Apr 29 2011
The “Missouri Solution” Wins
With news that Missouri’s legislature and Governor have passed and enacted a “Prop B” compromise, it’s clear that the Humane Society of the United States and its East Coast riches failed to accomplish much in the Show Me State.
According to campaign finance data, HSUS shoveled $1.85 million (in cash) into its Missouri front group’s bank account, and added nearly $300,000 more in non-cash contributions.
Even with a huge financial advantage, Prop B squeaked into the “win” column by a narrow 3-point margin. And ironically, HSUS’s heavy-handed approach mobilized grassroots agriculture supporters across the state.
Just a few months later, a bipartisan coalition has repealed significant parts of Prop B. Everyone from farming organizations to the Missouri Humane Society got behind the compromise to promote a “Missouri solution.” HSUS got left out in the cold.
So, what now? HSUS is doubling down.
HSUS is pushing yet another Missouri ballot campaign, an attempt to modify the legislature’s power so it will be harder for lawmakers to amend ballot initiatives in the future. This new HSUS campaign (HSUS owns the website domain, and a “Prop B” lobbyist is the campaign’s treasurer) could easily burn through another few million dollars from HSUS’s unwitting donors. And if it succeeds, HSUS will almost certainly be back for yet another expensive bite at the “Prop B” apple.
We imagine the Missouri economy will be grateful for any dollars HSUS wants to throw across the Mississippi river. But we also think Missouri’s hands-on dog and cat shelters (remember them?) would appreciate those funds even more.
It’s hard to predict the future, of course, but this much is clear about the present: HSUS pumped a lot of money into Missouri and didn’t get much out of the deal. And we probably won’t read about it in a future HSUS fundraising letter.
Posted on 04/29/2011 at 05:05 PM by the HumaneWatch Team
Gov't, Lobbying, Politics • Pets • (8) CommentsComments
Where is this billboard located???? I love it, keep up the excellent work.
I advertise your website every chance I get and want people to WAKE UP and realize what HSUS is all about…
Thank you again for the time and effort you put in to bringing HSUS to justice.
Nice to see H$U$ foiled on at least one front. Maybe it’s a sign of things to come - we can only hope.
Please tell me that billboard is appearing in several locations around the Show-Me state.
Millions for a ballot initiative that would do nothing to improve the conditions of any single animal - as real animals suffer and as real animal shelters beg for funds. What else do you expect from the factory-fundraising HSUS?
This was NEVER about the animals.
Meanwhile, the KCMO city shelter is in turmoil after the questionable vet who ran the shelter as a for-profit business was removed by the city amid multiple neglect and incompetence complaints over the past two years. The city has taken the shelter back over, and a there is rampant disease sweeping the shelter in the wake of the recent chaos, and everyone who actually cares about animals is terrified there will be mass euthanizations. That $1.85 mill could have been spent to save so many MO animals, rather than on useless legislation with no enforcement provisions. And now HSUS is going to waste millions more on a ballot campaign in the very state that is the epicenter of pet mills, where animals are dying every day by the hundreds in decrepit shelters and mills, abused and/or neglected. Animals here are still gassed in some places, and heartsticked without sedation.
I started volunteering at the KCMO shelter about a year ago, and am still new to animal advocacy, but I can say after a year of hard work that I am disgusted with almost every aspect of organized animal advocacy, from HSUS to No Kill Nation even, who at the moment seem more concerned right now about protecting their logo trademark rights from infringement by state NKN groups than anything else.
There are too many people who talk a good game about what is best for the animals, but very few people who actually know a damn thing about sheltering, and fewer still who do much more than just blog about it endlessly. I have never seen any of these so-called thought leaders on animal advocacy in my city (KC) or my state ever even set foot in my city shelter in the last year. Many of these people care more about recognition and credit than they do about truly extending themselves for animals. And most of these people here in MO who claim to be sheltering and animal welfare experts are the same people who thought that privatizing the city shelter and giving the contract to a greedy vet who only cared about making a living off the backs of homeless animals was a good idea - how anyone can ever come to the conclusion that the welfare of homeless animals should be entrusted to a for-profit business is beyond me. But I’m not a self-appointed expert blogger on MO’s sheltering problems, so what do I know? I was too busy on the front lines trying to help animals to have time for endless pontificating. And now I am moving out of this state, and it kills me to know that the fate of these poor animals is still not in the right hands, and that it will probably be a long time before anything truly gets better.
Did any of you who love animals ever ask yourselves this: Why the need for so many shelters and why are there so many homeless and abused/neglected animals? Maybe if these questions were answered so many helpless animals wouldn’t have to suffer and die. Just a thought
The people who love and work on behalf of homeless animals have asked these questions, and they know the answers. We aren’t the problem. It’s your city and state government that are the problem, because they consistently refuse to progress from their backward thinking about animal welfare.
There aren’t so many shelters. There are so many homeless and abused/neglected animals because the state of Missouri is the epicenter of the country’s pet mills, but state and city officials refuse to put the money necessary toward inspection of pet mills to ensure humane conditions, and to take punitive action against violators, based on animal welfare laws that are already on the books. There are only 10 inspectors covering the entire state of Missouri.
Your state and local governments also keep supporting bogus breed specific laws that cause animals to be confiscated from their homes and put in shelters simply because of their breed and/or because they are not fixed. Your city animal control division makes more revenue the more dogs it confiscates and fines owners for on these violations, rather than leaving a healthy animal in a decent home with some education and a voucher for spaying/neutering.
The former director of your KCMO city shelter didn’t vaccinate animals quickly enough or properly upon entry to the shelter, causing them to get sick and be unavailable for off site adoption events. Many local rescues refused to hold adoption events with animals from your city shelter because the city shelter animals would cause other animals brought to these events to get sick.
You have your city and state government to thank for the proliferation of homeless and confiscated animals, and for the lack of community outreach to encourage spay/neuter.
Check out this blog so you can educate yourself further on the questions you are asking.
http://www.btoellner.typepad.com/kcdogblog/
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Interestingly, HSUS’s new measure is an attempt to require both houses to have 75% of the vote to make changes/overturns to voter initiatives. SB161 passed both houses with more than 70% of the vote…so likely even the new initiative wouldn’t have kept Prop B.