Only the committee member from San Diego voted against. They are intent on pushing this through. Hobby breeding in California could really become illegal.
Posted from pet-law...
Boy, I hope those of you who were able, listened to the streaming audio from the AB 1634 hearing. It was a good intro to the sliminess of the AR position and supporters. Levine is effectively hard core --
whether he believes all that rubbish or has just been bought, I couldn't tell you.
Why is that man still in office?
The chair observed that there were a total of 229 (that would be 114 opposed, 115 supporting) signed in on both sides at the hearing of April 10th;
Levine started out by observing that 228 people testified in FAVOR of the bill. (There were actually only a few who were allowed to testify -- 3-4 on each
side.)
Asm. Price asked about amendments; Levine said the bill was narrowly tailored, that the problems had been fixed, that breeders refused to
negotiate.
Asm. Horton observed that S/N should be a local issue; her area San Diego had rejected a MSN bill. She felt that education was the answer.
Levine spoke for several minutes and quite passionately about the need for his bill in order to reduce the fiscal ($250,000,000 in costs) and
humanitarian (500,000 animals euthanthanized) impacts. He said that he had worked on this issue for nearly ten years, breeders were not
willing to tell him what to do about irresponsible breeding (again the statement that "I've never heard anyone say 'I'm an irresponsible breeder'") and it was time the Assembly stepped up to the problem.
The bill was voted out (passed); I think the vote was about 7:2 with one or two absent. The vote was announced by name but I wasn't fast enough writing and the chair didn't give the total -- just "The bill is out." Bill Maze was (remember our 'good guy'?) among those absent.
Don't take my word on the vote count -- it is only approximate.
Next stop -- if I understand things correctly -- the Appropriations Committee.
