Protecting animals is personal for this senator

I admit it.  I am a bit of a celebrity stalker.  I’ll definitely go out of my way to attend an event with a big name attached—whether it’s someone from show business or politics. 

Over the years, I’ve been fortunate enough to see Princess Diana and George W. Bush, as well as meet a number of luminaries ranging from Hillary Clinton and Julia Child to Ed Asner and Tippi Hedren.  Not to mention Cokie Roberts, Chris Matthews and Anderson Cooper. When I worked in catering, I served Sandra Day O’Connor, Alan Greenspan and Dick Cheney.  And I’ve interviewed in person Walter Cronkite, Emmylou Harris and Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring.  (Just a note: I am still holding out for Barbra Streisand, Barack Obama and Meryl Streep, if anyone can help me with those!)

As a result of my starstruck mindset—and because I am a full-on Democrat who is, of course, concerned about a number of issues and admires so many of the elected officials who represent my state and party—I try to attend political functions whenever I can.

When I lived in Norfolk a few years ago and attended a fundraiser for the ultimately successful mayoral candidate Kenny Alexander, who was then a state senator representing Norfolk and other Hampton Roads jurisdictions, I was delighted to meet Virginia’s senior senator in Washington: Mark Warner.  I was wearing a shirt with the logo of the SPCA where I worked at the time and he asked me about it when I shook his hand.  I told him animal protection legislation was a strong priority for me.

And with that, Senator Warner, whom I’ve seen speak on other occasions with great command of issues and an amusing wit, started telling me how important animal welfare was to him, too.  He mentioned the horrendous practice of horse soring and legislation he had supported to stop it.

“Soring involves the intentional infliction of pain to a horse's legs or hooves in order to force the horse to perform an artificial, exaggerated gait.  Caustic chemicals—blistering agents like mustard oil, diesel fuel and kerosene—are applied to the horse's limbs, causing extreme pain and suffering,” reads the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) website.  What???  Who does this???

Soring is utter and total cruelty.  All for some silly, stupid competitions for what are called Tennessee walking horses in which judges, according to HSUS, continue to reward the high-stepping gait that results from abuse.  The HSUS website states that sored horses will lie in their stalls and moan in pain. 

Who are these people that can live with themselves engaging in such an activity on a regular basis as if it’s just another day in some ho-hum business?  Where are their hearts and where is their compassion?  And how about the consumers attending the competitions?  Do they not realize the horror that their funds support—or do they just not care?

Fortunately, Senator Warner, and other legislators, do care.

“One bill I’ve introduced is the bipartisan Prevent All Soring Tactics (PAST) Act,” Senator Warner said in an interview conducted by e-mail this month.  “This bill would close important loopholes in the Horse Protection Act, prohibit the use of devices implicated in the practice of soring, and put more effective penalties in place.  This bill has already passed through the House of Representatives and I’m going to keep pushing to get it passed here in the Senate.”

In fact, Senator Warner was one of two senators who first introduced the PAST Act in 2013.  He then reintroduced the bill in subsequent sessions of Congress. 

If you want your blood to boil, check this out.  In August 2019, Senator Warner sent out an e-mail communication to constituents entitled “Animal Protection Update.”  I loved this proactive stance; how many other members of Congress care enough to send out updates on animal protection? 

His mass e-mail read, “In 2017, I was hopeful that a regulation approved by the Obama administration banning horse soring would put a stop to this type of abuse immediately. Unfortunately, the Trump administration has since reversed this position, and as of today, this barbaric form of animal abuse continues to take place.” 

Read that again.  Horses are suffering specifically because of the man-baby in the White House. 

Although I find it sad that some Americans’ behavior requires legislation against soring, I am glad that someone is pushing on this issue.  The bill passed the House in July 2019, but remains in the Senate’s Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. 

Why has the Senate not passed this compassionate legislation?  I wonder if this one of the hundreds of bills passed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s House that Senator Mitch “Grim Reaper” McConnell has sitting on his desk and on which he refuses to act—while horses suffer.

If so, shame on him for protecting animal abusers.  But, thank goodness, Senator Warner is working on this bill. 

I asked why bills meant to help animals were a priority for Senator Warner. 

“As members of Congress, we have a responsibility to the members of our community.  And these communities include our pets, our farm animals, and the wildlife around us,” the senator noted. 

Mentioning that he has an eight-year-old Welsh Terrier, whose name is Finn, he explained, “Protecting animals is a personal issue for me.”

“Protecting animals is something that almost everyone can agree on, including many Virginians,” Senator Warner declared.  “In the Senate, I’ve introduced and supported several pieces of legislation to protect animal welfare because, frankly, it’s the right thing to do.”

I am glad that at least some animal protection legislation can be bipartisan; however, my memory is that legislative scorecards published by the Humane Society Legislative Fund show Democratic members of Congress being much stronger supporters of animal welfare.  Several had 100 percent ratings. 

Meanwhile, many Republicans, often representing more rural and agricultural areas, had scores of zero.  Pathetic.  Do their constituents ever speak up on these issues or even care—or do they just keep their heads in the sand because they’re so happy that gun safety and health care bills are being thwarted by the people they’ve put in office?

Senator Warner said that he has been proud to cosponsor the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act, which “prohibits extreme acts of animal cruelty and imposes stricter penalties for those found torturing animals.” 

This bill was signed into law in 2019.  Abusers can be charged with felonies, fined, and subject to up to seven years in prison.

He was also a cosponsor of the Pet and Women Safety (PAWS) Act, a bill signed into law in 2018 to protect domestic violence survivors and their pets.

“Going forward, I’m focused on supporting a number of bills that protect our wildlife,” he wrote. 

I am thrilled about this action, especially after seeing how wildlife has suffered in recent massive fires in Australia and the Amazon, and knowing that Republicans are trying to weaken the Endangered Species Act and are bedfellows with the so-called trophy hunters.

“The Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act for one would support the continued survival of many shark species and make it illegal to possess, buy, sell, or transport shark fins or any product containing shark fins, except dogfish fins,” Senator Warner said.  “As you may know, the global shark trade is one of the largest contributors to the decline of shark populations around the world.  As many as 70 million sharks are hunted each year for their fins and then cruelly thrown back into the ocean to die.  This bill would put a stop to that practice.”

Just think about that: 70 million sharks!  In one year!  Just so some people can dine on shark fin soup—or whatever they eat with shark fins. 

You’re brutally pulled out of the ocean, which means you can’t breathe, and then you get your fin sliced off in a harsh manner.  After that, you’re uncaringly tossed back into the water without the ability to swim since you have no fin.  I suppose the sharks just plummet to the ocean floor and die a horrendous death—for soup.  Think about how awful that is.

Let’s hope the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act gets passed soon, knowing, of course, that passing a law only goes so far in stopping cruelty.  Enforcement, funding for enforcement, and cultural change must coincide.  But the passage of laws often paves the way for getting such tremendous change off the ground. 

My concern is that the legislation will only apply to American businesses and the shark-killing practice will simply move to a business from another country.  Like China, which has a notoriously poor animal welfare record.  I can only imagine there is no shark fin legislation that has ever come out of Beijing.

“I’m also a supporter of the Rescuing Animals with Rewards (RAWR) Act, which would enable the State Department to better combat the growing threat of the wildlife trade, which is the second biggest threat to the survival of species across the globe.  This bill would modify the State Department’s rewards program to authorize rewards to people who furnish information that assists in the prevention or identification of crimes related to wildlife trafficking,” Senator Warner pointed out.

I am glad the animals have someone fighting on their behalf like Senator Warner.  I am also thrilled with some of his work on the Senate Intelligence Committee, given our leadership crisis in the White House.  Here’s hoping the animals win and Trump loses!