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Two sneaky attempts to stop the crack down on puppy mills have been thwarted, thanks mostly to animal rights activists who kept their eye on the bouncing ball and waged a campaign of complaints to get two amendments pulled from legislative bills this session.
And they took on one of the most powerful lobbyists in the state to do it.
It’s a testament to the power of grass roots organizing that the Pets’ Trust and other animal rights groups like the Animal Legal Defense Fund beat powerful Tallahassee lobbyist Ron Book — and perhaps something that we can apply to other issues, such as gun sense and charter schools.
“It was a victory for ‘we the people’ and a lesson in how our government is supposed to work,” Michael Rosenberg, one of the Pets’ Trust founders, told Ladra.
Related: Carlos Gimenez keeps rejecting voter-approved Pets’ Trust
Book represents Petland, a chain of pet stores — and the first result on your screen if you google “puppy mills Florida.” The Humane Society and other agencies have investigated the chain, which is the biggest national retail supplier of puppy mill dogs. There is one in Kendall. Basically, they resell puppies from USDA-licensed breeders that, activists have proven, put profits over the health and well-being of the dog, keeping hundreds of dogs in cramped and substandard conditions. Many die are kept in wire cages with urine and feces for days. Many die or have injuries and illnesses. The dogs that breed live in captivity their entire lives, with one purpose only: breed more puppies for profit. It’s a very sad existence.
Last year, the city of Miami passed an ordinance that prohibits the sale of any dogs that were bred in puppy mills, like in this photo right. Stores can sell pups from hobby breeders, who treat their animals like pets and only breed once or twice a year. Another 57 or 58 municipalities have similar laws include Hollywood, Hallandale Beach and Hillsborough County.
Book tried twice to get amendments into two different bills to basically void any local puppy mill ordinances like those. The first was a carefully disguised line in the Agriculture and Consumer Services department’s 300-page bill about oyster farming and seed labels. It didn’t even include the word animal or pet in it. Supporters contended it meant anything that could be bought or sold legally.
But animal activists saw right through it and it was removed.
Then, State Rep. Halsey Beshears (R-Monticello), right, tried to sneak it back in again Monday, filing an amendment to 160-page tax package to prohibit municipalities from restricting the sale of “taxable personal property” that could be legally sold. That would include dogs and cats. And it was caught again.
Monday afternoon, the Pets’ Trust sent the following email blast:
“Our legislative sessions ends this Friday. During these final days, lobbyists seeking to implement the agendas of their clients are doing some sneaky things. Mr. Ron Book is the lobbyist for puppy stores and is one of the top lobbyists in the state. He convinced Representative Beshears to support puppy stores and Mr. Beshears listened, adding an amendment  (two sentences in a 300-page bill) that stops communities from banning puppy stores. This is not the way our government should operate, with a powerful lobbyist dictating to a representative what he wants
How about what WE want!!!!? Please call Representative Beshears and urge him to reject that amendment and fight with us to stop puppy stores.
Then, call Senator Lauren Book, the daughter of Ron Book.  While Lauren fights to protect abused children, Ron Book leads the way to protect abusers of puppies. Call Senator Book and ask her to fight against this Bill, and to enlighten her father on the horrific puppy mills
CALL NOW!!!!
Please send to ten other people.”
Ladra thinks it was that last line that did it.
Signed by Pets’ Trust founders Rosenberg and Rita Schwartz, the email sent to more than 33,000 supporters included both lawmakers’ office numbers. Then, Commissioner Daniella Levine Cava forwarded it to her email list. The senators must have been deluged with calls.
Related: Animal shelter show hides truth about services, kill rate
The next day, an angry Ron Book emailed Rosenberg, calling the email blast he sent “trashy.” But Ladra doesn’t see anything trashy about it. It’s honest. Just plain matter of fact. And, guess what? It was effective. The amendment was pulled Tuesday evening.
Or we could say it was “trashed.”
Next email campaign should be to get Miami-Dade — which passed an ordinance in 2014 that forces stores to advertise the source of their puppies — to get more aggressive and outright ban the importation of any animals from puppy mills. Especially now that, as the Tampa Bay Times reported, the federal government is redacting the reports from the USDA investigators on these hellholes. What good is knowing the source if we can’t find out anything about their history?
Commissioner Levine Cava — who some may think forgot her promise to help voters make the Pets’ Trust initiative that passed with 65% become a reality — is working on a puppy mill ordinance, but may not have the support she needs.
Call your commissioner and tell them that this is a no brainer.
And to not let any lobbyist help write it up.
 

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So, Donna Shalala wants to be a congresswoman all of a sudden. Why? Because she’s “angry” at Donald Trump?
Aren’t we all? Most of us are not just angry but enraged at the current administration’s fear mongering, lies and conflicts of interest — just for starters. But if being angry makes you qualified for public office, well, then Trump has a lot more going for him than we thought.
The former president at the University of Miami may be angry now, but where has she been? She sounds like an opportunist taking advantage of the Trump rage fueling the blue wave across the nation. She also said at her announcement that she was disturbed at the lack of action after the tragic school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High last month. That’s opportunism for ya.
So why are some already giving her the congressional win in District 27, where there is a slew of qualified and good candidates already? Because they don’t live here. Ladra does. And let me tell you, the people of CD 27 are not falling for that internal poll she paid someone on her campaign team for. Have you seen the comments on social media?
Related: And then there were 16 candidates in the CD27 race to replace Ileana
Shalala’s announcement that she was going to, after all, run for Congress after thinking about it for a month came complete with a poll from Bendixen Amandi that shows her as the front runner in a Democratic primary against six other candidates. I call BS! First, because it is a paid campaign poll and like all paid internal polls is suspect. And also because we haven’t seen poll details, particularly the questions that were asked. Ladra suspects it was a push poll where the caller “tested” positive messages on Shalala until they got their desired results. There is just no way that she has a 32-point lead ahead of Jose Javier Rodriguez, who just spent close to $5 million in an overlap district to take the senator’s seat against Republican Miguel Diaz de la Portilla. They overshot.
And also, and this might be the most important, because the voters here can tell an opportunist when we see one. Like her saying she is running because she is angry at Trump. She is actually saying that because her poll showed 78% of the Democrat voters have a unfavorable view of the president (only?).
But when Donna has had an opportunity to actually do something for her community, she failed time and again. Shalala is a smooth talker and has pretty paper credentials topped by a recent stint at the Clinton Foundation, but she also has a ton of baggage that Dems will find particularly heavy:

She was serving as Health and Human Services secretary under Bill Clinton in 1996 when Congress passed a law banning the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from studying gun violence. Why is she hot on the gun issue now? Opportunism.
She parlayed that position into a gig on UnitedHealth’s board of trustees, where she ended up with tons of stock she sold in 2005 for more than $5 million. Now Shalala will have to convince Democrat voters that she will work for Medicare for all instead of the for-profit insurance industry that she used to work for and made so much money from. Opportunism. And hypocrisy.
For almost 10 years, she served as on the board of Lennar Homes, a major builder of crappy, cookie cutter homes credited with helping to create the housing and mortgage crisis in South Florida. Shalala only left after one of the company’s directors became a UM board member — only to join the board again two years after she left the school. Opportunism.
As president of the University of Miami, she twice fought efforts by the cleaning staff and food service staff to unionize and make a decent living wage, protesting what many called “poverty pay.” Shalala was called an “enemy of the working poor” by a campus chaplain. The labor dispute gained national attention when professors and department academics began a hunger strike to support the workers. Meanwhile, she lived in a mansion in Cocoplum and, later, a nice condo on Edgwater Drive in Coral Gables she bought for $1.4 million in 2014. Oh, she also has a little place on South Beach she bought for $275,000 in 2013. That’s just hypocrisy.
Then there’s that picture circulating of a giddy Donna taking a $50,000 check from booster Nevin Shapiro, who was later charged with securities fraud in a $900 million Ponzi scheme and showered UM players with gifts that led to an NCAA investigation.
As UM president, she also sold us out when she secretly sold environmentally sensitive and endangered Pine Rocklands property that the university owned in South Dade to be paved over for a Walmart-anchored shopping strip. Opportunism.

She’s already coming under fire for that on Facebook, as you can see from the meme below.
And Donna is coming into this race a little late because she had to figure out the “mechanisms of a campaign” first, which she said means she had to gauge support. Sounds like she had to get all her ducks in a row. Sounds like she would only run after all the financial commitments (promised contributions) were made, but not if they weren’t. Opportunism.
Seriously, maybe Shalala should run as a Republican.
Either way, though, we don’t need more opportunists (or hypocrites) in Washington. There are plenty already there.

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Politico: How Florida lawmakers played university favorites in this year’s budget