About Those State Animal Protection Law Rankings

Social media. Many of us use it. Many of us hate it. It can be a wonderful thing when it comes to keeping up with family and friends. It can be a terrible thing when it comes to the sharing and re-sharing of information that may be at best misleading or at worst plain wrong. I personally believe that social media has eroded people's critical thinking skills to the detriment of us all. It encourages short and often meaningless interactions with people we don't know and will never meet. And it is easier to go along with someone who presents themselves as an authority on a topic - or even some organization that does the same - than it is to educate ourselves and think for ourselves in forming our opinions. The topics of animal welfare, animal protection and animals shelters are affected as negatively by this follower mentality and lack of critical thinking as any other subject.

This was made abundantly clear during the last legislative session in the state where I live as people (who no doubt mean well) supported bad legislation related to companion animals just because a well-known personality told them to and while knowing little to nothing about existing laws or how the bills would negatively affect those laws.  People were clamoring for more laws without knowing what laws are already on the books and how efforts to change the laws may actually weaken those we have. Some held a protest on the steps of the state capitol in support of a bill they had not yet read and which ultimately would have weakened existing law. Many who supported the bills referred repeatedly to the state's "ranking" by a national nonprofit organization with the stated mission to, "protect the lives and advance the interests of animals through the legal system."

Ranking of states is nothing new. U.S. News ranks states every year and there are state rankings related to health and education. So what are these state rankings all about when it comes to animals? There was a time years ago when both the Humane Society of the United States (now known as Humane World for Animals) and the Animal Legal Defense Fund both published annual state rankings.  HSUS last published a report years ago, leaving ALDF as the organization to which people are referring when they talk about state rankings regarding animal protection laws.

After reading (or hearing) for the 200th time that Alabama is ranked 49 out of 50 states related to our animal protection laws, I decided I had had enough. To a person, the people talking about the rankings did so with an apparent belief that the ranking means Alabama essentially has no laws at all. Which is just not true. Is there room for improvement in Alabama? Absolutely. I grew up in Southern California and I sometimes joke that time travel really is possible depending on where you go in Alabama. There is no shortage of issues about which the state can improve, many of which are hindered by the fact that ours is an agricultural state (in which Big Ag = Big Money = Big Influence) and hindered by the culture of some resident regarding how animals should be treated. We have laws that are very strong, some of which do not exist in other states. We have laws that are optional when they should be mandatory. We have laws that are not enforced in some cases because law enforcement officers are not trained on animal laws or don't care about them. We have prosecutors who charge people using the wrong statute which sometimes leads to "evidence animals" being housed in shelters for months when a disposition hearing about them can and should be held within 20 days of them being seized. We have elected officials whose opinion is that companion animals should be given no more consideration than single celled organisms, some of whom reportedly participate in cock fighting (which is a felony offense in more than 42 states and the District of Columbia).

My review of the 2024 ALDF rankings report was enlightening. It includes a rankings map (shown below) and information about the method used to rank states and territories based on 4 primary categories and 20 different categories. The rankings focus primarily on enacted animal protection laws and not on enforcement of those laws (which is perfectly understandable). The rankings also do not take into consideration administrative codes like exist in Alabama to regulate professions (from accountants to the Youth Services Department). The top 5 states in the 2024 report are Oregon (1), Massachusetts (2), Maine (3), Illinois (4) and Colorado (5). The bottom 5 states in the report are Mississippi (46), Kentucky (47), Idaho (48), Alabama (49) and North Dakota (50). The report includes data sheets for those 10 states.  The ALDF website has an individual page for each state that includes a report for the state and information specific to the state.

(image from page 3 of the 2024 Animal Legal Defense Fund Ranking Report)

When I began comparing the report details about Alabama, it became clear to me that the rankings are not what I thought at all. There are laws that are lacking in Alabama that are also lacking in the states ranked 2 through 5. There are laws in top ranked states that make some actions optional but not mandatory and yet Alabama is faulted for not having mandatory laws on the same subjects. My analysis of the data appears in the images below. You can see a pdf of my analysis by clicking on the first image.

---

A senior staff attorney with ALDF graciously took time out of her busy schedule to talk with me about the rankings and the effect of those rankings on legislative efforts in my state. She said ALDF uses a point system to rank states and has for many years. I spoke about the issue of equity in fairness in the rankings. She said the primary goal for ranking states is to help identify gaps in animal protection laws across the country, call attention to areas that can improve and to focus on strong laws in some states that could be implemented in other states. ALDF only looks at the state code. To the extent there are professional requirements in an administrative code (like in Alabama) they do not consider that at all. If something considered important is not codified, a state does not get credit for it. If something considered important is part of the ordinary enforcement of laws by a court, but is not explicitly required by state law, a state does not get credit for it.

In the end, my impression is that it is not really possible to rank states equitably using the criteria on which ALDF relies which is understandably limited. There are certainly other states with stronger laws than mine, but since ALDF cannot speak to enforcement in any state, there is no way to determine if those laws are enforced and better than ours are enforced. I explained how the ALDF rankings negatively affect legislative efforts in the state and spoke specifically to the problems with two bills filed in the last legislative session that were promoted by a well known shelter director in the state for reasons I will not elaborate on here so I lessen the risk of being sued. I told the staff attorney the rankings make it seem like the lower ranked states have no laws at all which leads people not familiar with the laws to latch onto any bill thinking it must be a good thing. When it often is far from that. The attorney conceded the state rankings are not a zero-sum situation where states ranked high have thorough laws and states ranked low have no laws. I told her that is, unfortunately, what people think and that most people promote any animal bill they hear about, presuming it must be a good thing. She said she would speak to her director about messaging and to make the purpose of the rankings more clear. I asked that the messaging include encouraging people to learn about existing state laws and to educate themselves so they have a better understanding of the effect of proposed bills on existing laws.  I appreciated her time and her offer to help in the future if there is a particular bill in my state viewed as problematic.

The Animal Legal Defense Fund does a lot of good and helps a lot of people. It is supported by thousands of dedicated attorneys and hundreds of thousands of members and supporters. It is involved in filing lawsuits to stop animal abuse and expand the boundaries of animal law, it provides free legal help to prosecutors handling cruelty cases, it works to strengthen state anti-cruelty statutes, is encourages the federal government to enforce existing animal protection laws, it supports student chapters, has an animal law program and provides public education. Those are all wonderful contributions to society.

From where I site, the state rankings  are a terrible idea. I would much prefer that ALDF stop ranking states as if it is a competition in which those states ranked near the top are applauded and those who rank low must just not give a damn. ALDF could still provide information by state, as it does now, to focus on what good things are happening in the state and where there is room for improvement. Ranking a state 49th has real world consequences. We are fortunate neither of the bills filed this last legislative session passed. They will likely be back in some form in 2026 as people continue to talk about the state rankings while still not understanding what we have on the books, how to focus on elected people who will enforce the laws and how to seek local laws to help improve the quality of life of companion animals in their own back yard.

Before you use the rankings for your state either to support or to oppose legislation in your state - or to talk about how wonderful or terrible your state is - please educate yourself. Learn about existing laws and how they are enforced, if they are enforced. If they are not enforced, get active at the local level to try to change that. Most district attorneys and sheriffs are elected by the public. If existing laws are not enforced, there is no reason to believe new laws will be enforced. When bills are proposed, please take the time to read them and think for yourself. If you have trouble understanding the laws, reach out to advocates in your state who can help you.

What would I like to see in the short-term for Alabama that I think is realistic considering the culture here?

• a law to define the word shelter in the existing criminal code similar to the bill filed in 2021 (this was the third attempt by the same legislator who is now the state auditor; the bill failed all three times).
• amendment to the existing law that makes containment of dogs in county areas optional instead of mandatory. It makes no sense to have a dangerous dog law that applies to every county and still make containment of dogs optional.
• a law to ban confinement of a dog using any type of chain or in a manner that poses a physical danger to the dog.
  
• a Constitutional amendment to allow all 67 counties in Alabama to exercise limited home rule to set standards for companion animal care and confinement (only 2 counties currently have home rule; any local law in county areas requires a ballot measure).
• a law related to dog breeding that is standards-based and for which violations are crimes.
  

I would also like to see all certified law enforcement officers trained on the animal laws in the state code (there is currently no training) and a mandatory training curriculum for animal control officers who assist certified officers.

Dare to dream.