A proposal to prohibit veterinarians from surgically eliminating cats from cats seems to be an easy sale for California legislators, several of which describe with love their pets in their official biography pages.
After all, several cities in the United States, the states and more than 30 countries have already banned veterinarians to perform a declawing, arguing that it is cruel and unnecessary. The American Veterinary Medical Association has discouraged for at least five years the veterinarians to carry out surgeries.
But five different efforts since 2018 to prohibit declawing in California have due to the resistance of the influential veterinary medical association of California, which has spent $ 1 million in lobbying that time. It is a demonstration of the power of money and spending in Sacramento, when the apparently non -controversial proposals are neglected.
The Alex Lee Assembly, a Democrat who represents the Milpitas area, hopes that this year will be different.
Lee described the procedure last week in graphic terms when he urged his colleagues about the Business and Profession Committee of the Assembly to advance in his 867 Assembly Law, which would prohibit surgery, except in rare cases in which claws are taken away. Necessary medaxy.
“The Declawing cat is serious surgery, with the elimination of the final articulation of a cat, or its tendons,” said Lee, who has two cats, Udon and Soba. “I think that when it is a performance for any Reasson other than the health of the cat, so I think it is cruel and inhuman.”
Lee brought a poster that showed what a disclation in a cat’s leg in a human hand would be like. The dotted lines showed where their fingers would be cut in the joint under the nail.
Jennifer Conrad, a veterinary representation The Paw Project, brought its own accessory: a cigarettes.
“It is the equivalent of bar this cigarette cutter and cutting each of my last phalanges in my hand,” he told the committee.
Christina Dicaro, lobbyist with the Veterinary Medical Association of California, said that many of the members of the association have stopped voluntarily declared.
“They point out that they have not carried out a Declaw procedure in many, many years,” he told the committee. “And if they did, he was the owner of his human client who was in a fine blood and could not risk his cat scratched him.”
But she said that her group is mainly opposed to the bill because veterinarians do not want the legislature to issue what practices can use. Lee’s bill would also require veterinarians who perform surgery for medically necessary reasons to inform the California veterinary licenses Board.
“We suspect that only this language is in the bill is for animal activists to obtain this information, veterinarian names through a request for public records and point to our workers’ professionals,” Dicaro told the Committee.
The Association has donated at least $ 62,650 to the members of the Committee since 2015, cordination to the Digital Democracy Database. In total, the Association has donated $ 677,500 to members of the Legislature since 2015.
His arguments, and the cash of the association’s campaign, did not persuade the committee’s Democrats. The 12 attendees voted for the bill.
The Democratic Assembly of Los Angeles, Jessica Caloza, told the committee the “thought of declare my son Cat to make my stomach run out.”
The Republican Brea Assembly, Phillip Chen, joined the Democrats to support the measure, but the other four Republicans in the Committee did not vote, which tells the same as voting “no.” As Calmatters has reported, the generalized practice of dodging difficult votes allows legislators to avoid responsibility. None of the Republicans spoke at the audience.
Meanwhile, the Democratic President of the Committee, Marc Berman, representing Palo Alto, used the measure as an excuse to make words of groan induce cats.
“This bill is wonderful,” he said.
The previous attempts have failed
Despite having early democratic support, the bill now faces an uncertain future if recent history is a guide. A similar proposal last year did not receive a hearing in the committee in the Assembly; A measure of 2022 passed the assembly, but the Senate did not receive tasks. Three previous attempts since 2018 died similarly, only once a committee formally voted to kill him.
That is not unusual. As Calmatters has reported, it is extremely rare for legislators to kill legislation through the “no” vote in public audiences. Duration Session 2023-2024, only 25 or 2,403 failed bills died because most legislators formally voted “not” to kill them. On the other hand, legislators usually choose not to take measures in subsignal hearings.
Dicaro, the lobbyist of veterinary associations, did not return a message of Calmatters that sought to discuss how the association was able to persuade legislators to kill previous proposals behind the scene.
Lee, author of this year’s proposal, was a member of the personnel of the State Democratic Senator of Calabasas, Henry Stern, who was the author of two of the previous failed bills. Lee was also co -author of an earlier legislation after becoming a legislator in 2020.
Lee told Calmatters in an interview that he believes that this year’s legislation is better likely. In the past, the veterinarian lobby has tended to argue in favor of the merits of the procedure, but now the arguments focus on the resistance to the regulation of veterinarians, he said.
“They are not even attacking the central problem of disclation,” he said. “I really think it’s like a great cultural change and a change of mentality, and I hope we go to the finish line this time.”
The Calmatters data reporter Jeremia Kimelman contributed to this story.
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