Pig Crate Initiative Advocates Face Fines

Gainesville Sun ^ | Nov. 16, 2002 | Greg G. Bruno

[livius]

Pig crate initiative advocates face fines

By GREG C. BRUNO Sun staff writer

Amendment 10's largest backer has agreed to pay $50,000 for improper contributions it made.

At a glance

The Florida Election Commission charged Farm Sanctuary Inc., a national nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting farm animals, with 210 counts of illegally accepting contributions from voters on behalf of Floridians for Humane Farms.

Farm Sanctuary Inc., the largest contributor to the state's Amendment 10 ballot initiative, has agreed to pay $50,000 in fines for illegal contributions to the political action committee campaigning for the amendment, a lawyer for the group said Friday.

Karen Walker, a lawyer representing the farm group, said her client signed a consent order on Nov. 6 and reached the agreement with the Florida Election Commission on Thursday.

"We had no dispute with the facts," Walker said. "Rather than litigate it, our client thought it was in their best interest to move on and resolve it."

In an "order of probable cause" made public last month, the election commission charged Farm Sanctuary, a national non-profit organization dedicated to protecting farm animals, with 210 counts of illegally accepting contributions from voters on behalf of Floridians for Humane Farms, the ballot measure's political arm and the official treasurer.

Using direct-mail fund-raising in Florida and nationwide, Farm Sanctuary requested a "personal commitment to help protect pigs and help stop the spread of inhumane factory farming by sending as generous a contribution as you can for the Factory Farm Initiative."

In doing so, Farm Sanctuary acted as the ballot committee's cashier, an illegal transfer of funds according to the Florida state statute, the commission said.

The law prohibits "a person from making contributions to or receiving contributions on behalf of a political committee except through the campaign treasurer," the commission said.

"Based on the complaint, report of investigations, and statement of findings," the commission continued, "there is probable cause to charge the respondent with 210 separate counts of violating" Florida election laws.

Since September 2000, when Floridians for Humane Farms began its drive to ban gestation crates in state swine production, more than $1.6 million in contributions were reported by the political committee. Final contributions were received on Oct. 31 of this year, according to public campaign records, five days before the amendment passed by a 55 percent to 45 percent margin.

Of the committee's total funds raised, nearly $466,000 were donated by Farm Sanctuary, the most from any single contributor.

Critics of the animal rights group said Friday that the measure would never have succeeded if the group had not used illegal fund-raising tactics.

"If this had been published before the election, there is no way the people of Florida would have voted for this," said David Martosko, director of research at the Washington-based Center for Consumer Freedom. "Anybody who would bring $500,000 into the state illegally deserves no place in the political process."

Martosko said the group's actions were "despicable, but not surprising."

"They knowingly, willfully broke the law at least 210 times, according to the commission," Martosko said. "The way I look at it, Floridians were used. They were used in the first step of a long campaign. The animal rights activists themselves have made it clear that the Florida vote was the first step" in an effort to ban the crates nationwide, he said.

Martosko added that the farm rights group also violated federal campaign finance laws in some of their mailings by promising donors that their contributions were tax-exempt. Donations to non-profit organizations for political purposes do not fall under tax-exempt status, he said.

The Florida Election Commission, Martosko said, did not pursue the allegations.

Greg Bruno can be reached at 374-5026 or greg.bruno@ gvillesun.com.

In an "order of probable cause" made public last month, the election commission charged Farm Sanctuary, a national non-profit organization dedicated to protecting farm animals, with 210 counts of illegally accepting contributions from voters on behalf of Floridians for Humane Farms.

[livius]

For all of you who were wondering what happened to the sow pens in the Florida vote. Any surprises here?

Also, while this appeared in my print edition of the paper today, I really had to dig for it in the internet edition, where it appears to have been replaced in State News by a gushing article about how the pig folks (obviously, this was a nationally funded organization, not a Florida group) are now going to to attack the big hog producing states. (The Gainesville Sun is an NYT paper.)

[livius]

Ping to Floridians. Seems there was a little outside help in mis-using the Florida constitutional amendment process.

[BenLurkin]

The leftists blithely accept political corruption when it furthers their aims.
They have no internalized commitment to good governance, only to power and control.

[livius]

Pinging some more Floridians to some more liberal electoral process corruption.

[browardchad]

Of course, obvious and admitted fraud will have no effect on the results of the balloting. And fraud will most probably be used again in the major hog-farming states -- what's a fine or two after the election, when the engineered result is allowed to stand?

[NautiNurse]

any surprises here?

I am still dumbstruck that pregnant pigs now have more legal protection than unborn children. Further, that a majority of voters would vote a state constitutional amendment regarding pigs in the first place is astounding.

Going forward,we need to spend every bit as much time and effort educating the public about individual ballot intitiatives as we do promoting our favorite [human] candidates.

Getting crap like this amendment on the ballot should be much more difficult than the bombardment of them was on the 2002 ballot.

[mrtoby]

Now that we've got it, is there any way it can be reversed? I know quite a few people that regret their vote now that they know what is is....

[livius]

Getting crap like this amendment on the ballot should be much more difficult than the bombardment of them was on the 2002 ballot.

You've said it all!

[daylate-dollarshort]

The really sad part of this garbage ammendment is that there is an existing statute in Florida law which mandates adequate and meaningful exercise for all farm animals including sows.

This new ammendment provides no new animal protection.

[philetus]

Noone seems to have noticed that

Farm Sanctuary Inc,

campaigning for the amendment,

has to pay a $50,000 fine to

the political action committee

campaigning for the amendment

This "punishment" is really going to hurt.

NOT