at the time of improvements; who has never had a major discrepancy on any Federal or State Inspection Report; who has 20 intact females; and who on occasion may have a total of 100 ormore dogs and puppies in your kennel. Would you have a problem if a State or Federal Law prohibited you from having more than 10 intact females; prohibited you from having more than 50 dogs andpuppies in your kennel at any given time; required that you invest additional money to expand the size of your kennel so that each dog and puppy would have a minimum of 50 square feet of living andsleeping space; and that you would be prohibited from using cages in your kennel at any time for any purpose? I suspect so!As “Food for Thought,” I suggest that hobby breeders and commercial breeders consider throwing some figurative sand into the wheels of the HSUS Legislative Freight Train Agenda by suggesting to their“friendly” and supportive elected representatives that any new law, that is intended to restrict the activities of existing hobby or commercial breeders, must “GRANDFATHER” and exempt all existing hobbyand commercial breeders from any new restrictive law based upon the Constitutional protections as set out in Article 1, Section 9 which explicitly states that “No . . . ex post facto Law shall be passed.”Ex Post What?!?!?!? Well, the “Ex Post Facto” Clause was intended by our Forefathers to prohibit enacting a law that would be retroactive and criminalize actions that a citizen had been doing before thecriminal statute was passed. And is not the HSUS seeking laws that would criminalize the activities of breeders? (If there is any doubt, read the following excerpt from Nancy Perry’s Bio - - she is the HSUSVice President for Government Affairs: “The HSUS has lobbied in all 50 states for animal protection legislation and secured felony cruelty provisions in 41 states (including Washington DC). . . and aided inthe passage of 24 ballot measures.”)And let us not forgot that the meaning of the word “hoarder” is in the process of being redefined by the HSUS, which is notorious for distorting images of responsible breeders in the minds of the public andlegislators. Once the meaning of “hoarder” is redefined by the HSUS, this will provide yet another basis for HSUS to seek and orchestrate changes to laws that could result in expanded prosecutions foralleged “animal abuse!!!”Is this scenario a bit of a stretch? Stop and ask yourself, if you are a hobby breeder and a law is passed that stated that anyone who had more than 10 dogs and puppies in a home would be determined tobe a “hoarder,” and you had 19 dogs and puppies in your home on the day it was enacted, what would you do to avoid being in violation of a new criminal statute? And if you were a commercial breederwho had 98 dogs and puppies in your kennel on the day a new law was passed that made it a crime to have more than 50 dogs and puppies in your kennel, what would you do to avoid being in violation of acriminal statute?So what is to be gained by raising the issue of the “Ex Post Facto Clause” of the U.S. Constitution to Federal and State legislators? It might cause some legislators to pause and urge that new Bills be delayeduntil everyone understood what “ex post facto” means. It may provide breeder/agriculture-friendly legislators with a new basis to oppose any new “restrictive” law. It may also cause other legislators to add“Grandfather” amendments to a pending Bill. Any one of these three scenarios would probably slow down or derail the growing legislative momentum of the HSUS and other animal rights activists. Often“delays” result in Bills never being enacted. Additionally, the “Grandfather” provision scenario would probably be a “Poison Pill” Amendment that could drive the HSUS “nuts” because the HSUS might haveto publicly renounce the Constitution of the U.S., especially if it opposed a “watered-down” Bill that had a “Grandfather” provision in it. Could HSUS oppose a Bill because it is not written the way HSUSwants it to be written? Yes, it could and it has done so in the past! For example, one of the reasons that the HSUS stop pushing to have the PAWS Bill enacted a few years ago was because the sponsor ofthe Paws Bill would not include the additional provisions that the HSUS and the Doris Day Animal League had wanted to be included, such as limiting how often a dam may be bred.So how would the “Grandfather” provision work? In essence, it would mean that if you were a breeder at the time the new law was enacted, and the law created new limitations on what a hobby orcommercial breeder was permitted to do, those limitations would only apply to future breeders, and not to the breeders who were breeding dogs before new limitations were enacted into law. For example,if the new limitations placed a limit on how many dogs or puppies that you could have in your home or kennel, those limitations would not apply to any breeder who had been breeding dogs before the newlaw was enacted.If the “Ex Post Facto” Clause is appropriate “Food for Thought” for the hobby and commercial breeders to consider, perhaps those in the Agriculture Community should consider this same “Food forThought” to counter the “Distortion Mill” of the HSUS!!!!!!Comments (1)May 08, 2010"The Public Charity Integrity Act" - update S/N the H$U$Two Significant Congressional RequestsTwo members of Congress (Congressman Luetkemeyer from Missouri and Congressman Visclosky from Indiana) have sent letters to the IRS Commissioner and asked the Commissioner to address some ofthe concerns of their constituents as they relate to the lobbying activities of the HSUS. This is very significant because the IRS Commissioner is the highest ranking Official in the Internal Revenue Service.The door may then open for consideration to be given to amending the Internal Revenue Code in order to define the phrase “no substantial part” of lobbying by a public charity, such as the HSUS. Thatamendment would be “The Public Charity Integrity Act.” (amendment language not available.)We'll publish more as the information comes in !!Comments (0)May 02, 2010APRIL, 2010FEATURED ARTICLES