Horses at a Texas slaughter plant in 2005

If states decide to permit slaughter, but Congress decides to outlaw it, which laws prevail?  

The answer is straight out of a grade-school civics lesson. Article Six of the U.S. Constitution says laws and treaties made in accordance with the Constitution are the “supreme law of the land.” It also provides that state courts are bound by that “supreme law”; in case of conflict between federal and state law, the federal law must be upheld. Even state constitutions are subordinate to federal law.

“If they [U.S. Congress] pass a law, it will trump all state laws. It doesn’t matter what we do at the state level,” said Wyoming Representative Sue Wallis, a Republican state legislator. Wallis is one of the chief authors of the National Conference of State Legislatures’ (NCSL) Horse Industry Policy, passed unanimously by the NCSL in December 2008. The NCSL is a bipartisan group that lobbies for states’ interests before Congress and federal agencies. The Horse Industry Policy urges Congress to take a hands-off position toward states that decide to operate horse processing facilities.

The NCSL Horse Industry Policy is the basis for resolutions taken up by the states of Arizona, Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming, urging Congress to veto any legislation that would interfere with horse processing at the state level. The Wyoming measure passed overwhelmingly in both the House and the Senate, and was signed by Gov. Dave Freudenthal on March 3.

“Part of the push from all these states is to send a clear message to Congress that they should not do this because it’s going to interfere with our states’ rights and with private property rights,” Wallis said.

Legislation in some states sets specific groundwork for privately owned plants to do business there. The North Dakota House of Representatives passed, by a large margin, a bill to fund a slaughter plant feasibility study. The bill is being heard this week by a North Dakota Senate committee.

In Montana, the bill to allow and encourage horse processing easily cleared the House of Representatives and is scheduled for a Senate committee hearing March 12. The bill’s chief sponsor is Rep. Ed Butcher, R-Winifred, who supports processing as part of the solution to the growing unwanted horse problem, as well as an economic boost for Montana.

“This bill is really about providing a humane and regulated processing plant,” Butcher said. “This is a business. And we want to look at it. We want to have a humane way to address this problem.”

The Montana measure would also limit state courts’ authority to stop a facility from being built due to lawsuits by opposing groups.

“My concern is to establish a law with strong enough language to provide adequate protection for an investor to build a processing facility. Montana must protect them from being forced out of business by the ‘animal rights’ radicals who forced three plants in the U.S. to close in 2006 and 2007,” Butcher said.

Illinois, one of the states that outlawed horse slaughter for human consumption two years ago, is moving toward repealing its ban. A bill that would allow processing plants to resume operation passed out of the House Agriculture and Conservation Committee by a vote of 11-2, and its main sponsor, Rep. Jim Sacia, R-Pecatonica, predicts it will reach the full House floor by April.

“Nobody wants horse slaughter. My horses will never go to slaughter. [But] we need it as a viable option,” Sacia said.

Sacia and others view slaughter not as a mandate for horse owners, but a measure of last resort for those who can’t find another way to handle their ill, injured, old, dangerous or otherwise unwanted equines.

“Horse owners can still place their horses in sanctuaries or give them away to an owner in better circumstances, but as a member of this industry, we should be able to have a choice as where our horses, our personal property, goes,” said Stan Weaver, president of the Montana Quarter Horse Association.

Rep. Wallis points out that if Congress decides to pass HR 503, horses will be the only animal not permitted to be sold for food.

“If they are successful in establishing this ban, it is the only prohibition against a food animal that is not an endangered species, and it’s purely social and political reasons,” she said. “There is zero difference between telling a horse person that you cannot sell your horse for a food animal than telling a dairy man that he can’t sell his dairy cow for beef; or telling a shepherd that he can’t sell his lamb, and that the only legitimate use of sheep is wool.”