Humane Society of the USA: Improving the Lives of Animal-people Through Legislation, Part 1 of 2

Today, we will meet Chris Holbein (vegan), Director of Public Policy for Farm Animal Protection at the Humane Society of the United States, and learn about his organization’s compassionate work to improve the lives of our animal friends in cruel animal-people raising factories through legislative changes. In 2019, Supreme Master Ching Hai (vegan) gratefully presented the Humane Society of the United States with the Shining World Benevolence Award plus a humble contribution of US$50,000 to further its noble work.

In 2008, the State of California passed a law known as Proposition 2 (Prop 2), which banned some of the most horrific abuse our animal friends are subjected to at industrial animal-people raising operations. Proposition 12, the Farm Animal Confinement Initiative, which was an amendment of the requirements of Proposition 2, is considered the most substantial protection measure for beings raised in intensive animal-people raising factories in the United States.

Prop 12 also prohibits any business from selling in California if the products are produced in a way that violates Prop 12 standards. “It was a landmark measure. It took place in 2018. It followed on the heels of a 2016 ballot measure in Massachusetts. It did largely the same thing in terms of banning extreme Confinement. And those two laws, in conjunction with laws we passed before and since, are really making profound changes in how animals are treated across the United States.”

In fact, the HSUS launched the campaign committee, which raised US$13.31 million for this project. “A ballot measure is a very hard thing to undertake. So, we would not have had so much success with these ballot measures if it was not for our volunteers.”

HSUS wants to duplicate its successes in California and Massachusetts in other US states. “Since Prop 12 was passed, we have worked in multiple states across the country to pass legislation, as opposed to a ballot initiative, so legislation through the normal channels, to prohibit the extreme confinement of egg-laying hens in cages. And we’ve recently seen [the] egg industry going from, over the past decade, the egg industry has gone from low single-digit percentages of being cage-free to now being in the mid-30 percentages. And every one percent that is moved in that direction represents about 3 million hens per year.”