Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleagues. I would like to thank Dr. Schrader, and the leadership of the House to bring this bill up. I am here today for two reasons: One, we shouldn't even be here to have to run this through this body and take up valuable time, legislative time, that we could be talking about our debt, border, those kinds of things, but we are here. First, it saddens me that we have to pass a bill to stiffen fines and penalties to keep people from doing the despicable act of intentionally soring a horse's forelegs. And this is done through chemical means or mechanical devices to artificially--understand this--artificially accentuate the gait of the Tennessee Walking, Racking, or Saddle Horse. Dr. Schrader and I are both equine vets, the only ones in the House. We know this. We have seen this. We have dealt with this. As Dr. Schrader brought up, the Horse Protection Act was passed in 1970 to stop this. It was passed to stop this. That industry has had 49 years to bring this to an end, and they wanted to self-police. They have had 49 years to self-police, and they have not brought this to an end. I have got a shoe here that the gentleman had a picture of. This is a built-up shoe that we use on horses. I could drop it on the table, but I don't want to get the bill to fix it. This weighs about 10 pounds. This is one foot, on the front of a leg. Then they put these devices on there.…”