Once again, I've got egg on my face.
Remember Initiative 1130? That's the bill that would have outlawed battery cages for egg-laying hens in Washington. Well, in recent weeks, I've been touting the Initiative in this forum, trying to raise awareness and urging to people to sign petitions.
The initiative gathered more than enough signatures to make it to the ballot. (Yay!) But then what happens? —Last week, the initiative's own sponsors announce they are dropping it in order to pursue legislation on the federal level. Turns out they didn't really want to pass the law at all. Nope. All they wanted was "leverage."
From the Seattle Times article of July 7:
The sponsors of a Washington initiative to give egg-laying hens better living conditions called it quits Thursday after reaching a national deal with commercial egg producers to pursue federal legislation.
Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States, [the initiative's prime sponsor] said I-1130 was used to pressure the egg industry to negotiate a national agreement.
"We thought we could leverage the Washington circumstance into a national agreement to improve the lives for all 280 million laying hens," he said. "If you can leverage a single initiative into a national agreement, that's an opportunity you don't want to miss."
Source: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2015540939_chickens08m.html
If the Humane Society had told me that what they really wanted was not a new law to protect hens in Washington but merely "leverage" in some national negotiation strategy they were pursuing, I wouldn't have wasted my time. This was a deceitful tactic on their part, to say the least. It's probably not even gonna work, since they seem to be more intent on throwing away leverage than building it.
Ten years down the road, I expect conditions for chickens nationally will be as bad as they ever were. Meanwhile, Washington will have wasted the best opportunity we had to reduce animal cruelty here, in this state.
This is the second time I've been burned on an initiative signature drive like this. In the future, I'm not going to get involved with any such effort until I've met with the sponsors personally in order to asses their character and intentions.
And to the Humane Society of the US, I say: May the next egg you encounter be directly to the forehead.
Sunny side down.
–David Preston
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