The Hayden Bill
Email letter to supporters on 26 June 2004, from Rich Mc Lellan, MD
Governor
Schwarzenegger has reversed his plans to include the repeal of the Hayden Bill
in this year’s fiscal budget. We
need to be careful and vigilant but for the time being I take him at his word
and hope that we can move on to deal with other challenges in our goal to stop
the killing of abandoned pets in
The
reason why the Governor has changed his mind is because those of you who put
your personal lives aside for just long enough to connect with your legislative
representatives and the Governor, made thousands of phone calls, over whelmed
fax machines and brought state government to a momentary stand still while the
Governor tried to figure out what had happened.
An aide with many years experience in the Capitol said, “No one has
ever seen anything like it”. There
were heroes standing at fax machines, heroes continuing to dial telephone
numbers that were busy all day, heroes sending e-mails to friends, family,
compatriots and their elected representatives.
There were heroes surrounding the Governor’s office with dogs and cats
that had been saved by the Hayden legislation, heroes advising us from inside
government, aides, staff and consultants. There
were heroes reporting for the media that fought to get the information in a fair
balanced way on the front page of major newspapers and TV programming.
Assemblymembers Paul Koretz
and Lloyd Levine worked tirelessly over the two days to bring our battle to the
halls of power. They deserve our
continued and constant support. Through this all, there was someone else, a
proud, strong, street fighter who, even though he had been finally turned out by
the voters, still stood by to protect the shelter animals whose treatment he had
seen as the height of injustice in a less than perfect world.
Though he has moved on to other stages in his life,
Our
job to stop the killing is far from over. We
need to stop killing each other and of course innocent animals and children.
We have no ability to create these lives.
We must do everything in our power to carefully exam the reason when we
destroy one.
But,
irrespective of our individual philosophy, party, or circumstance, for one short
moment, by standing together, we saved the lives of creatures living today and
creatures as yet unborn.
I
know of no better reason to feel proud
We
have more work to do. Political
work, rescue work, shelter work education work, much of it demoralizing and
fatiguing. But for 48 hours
in June 2004, you, me, all of us, we spoke out, we worked together and we made
history.
Thank
you
Director,
Animal
Legislative Action Network