Oct. 10, 2016 – The Humane Society Legislative Fund today announces its endorsement of Hillary Clinton for President, and the launch of a new ad campaign to inform voters that a Donald Trump presidency would be a threat to animals everywhere. In our view, Trump represents the greatest threat ever to federal policy-making and implementation of animal protection laws, and we are taking the unusual step of wading actively into a presidential campaign.
HSLF has members who are Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, and supports lawmakers and candidates from all over the political spectrum. We evaluate candidates based on a single, non-partisan criterion—their support for animal protection—and do not default to one party or the other.
The next president will have an enormous impact over animal protection in this country for the next four to eight years, and the stakes are high with policy decisions overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Institutes of Health, and other executive agencies. When you consider the potential for advancing animal welfare reforms at the federal level, or rolling back the recent gains and rulemaking actions, there could not be a greater contrast among the White House hopefuls. One ticket has a clear, compelling record of support for animal protection, while the other has assembled a team of advisors and financial supporters tied in with trophy hunting, puppy mills, factory farming, horse slaughter, and other abusive industries. The names that Trump’s campaign has floated for engagement on Interior and Agriculture department issues are a “who’s who” of zealous anti-animal welfare activists.
We’ve all seen the gruesome photographs of Trump’s adult sons documenting their trophy kills, which include a leopard, Cape buffalo, waterbuck, and other exotic creatures. Donald Jr. even holds up the tail of an African elephant he’s apparently shot. Both African elephants and leopards are listed as “threatened” with extinction under the provisions of the U.S. Endangered Species Act. That means that the Trump sons use their fortunes and vacation time to travel the world amassing the heads and hides of the rarest and most majestic animals on earth—a pastime more on par with the type of killing done by Walter Palmer (the wealthy dentist who shot Cecil the lion) than it is with rank-and-file sportsmen or conservationists.
Troublingly, Donald Jr. has even been floated as a possible Interior Secretary. Both sons at the very least would be Trump’s top advisors and strategists on trophy hunting issues. The risk of having a globe-trotting trophy hunter at or near the helm at Interior, or having the ear of the President, should be a terrifying prospect for any animal advocate. The administration is responsible not only for policies involving hundreds of millions of acres of federal lands, but also wildlife law enforcement, international treaties on trade and conservation, and import policies for wild animal parts and trophies.
It’s not just family members floated for cabinet posts. Politico reported that oil tycoon Forrest Lucas is a “front-runner” to be Interior Secretary, in addition to serving as a member of Trump’s agriculture advisory committee. Lucas is the money man behind the so-called Protect the Harvest, a front group devoted to fighting animal welfare organizations at every turn, on everything. A peevish advocate for trophy hunting, puppy mills, and big agribusiness, Lucas has never met a case of animal exploitation he wouldn’t defend. He personally financed an attack on Proposition B in Missouri—one of the animal welfare movement’s most important ballot measures, designed to impose humane breeding standards for dogs and crack down on puppy mills.
Lucas and his group also opposed efforts to establish felony-level penalties for malicious cruelty against dogs, cats, and horses; promote the spaying and neutering of pets; and provide adequate shelter for dogs to protect them from the elements. He formed a super PAC specifically to defeat animal advocates.
Recent reports suggest that Iowa factory farming mogul Bruce Rastetter may be Trump’s leading candidate for Secretary of Agriculture. Rastetter has made a fortune off the kind of industrial agricultural practices that family farmers and animal advocates have fought for decades, and was connected to Trump through New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who vetoed a state ban on cruel pig gestation crates in a sop to Iowa’s pork industry. Considering Rastetter’s brother is CEO of a company that builds gestation crates, we have good reason to be concerned about the potential for crony capitalist dealings in a Trump administration.
Other agriculture advisors to Trump include: Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad and former Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman, both of whom signed onto the federal lawsuit to invalidate California’s law restricting the sale of eggs from barren battery cages; former Iowa state Rep. Annette Sweeney, who along with Branstad ushered the nation’s first “ag-gag” bill into law to punish whistleblowers and shield agribusiness from public scrutiny; Texas state agriculture commissioner Sid Miller, who called Meatless Mondays “treasonous”; Oklahoma state Sen. Eddie Fields, author of the bill overturning the state’s 50-year ban on horse slaughter for human consumption; Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, who signed that horse slaughter bill into law; and Missouri state Sen. Brian Munzlinger, who sponsored bills to weaken the voter-approved standards for puppy mills and deregulate canned hunts. Trump is surrounding himself with the leading anti-animal advocates in the United States, and at this stage, it appears many of them will not only have a front row seat in the Trump administration, but they’ll be at the steering wheel as a Trump administration examines food and agriculture and wildlife policy issues.
While Trump has advocates for trophy hunting, puppy mills, factory farming, and horse slaughter on his side, Hillary Clinton has a strong record of taking a stand against many of these issues. She published an animal welfare statement on her campaign website, noting that “[t]he way our society treats animals is a reflection of our humanity.” Clinton highlights the humane issues she plans to tackle as President, as well as her strong record on animal protection in the U.S. Senate and as Secretary of State. She pledges to crack down on abuses such as wildlife trafficking, puppy mills, and horse slaughter, and to support a federal anti-cruelty statute and more humane treatment of farm animals.
During her eight years in the U.S. Senate, Clinton was a strong and consistent supporter of animal protection policies, earning a 100 percent score on the Humane Scorecard in the 108th Congress, a perfect 100+ score in the 109th, and an 83 in the 110th. She co-sponsored legislation dealing with horse slaughter and animal fighting, as well as bills to stop the processing of “downer” livestock and crack down on abusive puppy mills where dogs are treated like production machines. She led efforts in the 108th and 109th Congresses to stop the overuse of antibiotics in farm animals, which allow them to be crammed into overcrowded, stressful, and unsanitary factory farms. As a Senator, Clinton also signed letters requesting more funds for the U.S. Department of Agriculture to step up enforcement of the Animal Welfare Act, the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, and the federal animal fighting law. During the 2008 campaign, she voiced concern over the slaughter of sick and injured cows whose meat was channeled into the national school lunch program. As Secretary of State, Clinton led international efforts to crack down on wildlife trafficking.
She continued her leadership on animal protection later through the Clinton Foundation, and helped to launch a major campaign to fight the illegal ivory trade and poaching of elephants. It’s telling that the Clintons saw animal protection as part of the larger landscape for charitable work and important enough to be included among their philanthropy. Trump is a billionaire but does not seem to have much in the way of charitable instincts at all. He says he’s given millions to charity, but the Washington Post reported that Trump made only one charitable gift between 2008 and May 2016, totaling less than $10,000; and used funds from the Donald J. Trump Foundation to buy a six-foot-tall portrait of himself and to settle lawsuits involving his for-profit business. By contrast, Bill and Hillary Clinton personally gave just under $15 million during roughly that same period (2007 to 2014), or around 10% of their total income. That doesn’t account for the Clinton Foundation, which has raised over $2 billion for global health and wellness, economic development and climate change reduction efforts (and more) around the world.
While the Clintons have owned pets much of their adult lives, it appears that Donald Trump never has. If elected, Trump would be the first president since Harry Truman without a pet in the White House. It’s hardly unusual for pets in our lives to humanize us, and to bring into sharper focus the importance of national policies to help animals. The Clintons seem to have long felt the pull of animals, while the Trumps have not, with two Trump sons being better known for killing animals as a recreational pursuit. Donald Trump has even called for the Food and Drug Administration to stop regulating pet food—not long after thousands of dogs and cats were sickened or died from consuming contaminated pet food and treats. It’s hard to imagine that he empathizes with the two-thirds of American households who have beloved pets as part of their families.
When HSLF evaluates the presidential contenders, it’s important to look at their running mates, too. U.S. Senator Tim Kaine is currently a co-sponsor of the Prevent All Soring Tactics (PAST) Act to strengthen the federal law against the “soring” of show horses—using caustic chemicals and other painful substances to injure the horses’ hooves and legs to induce a high-stepping gait. When he previously served as Governor of Virginia, he was attentive to animal issues, and signed legislation strengthening laws against animal fighting, restricting the operation of puppy mills, requiring a bittering agent in antifreeze to prevent poisoning of animals, and maintaining a ban on the use of gas chambers for animal euthanasia.
When Mike Pence served in Congress from 2001 to 2013, he had more of a mixed record on animal protection, with scores on the HSLF Humane Scorecard ranging from 0 to 56. He supported legislation on animal fighting, crush videos, pets in disasters, service dogs for veterans, and horse slaughter, but opposed animal welfare measures on primates as exotic pets, stopping the slaughter of downer livestock, importing sport-hunted polar bear trophies, killing Yellowstone bison, protecting wild horses from slaughter, prohibiting bear baiting on federal lands, and conserving rare cats and canids, sea otters, marine turtles, and cranes. As governor of Indiana, he signed a pro-animal bill requiring animal shelters to spay or neuter dogs and cats before adoption. His addition to the ticket does little to assuage concerns about whether or not a Trump administration would be supportive of animal-friendly policy initiatives.
Americans who care about protecting wildlife, combating large-scale cruelties like animal fighting and puppy mills, securing humane treatment of animals in agriculture, and addressing other challenges that face animals in our nation, must become active over the next few weeks to elect a president who shares our values. Please sign our pledge, and spread the word that voters who care about the humane treatment of animals—whether they are Democrats, Republicans, or Independents—should vote for Hillary Clinton for President.
HSLF is a nonpartisan organization that evaluates candidates based only on a single criterion: where they stand on animal welfare. HSLF does not judge candidates based on party affiliation or any other issue.