House Passes Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act

Talk about a shocking blow. The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act passed in the House on Monday (recall it passed unanimously in the Senate already), with I believe only Dennis Kucinich of Ohio (a vegan) speaking out against it.

I already knew that loser Claw Shaw (R-FL) would support it, as he told me as much in his response to my letter. According to www.stopaeta.org, Representative Nydia Velazquez of New York may also have voted against it. Evidently, only a handful of members were even back in town from the weekend (they squeezed the vote in at the last minute, with a procedure usually reserved for non-controversial legislation).

This means President Bush can now sign it into law–and you know he will.

Clearly, this lame duck Congress is not looking out for animals. There are several bills before the Judiciary Committee chairman, Jim Sensenbrenner, such as The Animal Fighting Prohibition Enforcement Act (H.R. 817), which has been co-sponsored by 75% of the House, that never made it to an official vote, yet the AETA, with a fraction of that support, got voted on.

What the bleep?

Here’s what we all need to do: Call our representatives and voice your discontent. I’m shocked and outraged. Nothing will be done, however you can let them know that you are profoundly disappointed in them. Nobody likes to hear that.

More important, call House Majority Leader John Boehner at 202-225-6205, and urge him to bring the Animal Fighting Prohibition Enforcement Act to the House floor ASAP. The Senate passed theirs 19 months ago, so it can be signed into law after the House approves. It’s the least those  . . . people can do to try to redeem themselves after their demonstration of hostility toward our first amendment rights.

We don’t actually know what enforcement of this new law is going to look like, but it could start to look frighteningly Big Brother-ish, and I’m terrified that the United States is about to become a dangerous place for those who peacefully dissent.