Oppose - SB 1500

California State Senate

Committee on Public Safety

State Capital, room 2031

Sacramento, CA 95814

 

April 10, 2012

 

Re: CA SB 1500 (Lieu). Animal "protection" OPPOSE

 

Honorable Senators,

 

The California Federation of Dog Clubs, founded in 1990, represents thousands of dog owners across our state. We are advocates for animal welfare and for protecting the rights of responsible dog owners. The CFoDC conducts breed identification workshops for shelter workers, distributes a dog care and training brochure for new owners who adopt from shelters, and provides a 1-800 help line for pet owners struggling with behavior or training problems. We also maintain and administer a relief fund for animals affected by disasters such as earthquakes or fires. CFoDC supports animal legislation which positively benefits society.

 

The CFoDC is OPPOSED to SB 1500. This bill would allow for unprecedented abuse by agencies empowered with animal seizure authority. Public or private animal agencies would be granted the status of judge, jury and executioner in cases related to animals. Animal owners will be subject to capricious deprivation of their constitutional right to maintain ownership of their property. Even animal owners who are acquitted of the charges against them may be denied the return of their animal, depending on the whim of the seizing agency. We can bet that agents who have already decided that animals need to be removed from an owner's care will not be willing to return those animals even in the case of subsequent dismissal or acquittal.

 

This bill further declares that the owner or keeper is not entitled to an administrative postseizure hearing with the seizing agency. It expands on the unconstitutional tenets of last session's AB 1117 (Smyth), which requires "additional showings" for animal owners to retrieve animals that were unjustly seized. 

 

These assaults on ownership rights are being incrementally presented by the radical animal rights group, the Humane Society of the US, which is an avowed anti-hunting, anti-farming, and anti-animal ownership group. The California Federation of Dog Clubs, as a grassroots group dedicated to preserving the human-animal bond in our state, finds such proposals a blatant affront to the principles of due process in justice and protection of individual rights upon which our country was founded. We urge you to reject SB 1500.

 

Sincerely yours,

.

 

Geneva Coats, R.N.

Secretary, California Federation of Dog Clubs

 

CC: Loni Hancock, Joel Anderson, Ron Calderon, Tom Harman, Carol Liu, Curren Price, Darrell Steinberg