Coach Switzer carries the ball in fight against Oklahoma 'right to farm' A Humane Nation

9/9/16, 10:26 AM

Coach Barry Switzer warns that if SQ 777 passes in Oklahoma, it will make it easier for puppy mills to exist. Photo by Chuck Cook/AP Images for The HSUS

Coach Switzer carries the ball in fight against Oklahoma right to farm
September 7, 2016

3 Comments

Coach Barry Switzer gets right to the point. If SQ 777 passes, it will make it easier for puppy mills to exist.
Puppy mill operators will be able to classify themselves as farmers and their animals as livestock, wrote
Switzer, the legendary coach of the University of Oklahoma football team, in a Tulsa World column. The
article pans a measure that the legislature has referred to the November ballot, establishing a so-called
right to farm in the Sooner State.
Its yet another major boost for the No on 777 campaign, which The HSUS, local animal welfare
organizations, the League of Women Voters, the Oklahoma Municipal League, the Oklahoma Council of
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Coach Switzer carries the ball in fight against Oklahoma 'right to farm' A Humane Nation

9/9/16, 10:26 AM

Churches, and so many other entities have strongly opposed. Oklahomas four-term former attorney
general, Drew Edmondson, has been traveling the state, warning people about the consequences of
enacting this misleading measure. And Switzers statement provides yet another reason for voters to check
the fine print.
Puppy mills are atrocities where neglect, disease and abuse is rampant, wrote Switzer, who with his wife
has a pack of German shepherds they adore. Animals are caged 24-7 and some live their entire lives in
wire cages, never once touching or rolling in the grass. Adult dogs are often debarked, which involves
ramming a steel rod down their throats to rupture their vocal cords.
State Question 777 is not only a threat to future regulations of puppy mills; it could also provide a pathway
to legalize cockfighting.
The legislature never banned cockfighting. The people did it through a ballot initiative, at the urging of The
HSUS, and in almost every session since 2003, there have been attempts to legalize cockfighting by one
means or another. If they succeed, and if SQ 777 passes, the legislature may be forbidden, under the
terms of SQ 777, from passing a measure to ban it, since raising gamefowl is considered an agricultural
activity by the cockfighters and their allies. In short, even if the people of Oklahoma elected a majority of
animal friendly lawmakers, SQ 777, as a constitutional amendment, could forbid them from enacting a
statute to outlaw cockfighting.
Think its a far-fetched scenario that lawmakers could actually repeal the existing anti-cockfighting law?
Well thats what the crew in Oklahoma City has done with several other high-profile animal protection laws.
In 2013, state lawmakers repealed a 50-year ban on horse slaughter for human consumption, even though
polling showed 80 percent of Oklahomans wanted to keep the ban. And in the prior year, lawmakers gutted
an existing statute that imposed a regulatory framework to stop abuses of dogs in puppy mills.
But this is just part of the mayhem that SQ 777 could create. Because SQ 777 seeks to limit many forms of
agricultural regulation, it could give a free pass to factory farms to pollute and this gives communities no
recourse when they want to protect their water supply, when homeowners want to protect their property
values from nauseating smells, and when doctors tell us that lacing the feed of animals with hormones or
antibiotics is a dangerous threat to public health. This week, Oklahoma was in the national news because it
had its most powerful earthquake in modern times. Seismologists and other experts believe the spate of
earthquakes is being caused by fracking and by the release of enormous volumes of water at high
pressure into the ground. Imagine if there was a constitutional right to frack and local governments and
others could not regulate destructive energy production practices that threatened the very safety and
health of the states communities?
Thats exactly the leap of faith that the Oklahoma Farm Bureau is asking voters to take by passing SQ 777
in football parlance, a sort of legislative quick kick that the special interest group is trying to get past
voters while they are not paying attention. They want to make it much more difficult to regulate any
agricultural practice now or forever. Who knows what the problems of tomorrow will be? Thats why
government is not a one-time act or event, but a continuing process of assembling and legislating in order
to deal with the facts and details as they emerge.
SQ 777 is a power grab by special interests trying to control the state and getting a free pass to do as they
want in agriculture. Dont let them do it. Spread the word that SQ 777 is a dangerous, overreaching
measure, just like the coach told us today in the Tulsa World.

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Coach Switzer carries the ball in fight against Oklahoma 'right to farm' A Humane Nation

9/9/16, 10:26 AM

Companion Animals, Farm Animals, Public Policy (Legal/Legislative)

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3 Comments
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Dodie Shepard
September 7, 2016 at 6:56 pm
I hope to god that all possible will be done to protect Oklahoma from puppy or kitty mills. They are a horrible form of torture.
Please think of all the innocent lives you all hold in your hands. Please vote no on SQ 777

Reply

nori mosset
September 8, 2016 at 1:29 pm
Outrageous and then some that lawmakers do not govern according to the will of the people regarding many things not least
among them regard for all animal suffering.

Reply

Pam Moorman
September 8, 2016 at 3:32 pm
Vote NO against SQ 777!

Reply

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