by David Safier
Al Melvin's love of animals is part of his persona as state senator. He uses it as a way to establish his basic humanity. He wants to be involved with any animal-friendly legislation that comes up. He portrays himself as the senate's go-to guy when it comes to All Creatures Great and Small.
So this might come as something of a surprise.
Melvin cast the deciding vote to pass a bill out of committee that would exempt animal testing research facilities from Arizona's animal cruelty laws.
On January 20 of this year, SB1159 was in front of the Natural Resources, Infrastructure and Public Debt Committee. The bill added a single phrase to Section 13-2910 of the Arizona Revised Statutes –the section about cruelty to animals — as part of a list of activities not prohibited or restricted by the rules against cruelty to animals. The added phrase is:
4. SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS THAT ARE PERFORMED IN A FEDERALLY REGULATED ANIMAL RESEARCH FACILITY.
The other actions which are not prohibited or restricted by the law basically have to do with hunting and fishing, which makes sense. If the state allows hunting and fishing, it allows killing animals during those activities, even though that's obviously a form of animal cruelty.
Removing companies that perform experiments on laboratory animals from state animal cruelty regulations makes far less sense.
The committee vote was 4 to 3. All 4 Republicans, including Melvin, voted Yes. The 3 Democrats voted No.
After it left committee, the bill died what I was told was a quiet death.
The two big questions are, why did the Republicans push SB1159 — its sponsors included heavy hitters like Senate President Bob Burns and John Huppenthal — and why did animal lover Al Melvin vote for it?
The answer is: Covance, Inc.
Covance is a huge multinational company specializing in animal testing. It opened a facility in Chandler (Huppenthal's district) in April, 2009, after years of controversy in the Phoenix area over the company's record of animal abuse.
SB1159 was written specifically for Covance. Arizona's animal cruelty laws are stricter than federal regulations, so, if a "federally regulated animal research facility" like Covance is exempt from the state's animal cruelty laws, it would have fewer restrictions on what it can do to its lab animals.
Q: What do Covance and SB1159 have to do with Al Melvin's district?
A: Absolutely nothing. Covance brings no jobs or tax revenues to LD-26.
Q: What does SB1159 have to do with Al Melvin's love of animals?
A: It flies in the face of everything he says he holds dear about animal welfare.
Q: What does SB1159 have to do with Al Melvin's pro state's rights, anti-federalism stance?
A: It flies in the face of his state's rights ideology by allowing federal regulation to trump state law when it comes to animal testing.
Q: So why did Melvin vote for SB1159?
A: The only answer I can arrive at is, if the Maricopa Republican power base, likes it, Melvin likes it too, love of animals be damned.
There's more to say on the topic, and I'm sure there are people out there who know far more about this than I do. I expect to continue this discussion in the coming days.
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