Regardless of whether you are a Republican, Democrat, or Independent voter, now is the time for you to take action if you are concerned about animals who have been victimized by their owners by either being forced to participate in criminal activity such as dog fighting or neglected.
If you want to change how these animals are treated by our home state, contact your district’s elected state officials and ask them to sponsor the bill known as, “LRB 1643/1,” by 12pm on Friday, March 22, 2013. Please keep in mind that the deadline for your community’s state representatives to sponsor this bill is only two weeks from the date this article was published.
Earlier today, state senator, Tim Carpenter, asked his colleagues to co-sponsor bill, LRB 1643/1. In a memo sent to Carpenter’s fellow legislators, Carpenter explains that LRB 1643/1 attempts to “change state laws related to the custody and disposition of animals that are taken in[to] custody by a city, county, town or village.”
Among other things, LRB 1643/1 is drafted to prevent animals from being held until the charges against their presumably criminal owners are resolved. In the memo previously referenced, Carpenter explains that LRB 1643/1 attempts to enable these animals to be rehabilitated and re-homed by changing the current law to say that animals should only be held “for a period that is reasonable to allow the collection of evidence relating to the animal.” This change is meant to prevent animals from being held for months or, even worse, years, while their owners wait to stand trial, work out a plea deal, or have the charges against them dropped.
The proposed bill also attempts to enable courts to make owners reimburse the city, county, town, or village that seized their animals under Chapter 173 or Chapter 951 for the reasonable costs related to providing shelter and caring for their animals.
You can read the full text of the memo senator Carpenter sent to his political peers by clicking here.
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