http://www.kcra.com/politics/13660376/detail.html

Pet Sterilization Bill Will Be Put On Hold
Levine Says Legislation Lacks Needed Support

POSTED: 5:59 am PDT July 11, 2007
UPDATED: 7:36 am PDT July 11, 2007

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- A controversial bill that would require mandatory spaying and neutering of most California cats and dogs will be shelved, the author told KCRA 3 in an exclusive interview Wednesday morning.

Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, D-Van Nuys, said he planned to pull AB 1634 following a scheduled hearing before the state Senate Local Government Committee.

"It pains me to have to tell everybody this, but I've been reading the handwriting on the wall and it doesn't look like we have the votes," Levine said.

Levine said the legislation is needed to curb the number of unwanted pets that end up being euthanized. But the bill is opposed by a number of dog breeder organizations.

Levine said he was disappointed and saddened that he had to drop the bill for now.

"Not only, as you know, do we have ... hundreds of thousands of dogs and cats suffering in animal shelters, but we're spending hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money on that, and unfortunately the tactics of my opponents have just made it such that we can't move on," Levine said.

Levine added that it was too early to tell when and if the legislation will be reintroduced.

"We need some time to regroup," he said.

Great news!!!! I hope it never comes back.

That's fantastic!!!

This story was on the today show today.Telling about it.They how ever said they hadn't made a decision yet.

I live in Sacramento and they haven't made a decision on whether or not to bring the bill back in some other form at a later date but for now Levine has pulled AB1634 for the rest of this legislative year.

We've won a small victory but you know this is going to come back sooner or later and we must continue to fight mandatory spay/neuter if we are going to preserve the bloodlines of our purebred dogs owned & bred by responsible individuals.

We can't let our guard down. It can indeed reappear. Trusting Levine to keep his word is like trusting satan.

It will be back at the next session in January so we need to keep working on getting the no votes until Levine introduces it again.
He always has something up his sleeve and I'am not surprised at his early morning announcement.

What I found interesting was the difference in "spin" on the premise of the bill with the various news organizations that were reporting about the shelving of AB 1634 today.
National Public Radio reported that it was a "spay/neuter" bill that would definitely decrease the euthanasia of strays at the shelters. "Breeder groups" were reported to be the opposition that squashed this worthy bill, or words to that effect. What? NPR?????
My thought was that reasonable people who could point out the faults in this proposed bill had not contacted NPR, and they just came up with "whatever" before their newscast.
Then I heard the report on a local TV station, KFMB in San Diego that reported, more accurately, that the bill was too complex the way it was presented and that there were "major problems" with it that prevented it's passage.
I'm sure there were many versions of the reporting of this bill, just found it interesting.
What all this says to me is that those who oppose this bill need to stay united (and it's NOT just breeders!) and become experienced at media presentation, because the battlefield that this bill will be waged on next verson will be in the media. Money will be needed by the legitimate groups who are fighting this for classy, intelligent TV and radio ads.
Because this bill has been shelved for now, it gives us a little time to mount a positive, savvy media campaign (with money to back it) for the next version of the mandatory spay-neuter bill, and hire political professionals to help fight it on the political level.
I will never again take it for granted that a restrictive bill such as AB 1634 could never pass...it almost did! The Animal Rights Activists are very, very politically savvy and know all the tricks and we were almost caught looking in the other direction!