A measure that would have made it a felony to repeatedly abuse animals is heading for a Senate review, but without the felony penalty language.
The Senate Agriculture Committee on Tuesday approved HB 235, but removed all language strengthening the penalty for animal abuse.
As originally worded, anyone convicted more than once on a charge of cruelty to animals could have been charged with a felony and sentenced to up to two years in prison. Currently, animal abuse is a misdemeanor.
Sen. Cheri Steinmetz, R-Lingle, proposed the amendment stripping the felony language out of the bill. She said as written, the language did not specifically define what an animal is and she feared it would not be approved by the Senate.
Steinmetz said if enforced, existing laws would be sufficient to address the problem of animal cruelty.
“There are a lot of penalties and statutes on the books that deal with that,” she said. “I think that they’re probably not being enforced as much as folks would like to see.”
The bill still contains language that would let a judge bar a person convicted in a domestic abuse case from owning or caring for an animal.
The bill is on the list of measures to be considered in the Senate’s “Committee of the Whole.”
