By: John Holland November 5rd, 2006
We are coming up on mid-term elections that could finally break the roadblocks to passage of the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act. This report is to update you on the current situation and on what ramifications the election may have on it.
The current situation
At this moment, the AHSPA (American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act) is awaiting a vote in the Senate as S.1915 after passing the House as HR.503. The wording of the two bills is identical, and will remain so unless the Senate attaches amendments. It is also possible that the Senate could vote on HR.503 itself. There can be no doubt it will pass the Senate if it gets a vote, but that is anything but certain.
Many people have been told by Senate staffers that S.1915 may not be voted on by the Senate before January or February of next year. This is misinformation and is most probably intended to placate proponents until after the election. If the AHSPA is not voted on by the Senate when it re-convenes after the election for the brief lame duck session, the bill will die at the end of the year and will have to be reintroduced next year. That means at least another year of slaughter, and the USDA slaughter numbers are going up astronomically.
The anti-slaughter movement has grown rapidly, but as it has neared success, the opposition has pulled out all the stops to block this legislation. Power brokers such as the cattlemen, who have always feigned indifference, have now stepped out from the shadows and begun to campaign actively to block the AHSPA. Despite an incredible response by horse lovers, there is only a modest chance that S.1915 will get to the floor before the 109th Congress ends. If it does not get a vote, our House win will have been yet another in a series of hollow victories.
A recent history of the AHSPA
To understand how we have been defeated repeatedly by arguably the most despised, foreign owned “industry” in our country, you must understand how power really works at the federal level. The three branches of government are; the Executive (the President and his cabinet); the Congress (the Senate and House); and the Judiciary (the courts and judges).
The House of Representatives and the Senate together create the laws and control the budgets. The President can veto a law or a budget but most Presidents are reluctant to do so in any but the direst of circumstances. Congress can over-ride a veto with a 2/3rds majority vote. There are two senators per state, but each state has a number of representatives proportional to its population. There are thus 435 Representatives and 100 Senators. All representatives come up for re-election every two years, while Senators have a 6 year term and only 1/3rd of all Senators face re-election every other year.
Both the House and the Senate are broken down into committees. These committees control laws governing various aspects of the government like interior, defense, commerce, agriculture, etc. The majority party in each house appoints chairpersons of all the committees in that house, and this the real source of power in Congress. If a party has one more seat than the other party, they appoint all the chairpersons, and thus have total control of the bills introduced by that house.
A new law starts as a bill and it must be introduced by one or more “sponsors” in both the House and the Senate. The bill is placed in the appropriate committee depending on what aspect of government it pertains to. In the House, the current AHSPA is called HR.503 and in the Senate it is called S.1915. Members of the House and Senate can then show their support of a bill by signing up as “co-sponsors”. Theoretically, the committee holding the bill should take this support into consideration when deciding whether to release the bill onto the House or Senate floor for a vote. In reality the final decision lies with the Chairperson of that committee.
HR.857 (the AHSPA back in the 108th Congress) was introduced into Bob Goodlatte’s Agriculture Committee in 2003 and had an almost unprecedented 224 cosponsors when it expired at the end of 2004. Only 218 votes are required for passage, so HR.857 would certainly have passed but Bob Goodlatte simply ignored the co-sponsors and his own constituents and blocked it. Such is the power of a chairman. In a letter to his colleagues dated January 15th, 2004, Goodlatte and his ranking minority leader Charles Stenholm (D-TX) stated “Many fail to realize that this legislation would do more harm than good for the treatment of unwanted horses.” But the truth of their motives is reflected in the campaign contributions they both received. Most of these came from meat packers and agri-business, and many came directly from horse slaughter lobbyists and their allies.
Goodlatte is the representative of the 6th district of Virginia, but his real allegiance lie elsewhere. His promotion to Chairman of the Agriculture Committee had been something of a surprise since he was jumped over several more senior members of the committee. He gained the position with the help of a powerful group of Republicans from Texas and as part of the bargain he appears to have been given an aide named Brent Gattis. Brent is the son of Dan Gattis Sr., a prominent cattle rancher in Texas, and general manager of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.
Texas has two of the three horse slaughter plants in the US, and yet there was a Texas law, long un-enforced, that should have prohibited horse slaughter. Brent Gattis’ brother (Dan Jr.) was a Texas state representative and he worked to get a state bill passed to make horse slaughter legal in Texas. The bill failed, but then a judge ruled that the old Texas law against horse slaughter violated federal control of interstate commerce. That ruling is being appealed by the Texas Attorney General, but the process takes years and meanwhile BelTex and Dallas Crown continue to slaughter horses.
The fact is that both Goodlatte’s former minority leader Stenholm and his aide Brent Gattis were not at all interested in the welfare of unwanted horses but rather were in thick with the horse slaughter industry. The proof of this came when both men slipped through the famous Washington revolving door and joined the lobbying firm of Olsson, Frank and Weeda. They are now full time paid lobbyists for the horse slaughter industry.
A few years ago many of us began to sense that despite broad bi-partisan support we were up against a much better organized opponent than could be seen on the surface. We originally thought that organizations like the Cattlemen’s associations and the AVMA (American Veterinary Medicine Assoc) had little real interest in horse slaughter, but we were very wrong. We had also believed that Goodlatte was acting more or less alone. Again we were dead wrong. Worse yet, we did not realize that despite the overwhelming support the AHSPA had in Congress, the opposition controlled all the key gate keepers of power. We were to be taught this lesson in ambush after ambush.
In 2005, the new AHSPA was introduced into the Energy and Commerce committee as HR.503. This was a move to avoid Goodlatte’s control. This was accomplished by removing any wording that forbids the act of slaughter itself which would clearly fall under agriculture. Instead the bill prohibits things like shipment, receiving, selling, owning, and donating a horse for the purpose of slaughter for human consumption. These are commerce activities.
Meanwhile, on June 8th, 2005, an interim measure was introduced as amendment 236 to the annual 2006 agriculture budget (HR.2744). This amendment was introduced by John Sweeney (R-NY) and Ed Whitfield (R-KY) in the House and by John Ensign DVM (R-NY) in the Senate. Senator Byrd (D-WV) also sponsored the amendment and it passed both houses by overwhelming majorities. The amendment was meant to withhold funding for federal inspection of horse meat. Without such inspection horse meat could not be sold for human consumption. Slaughter should have ended for one year beginning October first of 2005. It was not to happen.
When a bill has passed both houses it is sent to a “conference committee” where differences between the House and Senate versions are arbitrated and a compromise bill is sent back to both houses for a final vote. The chairman of the conference committee was Henry Bonilla (R-TX). Since both the House and Senate versions of the amendment had identical language, it was not expected that the conference committee would tamper with it. They did. Just days before they were to meet, a staffer leaked that Bonilla intended to throw the amendment out wholesale!
Most of us had never heard of Bonilla, so I ran a simple google search with his name and Bob Goodlatte’s. The results were a shock. Their names appeared together again and again in battles to thwart the implementation of COOL (a law that would help American producers by requiring the country of origin be marked on most meat and produce). They also appeared to be in lock-step promoting allowing “downer” cows back into the food supply.
A check of open secrets showed the final connection between Bonilla and Goodlatte. Both men had received large campaign contributions from the same groups. These groups included the AVMA, the AQHA, and lobbyists for the horse slaughter plants like Jim Bradshaw. In fact the complex patterns of donations were almost identical!
We started a hugely successful fax and phone campaign contacting all of the members of the committee. With overwhelming public visibility, the members would not go along with Bonilla’s plan to discard the amendment completely, but instead they allowed Bonilla to place a 120 day delay on its implementation.
Agriculture secretary Mike Johanns used this delay to put in place a “pay for inspection” plan that allowed the slaughter plants to thwart the intent of congress and to continue slaughtering horses. The plan appeared to violate standing statutes (e.g. the Federal Meat Inspection Act), so animal welfare groups filed a suit to block the plan. A federal judge dismissed the important claims of the law suit on standing, meaning the action of Johanns did not affect the plaintiffs directly so they could not sue. Our victory had been hollow and meaningless.
The move by Johanns was so audacious that it cannot be doubted that his action was at the behest of the man who appointed him and for whom he works; President George W. Bush (R-TX). This action was a direct affront to Congress, but Johanns weathered the ire of the sponsors and slaughter went on. The only hope for 2006 was then the AHSPA which was in the Commerce committee.
The chairman of this committee is Republican Joe Barton. And yes, Barton is a Republican from Texas! In April a staffer for Barton bragged that he intended to do exactly as Goodlatte had and block the bill. A second staffer confirmed the statement. But this obstructionism was too “in your face” even for the House leadership. Barton was thus requested to release the bill from his committee for a vote (even though the House leadership recommended against the bill).
Knowing this was going to happen, Goodlatte “recalled” a copy of the bill into his Agriculture committee where he held a Kangaroo Court of slaughter proponents and marked up half a dozen poison pill amendments to the bill to attempt to destroy it.
Both the original version of HR.503 and Goodlatte’s version were sent to the rules committee. The decision of the committee was to allow a vote on the original version and on two of Goodlatte’s poison pill amendments. Both of Goodlatte’s amendments were defeated and HR.503 passed by the overwhelming vote of 263 to 146.
But was this just a hollow victory designed to keep the proponents happy while letting the industry go on slaughtering our horses? By releasing the bill very close to the end of the session, the House made if very unlikely that the Senate would vote on it before the election recess. Worse, the clerk of the House erroneously sent Goodlatte’s version of the bill to the Senate, and it took two weeks to correct the error.
The bottom line:
The anti-slaughter movement has always attempted to keep the issue of horse slaughter a bi-partisan affair for several reasons including the fact that most of the sponsors of the AHSPA are Republican, and we have many important supporters in the party. Furthermore, many horse owners who are needed for grass roots support are Republican. Even so, it is impossible to ignore the fact that 81% of the Democrats in the house voted for HR.503, only 49% of Republicans did so. In the Senate, 43% of the Democrats are already co-sponsors of S.1915, but only 18% of Republicans have co-sponsored.
But the real power is in who controls the gate keepers like Goodlatte, Bonilla, Johanns and Barton. The pattern is clear. The Texas elite of the Republican Party control every power point in Congress and in the Executive. The AHSPA has been blocked by each of these individuals in turn.
Three things can now happen:
First, the Senate can return from the elections, regardless of the outcome, and vote on and pass S.1915. If this happens, it is unlikely President Bush will veto it, but a vote is anything but assured at this point. If, however, the Democrats gain control of the Senate (which will not be effective until the new year), then the Republicans are going to be working overtime to pass everything they can before they lose control, and the chances of the AHSPA getting to a vote are even smaller.
If the Senate does not vote on the AHSPA, but the Democrats gain a majority in the House, then even if Bonilla, Goodlatte, and Barton are reelected they will lose their chairmanships and their power. Without these they are just another vote on a playing field where we have the advantage. In the calculus of power, every seat won by a Democrat (especially in the House) is one step closer to passage of AHSPA. Ironically, even if every seat won was taken from an anti-slaughter Republican by a pro-slaughter Democrat it would be sad, but still a step toward breaking the unbridled abuse of power that is keeping the horses streaming into slaughter. Even so, it is important not to forget that we owe our support to our sponsors and cosponsors from both parties.
Finally, if the Senate does not vote, and the Republicans maintain control of the House, the outlook for passage of the AHSPA before the end of the 110th Congress (2008) is bleak. It is generally assumed that the Senate is a more friendly environment for the AHSPA, but if it does not vote on it this year that could herald hidden opposition within the Republican leadership there as well.
I hope this helps everyone understand what the stakes are on Tuesday.
John Holland