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Another article about how Missouri Republicans respect less government and local control [1]

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Date: 2023-04-12  

I am copying the article due to a paywall. Emphasis mine.

Once again, Missouri legislators are demonstrating their odd and disturbing allegiance to puppy mills. The state already is notorious nationally as ground zero for this shady industry. Now, in keeping with the recent trend among Republicans of refusing to let local governments make their own decisions, pending legislation would prevent St. Louis and other cities from clamping down on pet stores that enable the industry. This bill deserves to the relegated to the lining of the cages where these puppies are kept.

Puppy mills — defined as large commercial operations in which dogs are bred for sale in overcrowded and often unhealthy conditions — have been a Missouri scourge for many years. The state has topped the Human Society’s list of the “Horrible Hundred” worst puppy mills in the U.S. for each of 10 years since the organization began putting out the annual report.

Abuses in that industry were glaring enough that Missouri voters in 2010 passed a ballot initiative imposing restrictions and standards of care. The state Legislature, as it tends to do , promptly reversed the will of the voters at the behest of the dog-breeding industry. Then, in 2014, lawmakers won passage of a constitutional “right-to-farm” amendment that was actually a thinly disguised shill to puppy mills.

In addition to denying women the right to biological autonomy and making sure criminals and the mentally ill aren’t thwarted from getting their hands on guns, Missouri’s ruling Republicans are more than happy to roll over for the puppy-mill industry.

So it is that the House last week approved a bill that would prevent local municipalities throughout Missouri from banning or restricting pet shops. There’s no such local statute in St. Louis or anywhere else in the state right now, but blue states like Illinois and liberal communities elsewhere have done just that. The Missouri bill is a preemptive strike, clearly designed to ensure that industry giants like Petland, the Ohio-based pet store chain with lobbyists in Jefferson City, aren’t limited in their business practices by pesky local elected officials attempting to carry out the wishes of their local constituents.

Missouri Republicans have a long history of serving the interests of puppy mills and their adjacent industries. Eviscerating local control over local issues is a new thing with today’s GOP, not just here but around the country. Like once-vaunted Republican principles of family values, law and order and fiscal responsibility, local control still gets some GOP lip service now and then, but it’s clearly no longer what the party stands for.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/12/2163519/-Another-article-about-how-Missouri-Republicans-respect-less-government-and-local-control

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