Midterm Election: Good News/Bad News

Allow me to start with the bad news so I can get it off my chest: What the f*ck is wrong with the voters of Florida? The majority actually voted against themselves by supporting Amendment 3. Did they not understand what it meant? Were they taken in by the dishonest, condescending commercial (narrated by a woman, I’m sad to report) mocking pregnant pigs (who often suffer in gestation crates, but not in Florida, thanks to the voters–including Animal Person–in 2002)?

Floridians voted against themselves because they made it more difficult for all of us to get amendments passed in the future. (Now we need a supermajority of 60% rather than a simple majority.) One of the things that made Florida a desirable place to live–other than the possibility, several times a year, that your house might be destroyed in a hurricane, and the certainty that you’ll never have a good hair day–was it was one of 24 states where the people had more power than they do in the other (about) half of the country to amend their state’s constitution. But now we’ve lost that edge. No, wait, we gave it up.

Okay, enough Florida-bashing. I could do it all day; there’s so much material. But we’ve gotta get to some good stuff.

• Three cheers for the people of Arizona, who came out in droves to stand up for farm animals and pass Proposition 204. This makes Arizona the second state in the country to ban veal crates! (Florida was the first. Hmmm. Maybe I’ll move to Arizona . . . It’s a dry heat.)
• Kudos to the fine people of Michigan, who smashed Proposal 3, which would have resulted in the target-shooting deaths of thousands of mourning doves (which, ironically, are the state’s official bird of peace. Really.).
• Thank heavens for Californians, who had the sense to oust Rep. Richard Pombo. I had to spend time each day learning about all of the things he did the day before against animals and the environment.
• Many senators who are animal-friendly have been re-elected, such as Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Olympia Snowe of Maine, Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, Hillary Clinton of New York, and Bill Nelson of Florida (praise God!).

Finally, say what you want about Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania (do NOT write me in a rage), but he really does want the best for animals, and he has been a champion for them, and he has not been re-elected. I’ll just stop there.

Now that that part is over, we have to make sure that the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act is stopped in its tracks. It seems like a no-brainer to me, but remember I’m the loser who thought Floridians wanted to maintain their power in the legislative process.

Silly me.

Go to www.stopaeta.org for all the dicey details about the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.