Legislative Committee

ASCA LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE MISSION STATEMENT

The Legislative Committee will serve the membership of ASCA by providing education, up to date information regarding legislation affecting pet ownership, and foster communication with the public as well as global, national, state, and local decision-makers in such matters. The Committee advocates responsible animal ownership and will inform the membership of any threat to our animal ownership rights.

You can view current legislative issues that may affect ASCA members here.

Current Committee Members

Chair, Jay Kiper (region 5) – [email protected]
Susan Beals (region 5) – [email protected]
Kristie Franks (region5) – [email protected]

The Legislative Committee is in need of members:

• Familiar with or wanting to learn about the animal rights agenda that threatens the right to own animals including pets, service animals and domestic livestock.
• Willing to keep up to date on the progress of problematic legislation at the Federal level and in their respective states
• Immediately available when critical legislative initiatives surface and be able to respond and work with the other committee members so the committee is able to meet time-sensitive deadlines

Please fill out the Application to Join an ASCA Committee if you are interested.

The Process: Typically, the committee will become informed of some legislative initiative that has the potential to negatively impact our ownership of our dogs or other domestic animals. Committee members need to read the proposed legislation, often onerous with vague definitions, and respond by a certain deadline, usually with very little time. Members then need to draft ASCA’s comments or position statements. Since we only communicate by email, this can be a fast and furious process of data gathering, researching the comments of fellow organizations, possible communication with the legislative or deciding body and drafting our response – all with constant re-writes and editing. Once we feel we have the final draft, it must be vetted by the BOD and legal counsel, which can entail more time and editing. Meeting the comment deadlines for pending legislation and getting information to our membership so they can also comment is critical.