THE 2023 MISSOURI LEGISLATIVE SESSION COMES TO A CLOSE

ANIMALS VICTORIOUS!

Once again, this year, there was an onslaught of harmful bills in the state legislature that sought to repeal or seriously weaken our existing state laws protecting animals. Due to your support, the Alliance was able to thwart all of the many efforts to weaken our animal protection laws this session.

We are especially pleased to report that we were successful in defeating legislation this session that would have eliminated or severely restricted our disposition process for abused and neglected animals. Shockingly, legislation that could have left abused and neglected animals in the possession of their abusers passed in the House of Representatives. Fortunately, we were able to defeat this dangerous legislation in the Senate, where it came down to the wire.  

We are also delighted to report that we successfully stopped several bills that were intended to prohibit municipalities from banning the sale of dogs and cats in pet stores. Such legislation would have even prohibited municipalities from effectively regulating pet stores that sell dogs and cats. Petland and the puppy mill industry were relentless in their efforts to pass this legislation to protect inhumane puppy mills and the unethical practices of selling dogs and cats in pet stores. This was a fight to the finish, as several bills were still very much in play during the last weeks of the session, but the animals prevailed.  

Cats celebrating their victory over SB 115

We are especially elated to have defeated SB 115, which passed the Senate, but the Alliance was able to stop it from being voted on in the House. This bill was intended to overturn the ordinances enacted by the City of St. Louis and St. Louis County that prohibit veterinarians from declawing cats. Most unfortunately, the bill went even further by prohibiting any restrictions or regulations on veterinarians by the local government, regardless of how cruel or abusive the practice might be. Many agricultural groups were very supportive of this legislation as they sought to prohibit counties from enacting bans on cruel practices by veterinarians occurring at factory farms.

The efforts to undermine our animal welfare laws this year in the state legislature once again consisted of outright lies by those seeking to overturn our animal protection laws and included personal and slanderous attacks against the Alliance for our unwavering efforts in advocating for the welfare of the animals. While we have encountered similar attacks in the past, such incidences became extreme this year in the effort to pass SB 115, including physical threats being made against Alliance staff.  Of course, the Alliance did not back down from our efforts to defeat SB 115, and we remained unyielding in our struggles to protect the animals, and we were able to defeat all of the harmful bills and preserve our legal protections for the animals of Missouri.  

Thanks to your generous support, the Alliance was able to be a voice for the animals with our state legislature once again this year and help stop many bad bills.

PLEASE HELP TO CONTINUE THE WORK OF THE ALLIANCE