“Yes, all you intrusive government-lovers out there in TV Land, it’s time for the game show sweeping America: “Guess What Party!” It’s the exciting contest where our competitors try to guess the party affiliation of the state or national legislators by the nature of the bills they have introduced.
“It’s not as easy as you might think! For example, Florida Sen. Jason Brodeur filed legislation (SB 1316) mandating that bloggers writing about the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Cabinet or Legislature to register with the state. Bloggers daring to comment on such elected officials must also report any compensation they receive or may receive. Registration would be required within five days of any blog mentioning an elected state official, and thereafter, bloggers would have to file monthly reports on what posts mention those officials.
Can you say “Chilling free speech”? How about “undue burden”? Sure you can! Sen. Brodeur must be a Democrat, right? After all, that’s the party that is now actively hostile to the First Amendment (among others) and slowly but surely moving toward a totalitarian system in which thoughts, words, and personal liberties would be tightly controlled “for the greater good” and to ensure diversity, equity and inclusion. But if you buzzed in with that answer, you’d lose the round of ‘Guess What Party!’
You would have forgotten how incredibly ignorant and stupid that bill is! The bill is unconstitutional on its face, and if we had a competent education system, any 6th grader would know it. Brodeur is a member of the Republican Party—you know, the party so bone-headed that it somehow managed to almost get wiped out in the mid-term elections even in the middle of epic inflation under an incompetent Democratic administration that makes Jimmy Carter seem like Franklin Roosevelt. Brodeur is a GOP deep thinker in the great GOP tradition of George Santos, Marjorie Taylor-Greene, Herschel Walker and Michael Steele. You better not leap to conclusions on “Guess What Party!”
Now here’s today’s challenge, panel….
Maine State Rep. Vicki Doudera has sponsored a bill that would add cats to the state’s animal trespass law, which currently excludes them. Under the law, Maine residents can be fined $50 to $500 for letting pets or animals wander off their property. Cats, Vicki says, are getting a “free and unfettered” pass for the harm they do to bird populations. After all, as an Audobon official testified during public hearings on the bill, cats represent the top “direct, human-caused threat to birds” in North America. She even recalled recounted a piping plover being pulled alive from a cat’s mouth recently! So clearly a government crackdown is called for, because when nature is involved, human legislation is so effective at controlling it. Why, look at climate change! Or the Wuhan virus! Doudera’s colleagues don’t believe in enforcing immigration laws or sentencing criminals to prison terms, but making good citizens pay when their trespassing cats kill trespassing birds is a high priority.
Time’s up, panel. “Guess What Party!”
(Gee, did I give it away?)
Ethics Alarms 
Bird lovers are an avid bunch. They hate cats.
From the linked article:
Francesca Gundrum, from the Maine Audubon, said the harsh reality is that cats that roam outside — including family pets — represent the No. 1 “direct, human-caused threat to birds” in North America. Those include endangered birds like piping plovers, and she recounted one being pulled alive from a cat’s mouth this year in Scarborough.
Doudera, a Democrat from Camden, said she hopes her bill brings about change. “I think we can start a conversation,” she said.
Cats are human caused! Who knew? Kind of like all those guns out there murdering people. Uh-oh. somebody wants to start a conversation. You know, a “conversation” where a lefty hectors you about something screwy.
I hate it when governments make laws that take a dreamed up governmental responsibility and impose it on members of the public. Governments are so good at delegation. Why fine citizens? Why not charge a governmental agency with the responsibility of removing birds from the mouths of cats? Perhaps cats could be educated about their feline supremacy. Shouldn’t bird parents be having “the conversation” with their young? Will these fines be imposed against people of color? Is that equitable?
Not reading anything but the title: Maine Coon Cat?
Would love to have one some day.
Did I win a prize?
-Jut
Wow, I should be happy about how off-base I was .
Or should I?
But, I am going to try a Dog Running at Large Trial a week from Monday. Not quite a murder trial but the prosecutorial reach is similar.
-Jut
First one is wasn’t hard. A bill that helps the governor of Florida? I can’t imagine a democrat supporting that while opposing party is in power. The question is will Desantis oppose it if it passes?
Maine’s legislature is a quirky place, for a variety of reasons. Although I agree on the absurdity of this bill, it’s not at all uncommon to see stuff like this get filed. Wacky bills get proposed regularly by individuals and organized groups; it’s almost impossible to NOT find a rep or senator who will sponsor it. The vast majority of such silliness dies in committee – as, presumably, will this one. I have little doubt that Ms. Doudera is aware that this bill won’t fly, but she has no doubt gained headlines and pleased a constituent.
Common practice or not, filing bills with no intention or hop of having them passed is an abuse of process, like filing frivolous law suits…no?
Oh, I quite agree. But I’ll bet you’ll agree that it happens regularly in Congress, too… I’m not saying it’s smart, I’m not saying it’s ethical, I’m not saying it’s appropriate. I merely note that it’s not uncommon – and Maine’s wasted legislation tends to be rather quirky. As is the expectation that even the most crackpot ideas will be filed, then quickly memory-holed.
Oh, yeah. Virtue-signaling legislation that they know won’t pass but present anyway so they can blame the opposition when it doesn’t go through. Absolutely, that happens in Congress.
This proposed cat legislation is dangerous. If cats represent the top “direct, human-caused threat to birds,” where do wind turbines come in on the human-caused threat to birds spectrum?
With wind turbines, it’s a straighter line; humans don’t hire hitcats as intermediaries.
Does that mean it was really cats that did in the passenger pigeon? Or the dodo (was that really a bird — if memory serves it couldn’t fly?).
In the same vein, perhaps it was dogs that were primarily responsibly for nearly exterminating the buffalo. They are descended from wolves, after all.
she needs to read Adlai Stevenson’s veto of the “cat bill”
https://www.ilsos.gov/departments/archives/online_exhibits/100_documents/1949-veto-cat-bill.html