Texas Law Will Protect the Abused...and Their Pets

Jul 2, 2011
John Willingham

Texas State Sen. Wendy Davis - Texas Senate

State Sen. Wendy Davis' bill protects pets whose owners have obtained protective orders against spouses or other persons. Pets cannot be harmed or stolen.

In Texas, an up-from-her-bootstraps legislator, who is also a single mom, has succeeded in passing a bill in the state senate that gives new protection to pets whose owners have obtained protective orders against spouses or other persons.

Under current law, judges can assign pets as “property” to a person, but cannot issue an order that protects the pets as well as the owner who has custody of the pet. If a woman must go to a shelter that has a no-pet policy, then her pets could be subject to abuse, kidnapping, or even death.

What the New Law Does for Pets

But Senate Bill 279 by State Sen. Wendy Davis, effective on September 11 of this year, allows a judge to “prohibit a person from removing a pet, companion animal, or assistance animal from the possession of a party protected by a protective order.

“Moreover, the judge can prohibit a person from harming, threatening, or interfering with the care, custody, or control of a pet or assistance animal belonging to a person protected by a protective order.”

This new offense would ordinarily be a Class A misdemeanor. But if the guilty party commits other violations, such as stalking or assault, the punishment may be a felony.

National and state supporters of the Humane Society of the United States have applauded the new law. “The anti-cruelty laws of a state are a reflection of our basic values and attitudes toward animals, and this…is a measurable step forward for the state of Texas,” said Nicole Paquette, Texas senior state director for The Humane Society of the United States.

With the adoption of the bill, Texas is now one of 21 states that have enacted similar laws to protect pets. The other states, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association, are Maine, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and West Virginia.

Sen. Wendy Davis—Trailer Park to Harvard

Sen. Wendy Davis, 48, who sponsored the bill in the senate, grew up in the Fort Worth suburb of Richland Hills, living with her own single mom, who had only a sixth-grade education. According to an excellent profile by Emily Ramshaw in the Texas Tribune, Davis began selling subscriptions to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram at the age of 14.

Out of school, divorced, and with a child at age 19, she lived in a trailer home, and managed to put herself through Tarrant County Community College. There, she earned a scholarship to Texas Christian University, graduated at the top of her class, and then completed her improbable ascent by graduating from Harvard Law School.

She served almost a decade on the Fort Worth City Council, meanwhile practicing law in the city. Before winning a surprise victory in 2008 that sent her to the state senate, Davis won the respect not only of other political leaders but also of her employees and staff.

“Wendy treats everybody with respect, appreciation, and regard,” said Kristi Wiseman, Davis’ former council aide. “She never takes advantage of people, and she never forgets to say please and thanks.”

A “fearless political firecracker”

Davis’ work on behalf of pets and abused women in Texas appears to be part of a larger concern for public welfare. She made national headlines with her state senate filibuster on May 29 on behalf of education funding, the most key issue in the state, which forced Governor Rick Perry to issue a call for a special session at a time when national pundits were saying he needed to put the session behind him and get on with a presidential race.

The governor was not pleased. “After Perry effectively called her a ‘show horse’ in a Monday press conference,” Ramshaw wrote in the Tribune, “Davis took him on, accusing him of using partisan tactics to help further ‘his presidential desires.’”

The episode “catapulted the petite, eloquent and seemingly fearless political firecracker into the spotlight,” but she might not be able to stay there, at least as a state senator. The state’s new redistricting map shows her now in a district that gave John McCain 56 percent of the vote in 2008.

Sources:

Emily Ramshaw, “Filibuster Propels Wendy Davis into Spotlight,” Texas Tribune, June 5, 2011.
Curtis Rochelle, “Can Wendy Davis Turn Fort Worth Blue?" May 13, 2008.
Julie Chang, “Texas law slated to protect pets caught in the crossfire of domestic abuse,” Dallas Morning News, July 1, 2011.

John Willingham - John Willingham is a regular contributor to the History News Network (HNN.us). His novel The Edge of Freedom is about the Texas ...

Comments

Jul 8, 2011 12:40 AM

Guest :

WOW, Now pets will have more protection then HALF of the victims of domestic violence becauses that half happens to be MALE!

"If a woman must go to a shelter that has a no-pet policy, then her pets could be subject to abuse, kidnapping, or even death."

At least women have a shelter to go to, there are more than 2,000 nation wide but there are less than a dozen for men throughtout the nation and only one or two that I know of that can accept a man and his children. Most of the time, abused men do have one place to go....JAIL

Statistics can be manipulated. When one gets funding based on these statistics manipulation can be very rewarding. If I did a study on the number of people who purchased a grill cheese sandwich, and got paid for each grilled cheese purchased, it would be tempting to call any sandwich with cheese a grilled cheese. Of course this would not be honest. There are a number of reasons we do not know the real statistics on domestic violence and we will explore a few of them here.

1: Many of the statistics on the number of abused women were obtained from surveying "women's shelters" These shelters stood to gain funding based upon the number of abused women they found. The more abused women they found, the greater the funding so would it not be in "their" best interest to "find" more of them? Would it not be in "our" best interest to study the statistics from those who have nothing to gain, or lose by what they show?

2: There are many public service announcements encouraging women to seek help for domestic violence. Almost all of these are centered on having female victims and male abusers. Several inform us that the woman is seeking help so her "son" does not become an abuser. Of course we all know her daughter will not become one.

3: We often hear "there is no excuse to hit a woman" yet our society provides countless reasons to hit a man. We see this in sit -coms, drama, movies and almost every mode of entertainment. Men are often beaten, hit and even kicked in the groin and we laugh. If we changed the genders the men would be arrested for aggravated sexual assault if this were to happen. As a result of this "conditioning" we do not see the many often sadistic things done to men as abuse. How often have we, have "you" thought that when a woman hits a man, "what did he do to deserve that?"

4: "Must arrest" laws throw off the statistics. Many locations have "must arrest" and "no drop" laws. There is strong reason to believe that in many of these locations, it is the man that must be arrested since law enforcement agencies get funding from the Violence Against Women Act if a man is arrested for domestic violence. This means the man is arrested even if he is the only victim.