͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌To prevent cruelty to animals, we promote enacting and enforcing good public policies. To enact good laws, we must elect good lawmakers, and that’s why we remind voters which candidates care about our issues and which ones don’t. If you’d like to unsubscribe, click here. [[link removed]]

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Taking on Animal Cruelty and Its Consequences
Dear friend,
Republican and Democratic presidents have signed national anti-cruelty bills. Congresses controlled by Democrats and Republicans have passed those bills.
Americans don’t view stopping malicious cruelty to animals as a partisan issue. It’s a decency issue. Opposition to animal cruelty is a universal value.
Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence who more than two centuries ago sent the nation down the path of a democratic society that balanced freedom with the rule of law, had it right when he observed that “the strength of society lies in the enforcement of its laws.”
With the introduction last week of the Animal Cruelty Enforcement Act in the U.S. House — led by Reps. David Joyce, R-Ohio, Joe Neguse, D-Colo., Juan Ciscomani, R-Ariz., and Steve Cohen, D-Tenn. — a bipartisan team of lawmakers is honoring that principle. These lawmakers, from both political parties, are calling for the creation of an Animal Cruelty Crimes section within the U.S. Department of Justice, now headed by longtime animal advocate and new U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi.
The ACE Act puts prosecutors in place to focus on animal cruelty crimes so that the networks and individuals who commit violent and illegal acts against animals face consequences.
Animal cruelty is tied to human violence, other threats
In recent years, Congress passed the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act, the Animal Fighting Prohibition Enforcement Act, Pet and Women’s Safety Act, the original Animal Crush Video law, and the Dog and Cat Meat Protection Act.
Except for a modest run of dogfighting cases, federal enforcement actions against malicious cruelty have been timid, spotty, and, in some jurisdictions, non-existent.
It’s partly a matter of priority and structure. While the DOJ has divisions and sections devoted to enforcing other categories of law — civil rights, violence against women, and organized crime, for example — there are no dedicated resources for enforcing anti-cruelty laws.
Here’s why it matters:
* So many of the boys and young men involved in mass shootings started their descent into violence and mayhem by committing animal cruelty.
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* Despite state and federal prohibitions targeting them, there are hundreds of cockfighting pits and tens of thousands of traffickers of fighting animals who operate in our nation.
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* U.S.-based cockfighters are business partners with cartels and other organized crime associations, and they may be trafficking a million fighting animals to supply fighting pits in other nations, especially Mexico and the Philippines.
Animal Wellness Action has provided dossiers to DOJ on 94 major cockfighting traffickers, but just one of those individuals has been arrested and prosecuted. We’ve provided information on dozens of illegal cockfighting pits in Puerto Rico since federal law banned animal fighting there in 2019, yet not one case has been initiated. The same is true in Guam, where cockfighters illegally shipped and received more than 11,500 fighting birds during a recent five-year period.
By no measure is this an acceptable record of enforcement.
Cockfighting, dogfighting, animal-crush videos, bestiality, domestic violence, and other malicious forms of cruelty are almost never the work of upstanding citizens obeying laws and playing by the rules. These practices are typically bound up with organized crime, money laundering, narcotics trafficking, and so many other crimes.
Please write your U.S. Representative and your two U.S. Senators today and urge them to cosponsor the Animal Cruelty Enforcement Act and create capacity to enforce our anti-cruelty laws. [[link removed]]

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Our nation should have a zero tolerance policy for malicious cruelty.
For all animals,
Wayne Pacelle [[link removed]] Wayne Pacelle
President
Animal Wellness Action
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