S8. E11: Allie Feldman Taylor: Voters for Animal Rights
“We didn't do any type of advertising. We didn't do any press around it. We just did what we do well, we quietly lobbied the city council and worked until we had a majority of the council co-sponsoring the bill. And then we said, okay, now it's time to actually move this, we need a hearing, we need to bring this up for a vote. So by the time the foie gras industry realized what we had done, it was too late,” - Allie Feldman Taylor
Allie Feldman Taylor is the founder and president of Voters for Animal Rights in New York, also known as VFAR. Allie founded VFAR in 2016, and in 2020 she ran VFAR candidate endorsement process for more than 50 animal rights candidates for the New York State Senate and Assembly. In 2019, she led the campaign to ban foie gras in New York City. She's also helped pass New York City laws making it a crime to steal wild birds and to ban wild animals in the circus.
I asked Allie to come on the podcast because I really wanted her to explain how everyday citizens can influence and change laws to help create a better country for animals. Even though it feels like a hopeless time and like a lot of our political actions are meaningless, the local level is where they can be super meaningful.
Please listen and share.
In gratitude,
Elizabeth Novogratz
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Transcript:
Allie: [00:00:15] We didn't do any type of advertising. We didn't do any press around it. We just did what we do well, which was we quietly lobbied the city council and worked until we had a majority of the council co-sponsoring the bill. Then we said, okay, now it's time to actually move this. We need a hearing. We need to bring this up for a vote. So by the time the foie gras industry realized what we had done, it was too late.
Elizabeth: [00:00:46] Hi, I'm Elizabeth Novogratz. This is Species Unite. We have a favor to ask. If you like today's episode and you have a spare minute, could you please rate and review Species Unite on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts? It really helps people to find the show. This conversation is with Allie Feldman Taylor. Allie is the founder and president of Voters for Animal Rights in New York. It's also known as VFAR. She founded VFAR in 2016, and in 2020 she ran VFAR’s candidate endorsement process for more than 50 animal rights candidates for the New York State Senate and Assembly. In 2019, she led the campaign to ban foie gras in New York City. She's also helped to ban laws in New York City that ban wild animals in the circus and make it a crime to steal wild birds. I asked Allie to come on to the podcast because I really wanted her to talk about how everyday citizens can really influence and change laws to help create a better country for animals. Even though it feels like a hopeless time and like a lot of our political actions are meaningless, the local level is where they can be super meaningful. Allie’s shown this in the place where I live, New York City. So I want you to hear about all the changes that she's been able to make. Hi Allie, It's awesome to have you here in person.
Allie: [00:02:33] Awesome to be here. Thanks very much for having me.
Elizabeth: [00:02:35] So I want to talk about VFAR, but I want to talk about how you got to VFAR first.
Allie: [00:02:41] I guess after college, I went to work on a couple of different political campaigns and that was sort of where the political bug bit me. Once you work on one campaign, you start to want to work on lots of others and kind of hone your craft. Then I went to start working at the New York State Senate in Queens, and then I sort of became a little bit disillusioned and disappointed with how long it took to bring about change. So if I decided that I was going to stay in politics, I wanted to do it for the purpose of making sure that it was around issues that I cared really, really deeply about, because it just seemed like so much time in politics is spent on issues that get a lot of noise but don't really matter in the daily lives of people or in animals. So that brought me to an organization called Night Class, where we worked on prohibiting horse carriages in New York City. I was there for about five years, and then I decided to launch my own organization called Voters for Animal Rights, which is where we are today. That works on a large breadth of animal rights issues at the legislative level, at the city level, and at the state level. We work to elect candidates that support animal rights. We lobby for stronger, better laws to stop animal cruelty and we work to hold our elected officials accountable to humane voters, just like you and I.
Elizabeth: [00:04:07] Cool. Let's take those one by one. First, you work to elect because I was thinking about this, and I don't know. I know so little about it. Oh, I see it on your Instagram and I'm like, Oh, he's good, right? Because it's so complicated because there's a lot of people that might be against animal rights but might be really bad human rights.
Allie: [00:04:20] Totally.
Elizabeth: [00:04:21] So, like, how do you weigh that out? Like who's good, that kind of thing?
Allie: [00:04:33] Yeah, that's a very, very valid question because we do find candidates who may be vegan, they may be great on animal rights, but they're awful human beings, as in they don't support a person's right to choose. They don't support Black Lives Matter. They have made awful statements about immigrant communities in New York City. Just because you call yourself a vegan does not mean that you are a good person. Unfortunately, we find that in some politicians. So we take more of a holistic approach to who we will endorse. We send out very detailed questionnaires to the candidates who are running, where we survey them on their positions. We do interviews with the candidates. We have a whole elections team who then deliberates, and we have a whole team that then votes as well as our board of directors. But yeah, there's absolutely been times when somebody has been perfect on a piece of paper, but then you look at some of the things that they've done to their fellow human beings, and there's just no excuse for it.
Elizabeth: [00:05:42] It is crazy though, because you think, I mean, I think and this is totally from the bubble, but you think, wow, if somebody supports animal rights, they've got to support women, you know, like they're just kind of humans in general, right?
Allie: [00:05:57] Yeah. You would think cognitive dissonance is a real problem that a number of our politicians can't seem to get around.
Elizabeth: [00:06:06] So then they're out obviously.
Allie: [00:06:07] Yeah they're out.
Elizabeth: [00:06:08] Right. So the people you choose to support and get behind are pretty stellar all around that.
Allie: [00:06:17] Yeah, there are people who we would feel comfortable with saying, this is not only a person that's going to support animal rights, but this is somebody who's going to stand up for the rights of all marginalized New Yorkers.
Elizabeth: [00:06:27] So somebody's running for something and you guys go to them and they all want your support. Talk about that, like what your support does for them.
Allie: [00:06:37] Yeah, most candidates very much want our support. If they're applying for our endorsement, they definitely want it. There's always some candidates who are like, No, I'm not there, and that's okay. But what we do for them is once we make an endorsement, we put out our voter guide for every election cycle which is available on our website. It's on social media. We have a massive email list and we send that widely, very frequently and let people know this is what you should bring with you when you go to mark off your ballot. Then we also go and volunteer on their campaigns directly and that's a tactic that I want more animal rights activists to know about as a way that you can be super effective in helping animals. Political campaigns are staffed by the folks who are then going to go work for those politicians once they get into office. So there are really good opportunities to build relationships with the people who are going to be the change makers. Those are the folks, the folks who are working as, say, a field organizer or a campaign manager. Those people are then going to go work for that politician when they get into office. So when you need to go to them and say, hey, I need you to sign this bill or I need you to look into this topic for us. You have those relationships because those people know you and trust you because you helped get them into office. They know that you're somebody that they can rely on to help them analyze public policy. They’re someone they can go to for advice there. They’re someone that they know that they can come to us if they need help with constituent concerns. But this is something that I don't see enough animal rights activists getting involved with because I think they say, well, why am I going to go knock on doors or make phone calls for a candidate that isn't talking about animals or talking about health care? Well, you need to build that trust and relationship with that elected official so that when they get into office, they're going to look to you as their animal policy expert.
Elizabeth: [00:08:24] I think the other reason a lot of animal rights people don't get involved is because they don't really know that they should and they don't really know that it'll be effective, I mean especially right now, politics in this country are just like a shit show.
Allie: [00:08:40] It's awful.
Elizabeth: [00:08:41] People think, Well, no one's thinking about animal rights because women just lost all their rights.
Allie: [00:08:45] By the way, there's many other states that have models, just like Voters for Animal Rights does in New York. I know you're going to be doing another podcast with them which is amazing.
Elizabeth: [00:08:52] Yes
Allie: [00:08:53] I'm super excited for your listeners to hear from other states that are doing this work as well. But we know our model works because it's been proven in the type of legislation that's been increasingly difficult to get passed in the city council. So ten years ago, I remember when it was extremely controversial in the city council as to whether or not they should pass a law to require pet stores to have fire sprinklers so that animals didn't burn to death. That was controversial. I mean, today we shake our heads and say, how? How can anybody not support that? Right. But over the years, as politicians started to pay more attention to animal rights issues, we've seen a big change. In 2017, they passed legislation that prohibited the use of wild animals and circuses. That was huge and I think the council saw that when they did positive things for animals, they received positive results from their constituents. People were super happy to see that type of progress happening. Then it went to the next level in that in 2019, the Council passed legislation that prohibited the sale of foie gras from force fed ducks and geese. Now we're thinking that with this this new council that just took their seats in January of 2022, that we can take that to the next step, meaning we can look at things like finally getting horse carriages is done, finally banning the sale of fur, declaring animals as sentient, looking at things like stopping the sale of caviar and all of the other atrocities that happen to aquatic animals that we really haven't started to scratch the surface on. But that's really only possible if we're continuing to educate people running for office about these issues and getting really good people into office who are going to do something about it.
Elizabeth: [00:10:45] I want to go back to foie gras for a couple of reasons. One, I want to know how that happened, because honestly, that was shocking, that it actually happened. It was awesome. Just for people who don't actually understand how bad it is. Will you talk about what it is in the sense of how bad it is?
Allie: [00:11:04] Sure. It is pretty graphic how foie gras is made. They have thousands and thousands of geese who go through a very barbaric process of being fed multiple times per day for multiple weeks. So several times per day a duck will be grabbed by the feeder and they will put a metal pole down the duck or geese throat, and they will forcefully funnel in pounds and pounds and pounds of food so that the liver grows to ten times its normal size. After that's been done multiple times a day for several weeks, they then slaughter the animal and harvest their liver and sell it as a very expensive delicacy. There is no, despite what the foie gras industry says they say, Oh, we're very gentle. I don't care how they try to frame it. There is no gentle or kind way to force feed an animal one time a day, let alone multiple times a day over a period of several weeks.
Elizabeth: [00:12:08] With a metal pipe.
Allie: [00:12:09] Right.
Elizabeth: [00:12:10] But it's been in fancy restaurants for decades. So I'm sure the push back must have been insane.
Allie: [00:12:18] Well, you know, that was a really interesting campaign because we thought that we were going to get a ton of pushback from restaurants. Interestingly, they didn't put up much of a fight. So we did the campaign a little differently than I think you see some animal rights campaigns. We ran it very much under the radar.
Elizabeth: [00:12:38] Why was that?
Allie: [00:12:39] Because as an organization that doesn't have much money and is all volunteer. We knew that if this thing blew up, we would never be able to compete with the type of resources that the foie gras industry has. They can pay to retain lobbyists. They can pay for a PR firm like we don't have that. So we needed to do as much as possible as we could under the radar. So that's exactly what we did. Once the bill was introduced, we didn't do any type of advertising, we didn't do any press around it. We just did what we do well, which was we quietly lobbied the city council and worked until we had a majority of the council co-sponsoring the bill. Then we said, okay, now it's time to actually move this. We need a hearing. We need to bring this up for a vote. So by the time the foie gras industry realized what we had done, it was too late. We had a majority of the council on the bill. The only way that they were going to be able to defeat this was stopping it from being brought up for a vote or trying to get people to take themselves off of the bill. So they did try some last minute things to try and stop this, but once you had created the momentum that this was happening.
Elizabeth: [00:13:46] It was too late.
Allie: [00:13:47] It was off, yeah.
Elizabeth: [00:13:48] That was amazing though that you did that.
Allie: [00:13:50] It doesn't always work out that way. I think we also did a good job and the advocates who have been long before VFAR existed, I think advocates had been beating the drum of educating people on how horrible foie gras is. So it wasn't a completely unknown process for council members. We definitely did need to do a lot of education, but it wasn't something that was completely unknown to them. I think a lot of credit needs to go to those organizers who for years had done their own education campaigns all over the country so that people really knew what this issue is about.
Elizabeth: [00:14:29] What an accomplishment, though, to get that out of New York City restaurants. You would think other cities and states would follow suit.
Allie: [00:14:37] That's our goal, is we would love to see this happen in cities and states across the country. So what we've done is when we did the campaign, we had a website, we had lobby packets, we have the talking points, the graphics, everything ready to go so that if other cities want to do a similar foie gras campaign, we can just hand that over. There's no need for them to like completely using their resources and time recreating the wheel. We can just. Hey, hey, here's a campaign kit. Now you can go and do this in whatever city you are working in. We've had a number of cities come to us. So I think in the next couple of years we will start to see more and more of them start to pick up campaigns just like this. I know Portland's doing a foie gras campaign. Rhode Island has one. We just heard from Saint Louis this week, they're ready to start one for.
Elizabeth: [00:15:22] So for something like a foie gras campaign. Why do you go city versus state?
Allie: [00:15:27] It's much easier to get things done at the municipal level than it is at the state level. New York state geographically is massive and the number of districts is huge. When we do work on state legislation, for example, the puppy mill bill, we do that in conjunction with larger orgs like the ASPCA, the Humane Society of the United States, or the Animal Legal Defense Fund, because they do have a very strong presence in Albany.
Elizabeth: [00:16:00] Can you talk about that? The puppy mill?
Allie: [00:16:01] Yeah, the puppy mill pipeline bill is legislation that passed this June by Rosenthal and Senator Michael Gianaris that prohibits pet stores everywhere in New York State from selling dogs, cats and rabbits. The idea is that by doing so, we will shut down the puppy mill pipeline, which is the process of dogs coming into New York State in massive numbers from across state lines from other parts of the country. I'm sure many of your listeners probably know what a puppy mill is, but for those who don't, it's basically a factory farm for dogs or for cats or for rabbits where the animals are bred over and over and over again until they can no longer produce puppies, kittens or bunnies anymore. Then they are killed in a manner that I'm not going to describe to you as it's pretty graphic. When people purchase animals from pet stores, they see that cute puppy in the window and they think, oh, they must have come from some really nice place, I don't know, in the country, who knows? I don't know what they picture in their head, but it could not be further from the reality. You know, the mother dogs are standing on wire cages, standing in their own waste. They don't have any type of vet care. They rarely get to go outside, if at all, ever. They're getting poor nutrition and their puppies are absolutely not getting any vet care whatsoever. Every single pet store in New York State sources their dogs from puppy mills. We know that because we have the documentation. We've seen it. They've been busted by the New York state attorney general. There is no question that this is happening on a broad scale. But thankfully, the bill did pass. The legislature did an amazing job of getting that done this year and now the bill has to be signed by Governor Kathy Hochul into law to make it official. So we are working very hard with our partners at the New York State Animal Protection Federation, ASPCA, HSUS and the ALDF to make sure that Governor Hochul signs into law by the end of the year.
Elizabeth: [00:18:06] I think it also creates this big public awareness because I think most people, not because they're mean or bad or anything, they just don't think about it. It's the same thing with the wild animals in circuses. People have seen circuses their whole lives with elephants and tigers, and they didn't think about it. Most people, until they're like, Oh, they're banning that. Then they're like, Oh, shoot, that's bad, right? Like it does kind of shift public awareness as well, which is probably helpful in furthering other issues. I want to hear about the fur thing, too, because that was crazy.
Allie: [00:18:42] Yeah. Well, what questions do you have about the fur campaign?
Elizabeth: [00:18:46] Well, because it felt like it wasn't that much further after California banned fur. I was like, oh, my God, New York's going to ban fur. It looked for a minute, it looked really hopeful and it was, correct?
Allie: [00:19:02] So that one, the fur bill that was tough, that was introduced by the speaker of the city council at the time, Corey Johnson. Having the head of the City Council introduce landmark legislation like banning the sale of new fur products was huge. We know that a wide majority of New Yorkers, I believe it's 75% of New Yorkers across all races and demographics and political affiliation support a ban on the sale of fur. We know that because we did public polling of registered voters. However, the fur industry created this false narrative that if they banned the sale of fur in New York City, that it was going to take away fur from people who already owned it and it just wasn't true.
Elizabeth: [00:19:52] It's also just really weird, like no one's going to take stuff away that people already own
Allie: [00:19:56] Right. No one's going to go in your closet. All it did was prohibit the sale of new fur products, meaning you would no longer be able to walk into one of those first stores and buy a new fur coat. If you want to buy a fur coat, you have to go out of state and do that or you'd have to go online and do that. But there would not be retail sales of them. I think there were a lot of lessons that were learned from that first campaign and as we all know, it takes years for legislation to pass. That was just the first go. We have a new city council, a new speaker, a new mayor.
Elizabeth: [00:20:29] A vegan mayor.
Allie: [00:20:29] We do have a vegan mayor. I think legislation takes time. It's very, very rare that you're going to get something across the finish line in the first year it's introduced. Since we have a brand new council, I do think there is an opportunity there to get the fur bill reintroduced and passed. It's just going to take time and yeah, I think looking at some new strategies for how we get that done.
Elizabeth: [00:20:49] What are the big things you're working on right now? Is fur one of them?
Allie: [00:20:52] Fur is one of them that we're looking at. Right now in the council we have legislation that would stop pet stores from selling guinea pigs. During the pandemic, people were going out in droves to pet stores buying guinea pigs. Then once they started going back to work or their kids started going back into the classrooms, they would get tired of them and they started dumping them at animal care centers of New York City in record numbers.
Elizabeth: [00:21:17] Really?
Allie: [00:21:24] Thousands of them. Yes. The number of guinea pigs has doubled.
Elizabeth: [00:21:23] I had no idea.
Allie: [00:21:24] I don't know if you've seen the photos inside the city shelter. They literally have run out of space to provide housing for surrendered guinea pigs. They're having to stack them in cages. They're having to put them in different people's offices and yes, we as individual consumers are responsible for purchasing guinea pigs and then discarding them. But the pet stores, in my opinion, are really who is responsible for this. They should not be selling them, period. They are causing a massive problem to the animals and they are causing a massive problem to taxpayers who are having to fund finding ways to protect and house thousands and thousands of guinea pigs.
Elizabeth: [00:22:09] Now that dogs, cats and rabbits are not going to be sold. The pet stores are going, if they stay open, they’re going to try and sell something and that’s like the next cutest animal.
Allie: [00:22:19] Right. So it fits in well with the campaign to stop pet stores from selling dogs, cats and rabbits. Logically, it makes sense that we're going to look at guinea pigs next. What is super unfair is that when pet stores are selling them, they don't sell them spayed or neutered. So people tend to buy them in pairs and then they end up with eight guinea pigs and they don't know what to do. There's only two veterinarians in all of New York City who can even perform spay neuter surgeries on guinea pigs. So it's awful and it costs at least $400 to get it done. So this is where it's so messed up that some folks have gone to our city animal shelters and said, okay, I want to adopt a guinea pig. Great. You then need to wait because they can't release guinea pigs from the shelter unless you can't really send you out an animal from a shelter unless they're spayed or neutered, which is exactly what the policy should be. So let's say, okay, great, we'll process your adoption, but you need to wait a few weeks so we can get an appointment to get the guinea pig spayed or neutered. So people will then say, Oh, I don't want to wait a few weeks. So then they'll go to the pet store and buy the unaltered guinea pig, get tired of that one, and then return it to the shelter eventually. So it’s this whole cycle that makes zero sense and just completely needs to be cut off at the source.
Elizabeth: [00:23:42] I had no idea. You spent five years at Night Class. Pretty much the whole existence of night class is horse carriages, right? Getting horse carriages off the streets in New York, which should have been done like a hundred years ago, like when cars were made. I think most people know why they're so horrible, but just in case anyone doesn't really get the full picture or they're thinking about getting in one, will you talk about why they're so horrific and then why this has been such an ongoing long term battle?
Allie: [00:24:17] These horses are working 9 hours a day, seven days a week, pulling tourists in and out of traffic. They don't live in Central Park, contrary to what many people are led to believe. They live along the West Side Highway in stables that are converted tenement buildings. So in order to get to and from Central Park, they have to walk through all of that heavy Midtown West traffic, Columbus Circle and more. There is no type of daily turnout for them, even though Central Park has a ton of green space. That's not for the horses. It's kind of unfair that they have to spend all day walking by those beautiful green areas, but they don't actually get to touch that green grass themselves.
Elizabeth: [00:24:54] Or eat any of it. So they go from like a concrete stall to work.
Allie: [00:25:00] Exactly. Yeah.
Elizabeth: [00:25:01] It's hot, it's cold, it's raining and they work pretty much unless it's extraordinarily hot.
Allie: [00:25:07] They can work until three in the morning. I don't know why anybody would want to take a carriage ride at three in the morning, but yeah, you'll see them out there.
Elizabeth: [00:25:14] And they get hit by cars. They collapse. A lot of bad, bad things happen to them.
Allie: [00:25:20] Yes and we only know when those bad things happen when somebody happens to take a picture and posts it on social media. They don't have to report if there's an accident. So the only accidents it's the accidents that we hear of that we can actually verify. But we are pretty sure that they're happening all the time. But of course, the carriage industry is not going to admit to that. Another thing that I think people don't realize is that at the end of the carriage horses careers, there is currently no guarantee that they will get to go to a safe and loving retirement. The carriage industry simply has to fill out a form saying this horse is no longer going to work in New York City, and then they can sell them to whoever they would like and that could be a work farm. That could be someone who's going to sell the horse for meat. That is exactly what's happening now. The carriage industry has never been transparent about what they do with the horses at the end of their careers. So why are we supposed to believe them when they claim that there are some magical pastures somewhere where they're all spending their time lazing around? I don't buy it for a second.
Elizabeth: [00:26:29] This fight has been going on forever. Why is it such an incredibly difficult battle?
Allie: [00:26:34] A couple of reasons. I think that folks have over romanticized this notion of taking a carriage ride in Central Park without understanding the full picture. I don't think customers know about that and if they did, nobody would be taking a carriage ride. The other big reason is it's a huge political fight. One of the smartest things that the carriage industry did is that they joined a labor union and what's interesting is that they are represented by the Transportation Workers Union. Just as a side note, I 100% support labor unions, support the right to organize, but if you're going to call yourself part of a labor union, you better have a collective bargaining agreement. You better have prevailing wages. You better be providing your workers with health care, with retirement, with sick pay. They don't have any of that. To me, it feels like a very dishonest industry. What they're getting from TWU, the union is TWU provides them with professional lobbying and advocacy services so that they can stay in business. But if you talk to any of the carriage drivers, from what we've been told, they're not getting paid very well. They don't have any type of health care benefits. They don't have any type of retirement. These are off the books jobs.
Elizabeth: [00:27:57] Their lives are kind of not unsimilar to the horses in some ways.
Allie: [00:28:00] Right. Could you imagine telling the teachers union or the nurses union or the stagehands union like, hey, you're a member of our union, but we're not going to pay prevailing wages or give you health care. People would walk off the job. So why is it acceptable in a horse carriage industry?
Elizabeth: [00:28:19] It doesn't make sense.
Allie: [00:28:20] Yeah. So it's very unfair and dishonest to say, oh, these are good union jobs when that's not what they are at all.
Elizabeth: [00:28:25] No. But that's what's kept them in business.
Allie: [00:28:28] That's what's kept them in business.
Elizabeth: [00:28:29] And how many are there?
Allie: [00:28:31] There are 68 carriage licenses.
Elizabeth: [00:28:34] That's a lot.
Allie: [00:28:35] Yeah, it's a lot. So there's around 200 horses, I believe there's anywhere from 150 to 300 licensed carriage drivers. But I'm not sure if that number is accurate since the pandemic.
Elizabeth: [00:28:46] Right. Wow.
Allie: [00:28:47] I remember, during the pandemic, there were no carriages out there.
Elizabeth: [00:28:51] Maybe a couple of people. But I don't think anyone who lives in New York wants this.
Allie: [00:28:56] I don't think so either.
Elizabeth: [00:28:56] It's a tourism thing.
Allie: [00:28:58] Yeah.
Elizabeth: [00:28:59] Most people in New York know how evil it is, but people who come to visit see it in movies and that's what keeps it going. So how does it stop?
Allie: [00:29:11] It's going to stop when the city council decides that they've had enough in order to legally stop the carriage industry, they need to pass legislation that stops the industry from existing. Our recommendation is that they phase out and transition the carriage drivers to another type of occupation, whether that's serving as a tour guide or using some type of an electric carriage which already exists. In Mexico they actually implemented e carriages and the drivers report that they absolutely love them. There's no cleanup. It's much cleaner, it's much neater. You don't have to worry about being shut down because of temperature restrictions. South Carolina, they just got a prototype of an E carriage. So I think that that's the direction that things should go in. Interestingly, on July 14th, the city council is going to be introducing legislation to stop horse carriages and make the switch to electric carriages.
Elizabeth: [00:30:12] They are? That's amazing. So what happens from there?
Allie: [00:30:14] That's when the real work begins. So we and other advocates and anyone who cares about the horses should then contact their council member by phone or email and ask them to co-sponsor the bill.
Elizabeth: [00:30:25] Okay, that's exciting, though.
Allie: [00:30:27] It's exciting. It's going to be a big fight. It's probably the hardest animal rights issue in New York City. This fight has been going on for decades. There's a lot of passion on both sides. But, you know, I think it's in the carriage horse industry's best interest to come to the table and see the writing on the wall.
Elizabeth: [00:30:51] Well and you see this, you see it getting stopped in Europe. There's tons of cities, you see all over the world now where people are banning it because they're aware of the cruelty. It's so weird because you would just think like New York should be an example.
Allie: [00:31:05] It's like going back to coal. Like who wants to do that. You know, I think if they come to the table then they'll have a lot more of an opportunity to have a say in how this transition happens, and this doesn't have to be painful. This doesn't have to be about losing something. It's about adapting your business and modernizing to new technology that's going to hopefully make them living wages, because I very much believe that they should be paid fairly just like everybody else. And an occupation where they're actually going to have health care benefits and sick pay. But my real fear is that something awful is going to have to happen for there to be change. Somebody is going to be killed or, you know, gravely injured. Why should we wait for that to happen, for the city council to take action? No, like the job of the city council is to make sure that they're preventing these types of accidents from happening before they do, which it will happen eventually. So we'll see. It's a really tough fight, but I think, again, the best way that folks can help is to contact their council member by phone or email and encourage them to co-sponsor the bill.
Elizabeth: [00:32:14] I think because this country has gotten so overwhelmed not only by all that's going on, but there's a lot of hopelessness in terms of change happening. So I think that the whole message of you needing to contact, has gotten really washed out. I think a lot of people don't think it has any power anymore.
Allie: [00:32:33] I completely understand and can empathize with the sense of hopelessness that people feel right now. We all feel it. I feel it. There's no way of avoiding it, especially with the recent Supreme Court decision that takes away all of our rights. But that's why VFAR focuses so much on the local level, is because it's so hard to do stuff nationally at the federal level. We can be very effective at the municipal level. It's hyper local. You know, I know for a fact that if animal advocates are not calling and writing their council members about supporting the horse carriage bill. You bet the drivers and the opposition are definitely making those calls. So we really do have an obligation, if we care about the horses, to make sure that our voices are heard. We know that the council member is very much looking into the volume of the calls and letters that they're getting and which side that they're on. We know that they keep a tally of that. It doesn't just get ignored. We've seen time and time again council members say, you know, I wasn't sure where I was going to stand on this bill, but I got 50 calls yesterday from people who live in my building who support this, and so I'm going to vote for it.
Elizabeth: [00:33:48] It's still really powerful and it's the way they know what their people want. Right?
Allie: [00:33:53] Exactly. Yeah.
Elizabeth: [00:33:54] I want to talk a little bit about the bigger picture and the interconnectedness of organizations like yours. In the sense of organizations like VFAR, are they kind of across the country or are they few and far between, first of all?
Allie: [00:34:05] There's definitely many states that have organizations similar to VFAR, Pennsylvania does, Connecticut, Colorado, New Mexico, California. But there are orgs that do very similar work and that they are endorsing candidates and also working on legislation. I think every state needs to have an organization like this. I think every city needs to have an organization like this. We've had other cities contact us and ask about it and we've walked them through the process of how they can set this up locally and if any of your listeners are interested in setting something up in their town or in their county or state, we'd be more than happy to walk them through it.
Elizabeth: [00:34:41] Because it's really effective. It works, and it also really helps people like not only does it work, but just in terms of people's voting. I really think a lot of people, especially people who really are concerned about animal rights issues, they just don't even think about that so much in the voting because there's so many other things and they're not thinking that politicians are thinking this way.
Allie: [00:35:05] Right. Exactly.
Elizabeth: [00:35:05] So that awareness, I think, is super helpful to many people. How can people get involved and how can people make change? What can people do?
Allie: [00:35:13] I think the first thing to do is to look and see if your state or city has a political organization for animals and if they do, I think go to those organizations and tap into figuring out how you can help be effective. Most of them are either all volunteer run or they only have very few staffers, so help is very much always needed. If you live in an area where there isn't any type of political organization for animals, I would say one, start one. The other thing that you can do is when there's local elections happening, make sure that you are talking to those candidates about the animal rights issues that matter to you. It may be something that's completely not on their radar screen and that they don't know that voters are thinking about. So it's up to us to raise it for them so that they know that this is something that the voters care about.
Elizabeth: [00:36:05] Yeah, that's awesome. Allie, thank you.
Allie: [00:36:08] Thanks for having me.
Elizabeth: [00:36:17] To learn more about Allie and about VFAR, go to our website, SpeciesUnite.com. We will have links to everything. We are on Facebook and Instagram, @SpeciesUnite. If you have a spare moment and could do us a favor, please subscribe, rate, review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps people find the show. If you would like to support the podcast, we would greatly appreciate it. Go to our website SpeciesUnite.com and click Donate. I would like to thank everyone at Species Unite, including Gary Knudsen, Caitlin Pierce, Amy Jones, Paul Healey, Santina Polky, Bethany Jones and Anna O'Connor, who wrote and performed today's music. Thank you for listening. Have a wonderful day.
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