The 2025 Missouri Legislature has adjourned
It came down to the wire, but the animals have prevailed against endless assaults on their welfare.
After another contentious year in the Missouri Legislature, we are delighted to announce that the animals have survived, our state animal welfare laws remain intact, and our local animal protection ordinances have been preserved.
This is particularly heartening as the puppy mill industry, agricultural interests, and even the veterinary association waged a fierce battle to overturn our laws protecting animals, solely to profit from animal neglect and exploitation.
The animal abuse proponents continued their ruthless fight through the very end, seeking to amend their harmful bills onto other legislation up until the final minutes of the 2025 legislative session!
The efforts to undermine our animal welfare laws this year in the legislature frequently consisted of outright falsehoods by those seeking to overturn our animal protection laws. Most disconcerting, several legislators told blatant lies about their positions on these bills and voted contrary to their public statements on such legislation. It was a shocking display of deceit and deception that allowed these harmful bills to pass in the House of Representatives.
Fortunately, these contemptible tactics failed in the Senate as many senators took our concerns seriously, listened to their constituents, and genuinely cared about the welfare of animals.
In addition to defeating these harmful bills, we were able to educate the legislature on the strong connection between violence against animals and people. The Alliance’s legislation to mandate the reporting of animal abuse and neglect by social workers, child abuse investigators, and several other human service professionals received strong support from the legislature. The bill passed the House Committee unanimously and passed the full House by a vote of 143 – 4. Regrettably, time ran out for the bill by the time it reached the Senate. However, we built up significant momentum for its passage in the next legislative session while simultaneously raising legislators’ awareness of the link between animal abuse and human abuse.
Here are two of the many bills that posed the greatest threat to the animals, which we were able to
HB 489 & SB 167 sought to eliminate civil disposition trials for abused and neglected animals. These civil trials enable animal victims to be permanently removed from harmful situations in a timely manner, thereby expediting their adoption into suitable homes. If HB 489 had passed, it would have often resulted in abused and neglected animals being left in the hands of their abusers until the conclusion of a criminal trial. This legislation would have also eliminated the authority of animal control officers to rescue abused and neglected animals.
HB 325 & SB 7 were intended to eliminate all regulatory oversight of veterinarians. This legislation would have overturned the ordinances enacted in the City of St. Louis and St. Louis County that prohibit veterinarians from declawing cats. Regrettably, the bill went even further by banning any restrictions or regulations of veterinarians by the local government regardless of how abusive the practice, including cruel procedures occurring at factory farms, such as dehorning and castration of cattle without anesthetics and the agonizing and prolonged suffocation of unwanted animals known as “ventilation shut down.” These bills would have also eliminated many local ordinances prohibiting the use of gas chambers to euthanize animals.
Thanks to your generous support, the Alliance was able to successfully advocate for the animals and thwart the numerous bills that would have weakened our animal protection laws this session, including many that would have eliminated protections for farmed animals.
It was a fight to the end, but the animals prevailed thanks to you!