Commentary: Animal Wellness Action Endorses U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace in Republican Primary Set for Tuesday

By: Marty Irby, Guest Writer

Today, Animal Wellness Action, a Washington, D.C. non-profit focused on passing legislation to better protect animals across the country, formally endorsed U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C. for Congress in the Republican primary against Katie Arrington.

Leaders from Animal Wellness Action met U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-Daniel Island, just days after her election to Congress, and Mace expressed her deep inner passion for the voiceless animals the organization works to protect.

“We are proud to endorse Nancy Mace for Congress in the Republican primary set for Tuesday, and applaud her tireless work for animals, and the great people of the First District,” said Marty Irby, executive director at Animal Wellness Action and a graduate of the Heritage Foundation’s Congressional Fellowship program. “I’ve never seen a more hardworking and effective Member of Congress, and we applaud her caring instincts, dedication, and unparalleled work ethic.”

“There’s no better friend to animals in Congress than Nancy Mace,” said Penny Eastman, deputy director of Federal Affairs at Animal Wellness Action who worked in the White House and Administrations for both President Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. “Nancy embodies Christian values of caring for all of God’s creation.”

Nancy Mace is leading on at least five federal animal protection and sustainable agriculture measures in the U.S. House:

• Mace is working to stop needless, costly, and inhumane animal testing. She joined Reps. Buddy Carter, R-Ga., and Vern Buchanan, R-Fla. and Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky. in leading the charge to pass the FDA Modernization Act that would end animal testing mandates at the FDA by amending the 1938 statute – a Depression-era requirement for animal testing for all new drug development protocols and allow for alternative methods when validated through the U.S. House last week. The FDA Modernization Act passed as a rider to H.R. 7667 by a vote of 396 – 28 last Wednesday.
• Mace is coauthor of a measure to ban mink farming, which is an export industry with nearly all of the pelts sold to China and the number one zoonotic disease threat when it comes to spawning COVID-19 variants. It makes little sense to keep afloat a dying, subsidized mink industry that threatens human and wildlife health for a luxury fashion item. It is entirely an export market, with nearly all pelts sold to high-end consumers in China. China’s elites get the coats and they outsource the viral risk to our homeland. Mace shepherded an amendment that mirrors the stand-alone bill to passage in the House in February.

Mace led a letter to the U.S. Postal Service Inspector calling on the Inspector to crackdown against illegal animal fighting shipments to Guam and other countries throughout the world.  Animal fighting is bound up with illegal gambling, narcotics trafficking, and human-on-humane violence.

Nancy Mace has cosponsored every single animal protection bill in Congress that AWA has asked her to join including the following:

• Mace cosponsored the Big Cat Public Safety Act, that would bar private citizens from keeping dangerous carnivores like lions and tigers in our communities;
• Mace cosponsored the Bear Protection Act to combat poaching of bears for their gall bladders;
• Mace cosponsored the Greyhound Protection Act that would wipe out the last remaining tracks operating in the U.S.
• Mace cosponsored the PREPARED Act that would help both animals and pet owners in times of crisis like Hurricane Florence that brough widespread flooding to the Palmetto State in 2018;
• Mace cosponsored the Animal Cruelty Enforcement (ACE) Act that would create an Animal Cruelty Crimes Unit at the U.S. Dept. of Justice;
• Mace cosponsored the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act that would ban the trade in shark fins in the U.S.;
• Mace cosponsored two bills that would better protect our iconic American equines: the SAFE that would permanently outlaw horse slaughter on U.S. soil and PAST Act that would help end the soring of Tennessee Walking, Racking, and Spotted Saddle Horses.

In addition Mace invited Animal Wellness Action to join her in South Carolina on an expedition geared at exposing animal-testing-related cruelty on Monkey Island near Beaufort, and Mace has appeared in numerous videos on animal issues with AWA leaders here, here, here, here, and here.

Click here to see Animal Wellness Action’s microsite on Mace’s work for animals. 

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