Prop 2: We Are The Ones We've Been Waiting For

Before last week’s historic election and even with then-candidate Barack Obama leading in the polls, Democrats were privately (and not so privately) worrying about what “white America” would do in the privacy of the polling booth. What they did is no longer a mystery.

The New York Times columnist Frank Rich noted that “almost every assumption about America that was taken as a given by our political culture on Tuesday morning was proved wrong by Tuesday night.” According to Rich: "The most conspicuous clichés to fall, of course, were the twin suppositions that a decisive number of white Americans wouldn’t vote for a black presidential candidate—and that they were lying to pollsters about their rampant racism. But the polls were accurate. There was no 'Bradley effect.'"

In California, there was another equally revealing vote on November 4, 2008 and it too should shatter the myths we hold about the public. The animal movement has been living with its own “Bradley effect,” the notion that despite all the evidence to the contrary—the people we see at the dog park, the people we talk to in the lobby of our veterinarian’s office, the best selling books and top box office movies about animals, how much we spend on our pets, how many of us share our homes with animal companions, the demographics that show the immense compassion of a pet loving nation—that Americans are irresponsible and somehow don’t care enough about animals. And, the corollary which flows from this uncaring is that shelters in this country have no choice but to put to death roughly four million dogs and cats every year.

Thanks to the response by Californians to Proposition 2, that notion, too, has been proven wrong. Proposition 2 makes it illegal for animals on farms to be confined “in a manner that prevents such animal from: (a) Lying down, standing up, and fully extending his or her limbs; and (b) Turning around freely.” It’s a simple law but its reach is enormous, impacting about 90 percent of chicken farms in the country’s largest agricultural state. But it is so much more than that.

That is because Proposition 2 is an important bellwether of just how enormous the political capital of animals now is. The vote to outlaw battery cages for chickens, where hens are crammed into confined spaces the size of a desk drawer, may have had as its focus protecting animals on farms from what many see as the worst abuses of the factory farming system, but its resounding success at the polls has a far greater significance for all animals.

Supporters of Proposition 2, like the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) which spearheaded the initiative, are quick to point out that this new law (which also impacts how pigs and calves are housed) affects more animals than any ballot measure in U.S. history. But even this reading misses the mark of its political significance. The victory of Proposition 2—specifically its margin of victory—should not only shatter every notion we hold about people’s view of animals, but it also illustrates the ease with which we could end the pound killing of dogs, cats, and all the other companion animals currently being slaughtered by the millions.

By all measures but one, conventional wisdom says Proposition 2 should have failed.

California is the largest agricultural state in the country, and the opposition to Proposition 2, which outspent proponents by a three-to-one margin, argued that its passage would make California economically uncompetitive, would drive people out of business (or out of the State), and would increase the cost of eggs and other “groceries.” (They also argued it would make “food” less safe.)

In addition to the nine million dollars industry groups spent trying to defeat the measure; most newspapers around the State also opposed it. Arguably the state’s most liberal newspaper, The San Francisco Chronicle, urged its readers to vote against it, parroting industry arguments about its economic impact.

On top of that, political heavyweights in California and beyond also came out in opposition, including the California Farm Bureau, the California Small Business Association, and the Mexican American Political Association. Even the U.S. Department of Agriculture weighed in, spending taxpayer money on a campaign to try to defeat it (until a court ordered it to stop as an illegal use of its regulatory power).

And in an argument reeking with racial overtones, some opponents went so far as to pander to the worst elements of our society, claiming it would mean an influx of cheap, unhealthy, and possibly tainted eggs from Mexico—painting the picture of an onslaught of “undesirable” egg immigration from South of the border.

With pre- and exit-polling showing that the economy was the forefront concern on people’s minds as they cast their vote over a wide range of issues, including the selection of our next President, conventional wisdom should have made Proposition 2’s prospects appear grim. With roughly three-fourths of voters putting the economy, particularly loss of jobs, as the core issue for them this election; and, with the mainstream press and the initiative’s opponents arguing that Proposition 2 would mean loss of business, loss of jobs, and higher prices, conventional wisdom would dictate that the intent of the law—to give chickens more room in a factory farm—would not beat these other concerns in voters’ calculations.

But Proposition 2 passed. And it didn’t barely pass. It passed by the widest margin of any proposition in California, right up there with providing housing assistance to veterans. Roughly 80 percent of all counties in California approved the measure, three-fourths of all voters. By all accounts, it was nothing short of a landslide.

Why is this result so important?

This success was not limited to California. During the same election, Massachusetts voters ended greyhound racing. In 2007, Oregon voters followed Florida’s 2002 lead and banned gestation crates for pigs. And in 2006, Arizona voters passed a farm animal protection statute banning veal crates, while Michigan voters defeated a measure to increase hunting in the State. In short, we have discovered that despite all those things that separate us as Americans, people of all walks of life want to build a better world for animals.

But what makes the Proposition 2 vote especially significant is that Americans not only care about dogs and cats; they also care about animals with which they do not have a personal relationship. And if they none-the-less care so much about them, despite all the forces telling them voting for Proposition 2 was a bad idea, we need to put to bed, once and for all, the idea that dogs and cats need to die in U.S. shelters because people are irresponsible and don’t care enough about them.

What it means is that if HSUS and other organizations put some real effort into doing so—rather than legitimizing it—we could end shelter killing altogether. And we could do it today! Such a result would do infinitely more than give animals some elbow room before they are slaughtered, as the chickens in Proposition 2 will still be. It will actually prevent it, saving the lives of millions of animals every year. The prize is there for the taking. It is low hanging fruit.

And the only thing that prevents us from doing so is our movement’s own inaction, our movement’s own failure to stand up to those who would keep it shrouded in darkness, who would squander our donations and reform efforts on trying to make the public bend to our will, when we should be bending to theirs. To borrow a cliché: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Political “muscle.”

Since Wayne Pacelle took over the Humane Society of the United States, its budget has increased from $75 million to nearly $130 million per year, making it the largest and arguably most powerful animal welfare organization in the country. HSUS has amassed enormous resources, media capability, and—to use Pacelle’s favorite phrase—“political muscle,” all of it a reflection of the love people have for animals.

And the lesson in Proposition 2 is that the leveraging of this love in all of its manifestations (including HSUS’ financial and political largesse) can and should be used to effect change. Specifically, it can be used to end the tragic though deliberate policy of killing companion animals in U.S. shelters. Despite this game changing size, however, Pacelle and HSUS have proved to be no friend of shelter animals by continuing to provide political cover for shelter killing, and by failing to acknowledge and promote existing No Kill success while offering only token initiatives toward it.

For example, when public outcry erupted over a decision by a Louisiana HSUS-partner shelter to needlessly kill virtually every animal in its facility, HSUS did not condemn the action or come to the defense of activists working to end such practices; Pacelle and HSUS defended the shelter, arguing that the killing was legitimate and proper. More than 170 dogs and cats lay dead, the victims of a senseless and cruel slaughter by shelter management. A former shelter employee says she'll never forget the image: “they were all piled on top of each other, just lying there dead.” These actions by HSUS mirror those they have taken in Oregon, Washington, New York and elsewhere—with HSUS coming to the defense of kill-oriented shelters while undermining No Kill reform efforts.

Yet, ironically, in campaigning for Proposition 2, Pacelle and his team argued that since people would not treat pets the way animals in factory farms are treated (an acknowledgment of the American public’s deep concern for dogs and cats), they shouldn’t allow chickens, pigs, and calves to be treated in such a manner. “We wouldn’t force our pets to live in cramped cages,” argued supporters. “All animals, including those raised for food, deserve humane treatment.”

But that is exactly how dogs and cats are treated in the very shelters that HSUS champions, and their mass killing is the ultimate form of inhumane treatment. In fact, HSUS is the primary architect of the paradigm that says killing animals in shelters is an act of kindness, coining the abominable euphemism “putting them to sleep” which Bonnie Silva, in her book Fifteen Legs, states “cannot provide a thick enough gloss to conceal the disturbing, awful truth.”

While Pacelle has stated that focusing on farmed animals is his top priority, a campaign for a No Kill nation is not mutually exclusive, as the push toward No Kill would not detract from his focus on farmed animals and would, in fact, further that cause by setting a precedent regarding the sanctity of animal life—a seminal achievement in the struggle for greater rights for all animals. Moreover, in light of our knowledge and ability to end the killing, Pacelle cannot ignore his duty to overturn the deadly paradigm which HSUS created and which continues to provide political cover for shelter directors mired in such anachronisms.

Beginning with Phyllis Wright over forty years ago, HSUS abandoned what should have been its primary mission of ending the killing of companion animals in shelters and instead chose to champion a philosophy which excused killing, often promoted it, and cemented its hegemony, all of it at the expense of the animals. HSUS’ historical and present positions—which include the myths of pet overpopulation, that no one wants to kill, that killing is the public’s fault, that killing is kindness, and that shelters have no choice but to adopt a precious few and kill the rest; all of which have been proven false—have been the backbone of the infrastructure that is responsible for the mass extermination of dogs and cats in shelters. Every animal that enters a U.S. shelter today faces the very real potential for being killed as a direct result of the paradigm HSUS helped to create.

When Pacelle accepted the position of leading HSUS, he also inherited the responsibility to right those wrongs. Specifically, it is his duty to redirect the focus of HSUS’ Companion Animal Division, which has enormous authority and influence over how shelters in this country operate, to a position which champions life instead of death.

Reclaiming our movement.

Now that the verdict is in (people do care and they care by a wide margin), we must recognize that the battle to save companion animals is not against the public—which is on our side already. The battle is within—against the cowards of our movement who refuse to stand up to their colleagues and friends running shelters mired in the failed and defunct philosophies which allow (indeed, cause) killing. Our battle is against those who claim to be part of our movement but fail to recognize and call the mass killing of millions of animals every year the unnecessary and cruel slaughter that it is. It is against those who will not do for the animals that thing which is their solemn duty to do: to change themselves and to demand that their colleagues change, when that is what the situation calls for.

We know how to end the killing. Over the past five years, several animal control shelters in communities across the United States have embraced not only the No Kill philosophy, but the programs and services which make it possible. As a result, they are achieving unprecedented lifesaving success, saving in excess of 90 percent of all impounded animals. Not only are death rates plummeting and adoptions skyrocketing in these communities, but these results have been achieved in a very short period of time—virtually overnight—proving that saving lives is less a function of any perceived pet overpopulation, but rather of a shelter's leadership and practices.

In the history of animal protection, this news is seminal, as it harkens the fulfillment of the chief goal of the No Kill movement—ending the killing of savable animals in U.S. shelters. The formula for saving lives of over four million dogs and cats, and hundreds of thousands of other animals, has been discovered. And groups like HSUS, the ASPCA, and the American Humane Association should be working feverishly to ensure that this formula is replicated in every community across the country.

We can outlaw shelter killing of savable animals today.

The only thing standing between the system of mass killing we are living under today and the establishment of a No Kill nation we can immediately achieve is that the leadership of the large national organizations—men like Wayne Pacelle of HSUS and Ed Sayres of the ASPCA—refuse to act and seize this opportunity. What is keeping us from widespread No Kill success is their own determination to fail; to ensure that the paradigm they have championed for so long is not upended; by blocking reform efforts which challenge their hegemony; and by protecting and defending draconian shelter practices, uncaring shelter directors, and squandering the great love people have for companion animals.

With the ASPCA or HSUS leading the charge, our nation could very easily, and without any real opposition, outlaw the shelter killing of savable companion animals. Imagine if the ASPCA or HSUS put their political “muscle” behind the reform represented and codified by a law such as the Companion Animal Protection Act, (CAPA) which follows the only model that has actually created a No Kill community; focuses its effort on the very shelters that are doing the killing; and mandates the programs and services which have proven so successful at lifesaving in shelters which have implemented them.

If one of them were to champion a CAPA-type law in any given community, and they didn’t have themselves to contend with distorting the truth or misleading the public, who would oppose such an effort? What animal control director would dare to challenge the HSUS political muscle and the will of their community with no large organization to legitimize their refusal to change or to parrot their diversionary platitudes about public irresponsibility?

Only time will tell how long they will allow allegiance to their kill-oriented colleagues, to their antiquated philosophies, and to their failed models, to hold them back from the success they and this movement can achieve the moment they decide to embrace it. But their refusal to lead does not mean we have to accept the status quo. And just because Pacelle and Sayres are cowards who refuse to stand up to their friends or do what is right, doesn’t mean the rest of us have to be. As Frank Rich noted, "So even as we celebrated our first black president, we looked around and rediscovered the nation that had elected him. 'We are the ones we’ve been waiting for,' Obama said in February, and indeed millions of such Americans were here all along, waiting for a leader. This was the week that they reclaimed their country."

It is time for us to reclaim our movement, too.