ShareThisCalifornia GOP Rep. Elton Gallegly was a kid when he got his first dog, a white mixed breed with a black spot on his eye.
The family called him Petey because he resembled the mutt in "The Little Rascals."
Since then, the Gallegly household has always had some sort of pet. The current four-legged resident is Bailey, a 12-year-old miniature poodle that loves kids and refuses to eat alone.
"He will only eat when you eat," Gallegly said. "He's a very social dog."
Who would've guessed? Gallegly, probably best known for his hard-edged stance against illegal immigration, is a real softie when it comes to animals.
Gallegly's affection for God's creatures has just landed him a new gig in Congress. The Simi Valley lawmaker has been tapped to co-chair the newly formed Congressional Animal Protection Caucus, a bipartisan group whose goal is to raise awareness of animal welfare issues.
"All too often, people look at some of these things and try to belittle them and say, 'Why is he more interested in saving Lassie than he is in saving the world?' " Gallegly said. "I think I can deal with issues that affect Lassie without compromising the focus that I have on (other) issues."
His interest in animal rights may not be widely known, but Gallegly has been involved in the cause for years and has been the force behind a number of bills to prevent animal abuse.
In 2007, for example, Gallegly successfully pushed legislation making it a felony to transport dogs, chickens or other animals across state or international borders for the purpose of fighting. Then-President George W. Bush signed the bill into law.
A decade earlier, Gallegly got legislation passed that allows federal law-enforcement canines to be donated to their handlers when the dogs can no longer perform their duties.
In 1999, he went after the perpetrators of so-called "animal crush videos" in which hamsters, rabbits and other animals were stomped to death by women. The deaths were recorded and the videotapes distributed to people who view them for sexual gratification. Gallegly's bill made the practice illegal and essentially shut the business down overnight.
Gallegly has been such an ardent champion of animal rights that the Humane Society of the United States honored him with its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003.
"He's really one of the best friends the Humane Society of the United States has ever had in Congress," said Wayne Pacelle, the group's president. "He's a leader on animal protection issues, and he has had an outstanding record of success."
Gallegly may seem like a surprising ally of the animal-rights movement because of his conservative politics, Pacelle said, but "that makes him a very effective advocate for the cause."
"When he's got one of these bills in his teeth, he just doesn't let it go," Pacelle said. "He's tenacious and is really focused on the goal of getting the legislation passed into law.
"He and I have been working on these bills for more than a decade, so he's not a Johnny-come-lately to the cause. We've seen time and again, when you do bad things to animals, you harm society in other ways."
Though he's a friend of animals, Gallegly said he is no friend of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals or the theatrics the organization sometimes uses to draw attention to animal abuse.
"I find the way they approach things is, quite frankly, disgusting," Gallegly said.
In his new role as co-chairman of the Congressional Animal Protection Caucus, Gallegly will be helping to push a number of bills, including proposals to ban the slaughter of horses and place stronger regulations on Internet sales of puppies.
It's not just animals that suffer when someone abuses a defenseless creature, Gallegly said. Eventually, he said, society pays a price because animal abuse is often tied to other crimes.
"If you look at folks who have had a history of cruelty to animals -- whether it be dog fighting or any number of things -- in later life, you see those folks graduating from animals to people," he said.
As for his own outlook, "I get along a lot better with children and animals than I do some of my adult friends," Gallegly said.
"Children and puppies, their love is unconditional. And they're also very vulnerable. I just think sometimes people lose sight of that."
(Contact Michael Collins of the Ventura County Star in California at collinsm(at)shns.com)
Petey from The Little
Petey from The Little Rascals was NOT a mutt! He was a Pit Bull, the very dogs that Gallegly's friends at HSUS think should be euthanised at birth.
Congressional Animal Protection Caucus
This should be renamed as the "Animal Prohibitionist Caucus" since it is being promoted by a hard core Animal Rights group that wants to end all animal ownership - HSUS
7 Things You Didn’t Know About HSUS
(the Humane Society of the United States)
1. The Humane Society of the United States(HSUS) is a “humane society” in name only, since it doesn’t operate a single pet shelter or pet adoption facility anywhere in the United States. During 2006, HSUS contributed only 4.2 percent of its budget to organizations that operate hands-on dog and cat shelters. In reality, HSUS is a wealthy animal-rights lobbying organization (the largest and richest on earth) that agitates for the same goals as PETA and other radical groups.
2. Beginning on the day of NFL quarterback Michael Vick’s2007 dog fighting indictment, HSUS raised money online with the false promise that it would “care for the dogs seized in the Michael Vick case.” The New York Times later reported that HSUS wasn’t caring for Vick’s dogs at all. And HSUS president Wayne Pacelle told the Times that his group recommended that government officials “put down” (that is, kill) the dogs rather than adopt them out to suitable homes. HSUS later quietly altered its Internet fundraising pitch.
3. HSUS’s senior management includes a former spokesman for the Animal Liberation Front(ALF), a criminal group designated as “terrorists” by the FBI. HSUS president Wayne Pacelle hired John “J.P.” Goodwin in 1997, the same year Goodwin described himself as “spokesperson for the ALF” while he fielded media calls in the wake of an ALF arson attack at a California veal processing plant. In 1997, when asked by reporters for a reaction to an ALF arson fire at a farmer’s feed co-op in Utah (which nearly killed a family sleeping on the premises), Goodwin replied, “We’re ecstatic.” That same year, Goodwin was arrested at a UC Davis protest celebrating the 10-year anniversary of an ALF arson at the university that caused $5 million in damage. And in 1998, Goodwin described himself publicly as a “former member of ALF.”
4.HSUS raised a reported $34 million in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, supposedly to help reunite lost pets with their owners. But comparatively little of that money was spent for its intended purpose. Louisiana’s Attorney General shuttered his 18-month-long investigation into where most of these millions went, shortly after HSUS announced its plan to contribute $600,000 toward the construction of an animal shelter on the grounds of a state prison. Public disclosures of the disposition of the $34 million in Katrina-related donations add up to less than $7 million.
5. After gathering undercover video footage of improper animal handling at a Chino, CA slaughterhouse during November of 2007, HSUS sat on its video evidence for three months, even refusing to share it with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. HSUS’s Dr. Michael Greger testified before Congress that the San Bernardino County (CA) District Attorney’s office asked the group “to hold on to the information while they completed their investigation.” But the District Attorney’s office quickly denied that account, even declaring that HSUS refused to make its undercover spy available to investigators if the USDA were present at those meetings. Ultimately, HSUS chose to release its video footage at a more politically opportune time, as it prepared to launch a livestock-related ballot campaign in California. Meanwhile, meat from the slaughterhouse continued to flow into the U.S. food supply for months.
6. According to a 2008 Los Angeles Times investigation, less than 12 percent of money raised for HSUS by California telemarketers actually ends up in HSUS’s bank account. The rest is kept by professional fundraisers. And if you exclude two campaigns run for HSUS by the “Build-a-Bear Workshop” retail chain, which consisted of the sale of surplus stuffed animals (not really “fundraising”), HSUS’s yield number shrinks to just 3 percent. Sadly, this appears typical. In 2004, HSUS ran a telemarketing campaign in Connecticut with fundraisers who promised to return a minimum of zero percent of the proceeds. The campaign raised over $1.4 million. Not only did absolutely none of that money go to HSUS, but the group paid $175,000 for the telemarketing work.
7. Research shows that HSUS’s heavily promoted U.S. “boycott” of Canadian seafood—announced in 2005 as a protest against Canada’s annual seal hunt—is a phony exercise in media manipulation. A 2006 investigation found that 78 percent of the restaurants and seafood distributors described by HSUS as “boycotters” weren’t participating at all. Nearly two-thirds of them told surveyors they were completely unaware HSUS was using their names in connection with an international boycott campaign. Canada’s federal government is on record about this deception, saying: “Some animal rights groups have been misleading the public for years … it’s no surprise at all that the richest of them would mislead the public with a phony seafood boycott.”
Want evidence? Visit www.AnimalScam.com • www.ActivistCash.com • www.consumerfreedom.com
Revised October 2008. Complete sources and documentation available upon request.