State legislative roundup

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2002:

Anti-cruelty bills

INDIANAPOLIS–Indiana Governor Frank O’Bannon in mid-March
signed into law bills enabling felony cruelty prosecutions and
criminalizing possession of animal fighting paraphernalia, annonced
American SPCA Midwest representative for government affairs Ledy Van
Kavage.
Bills to introduce felony cruelty penalties were still alive
in Alaska and Kentucky as ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press, while law
enforcement officers joined humane advocates in Fort Smith,
Arkansas, on February 25 to announce a petition drive by Citizens
for a Humane Arkansas to put a proposed felony cruelty bill on the
2002 state ballot. Citizens for a Humane Arkansas must gather 75,000
voter signatures in favor of the bill by June 30.

A bill requiring persons convicted of intentionally torturing
or killing animals to attend anger management classes unanimously
cleared the Florida senate on March 22, after previously winning
passage in the state house, and was sent to Governor Jeb Bush to be
signed.
Fear & loathing in Utah

SALT LAKE CITY–SHARK founder Steve Hindi on March 13 dropped
a defamation suit against Utah state representative Paul Ray
(R-Clinton), after learning that Ray, as a state legislator, would
be defended at taxpayer expense.
Hindi sued Ray after Ray repeatedly called him a terrorist in
public statements, while pushing a new state “anti-agricultural
terrorism” bill to replace a previous version that was judicially
overturned for being constitutionally vague and over-reaching.
The new version cleared the Utah state house 69-1 on March 5,
and is now before the state senate. The one opponent was reportedly
representative Scott Daniels (D-Salt Lake City), a former state
judge, who warned that this version too would fail a test of
constitutionality.
Anti-trapping initiative

OLYMPIA–The Washington house of representatives failed to
vote before a March 8 deadline on a bill passed by the state senate
which would have repealed the anti-trapping initiative approved by
voters in November 2000. The legislative session ended on March 14,
leaving the trapping ban intact for at least another year.