Visit Reports: Representative Sherman

[Snakesitter]

On December 15, I called Representative Sherman at his San Fernando Valley office (818-501-9200) to set up an appointment. I spoke with an “Alice,” who told me the procedure was to e-mail the Representative’s Scheduler (lara.maxey@mail.house.gov) a highly detailed request containing my name, title, reason, the legislation, etc. Letter in process.

Next visitor?

[Snakesitter]

Last Thursday, a small group of us sat down with Brad Sherman’s office. Brad Sherman is a seventh-term congressman who represents California's 27th district. We met with his Director of Constituent Services, Carolina Krawiec. She was the sole attendee on their side; on ours, we had Living Gems Reptiles (me), Boas Gone Wild, Kim (pet owner), and Ethan (pet owner). The other two members of our group were unfortunately unable to make it.

Over the course of a 30-minute meeting, we learned that snakes were a new issue for the office, and not one they either understood very well or were very concerned with.

1. Not surprisingly, they are primarily concerned with the effect this will have on THEIR constituents. Carolina asked if we could generate some type of list or statistics showing who in his district would be negatively impacted by this proposed law. One of our group members said she would follow up.

2. One of the two issues Carolina was aware of was the small girl who was tragically killed last year by an escaped Burmese. We parried this well: we started by making the point large snake fatalities were extremely rare (only nine known, none were due to boas, and we gave her pre-printed copies of the Rexano "death by snake" statistics I'd brought along just in case), stressed the fact the owner was not following the law (he did not register the animal, did not follow caging requirements, and was a questionable parent to begin with), and promised a follow-up article proving the latter point.

3. The next issue was more challenging. Carolina said she was aware that the HSUS backed this issue, and that failing major constituent outcries, they would probably back the law just for that reason. We countered this one carefully, as I know Sherman's office likes the HSUS. I stated that while local humane societies do great work, the national one is ignorant on and unsupportive of reptile issues. (My fear was that if we attacked, we'd look like a bunch of loonies rather than responsible business owners. Having spoken with other since then, however, and given some of the recent news on the HSUS (RICO lawsuit, news video), I'm wondering if we should launch an offensive to try and discredit them.)

4. Finally, Carolina seemed to think that so long as the animals could still be sold in California, this law was not so bad. Again, we countered this one well, noting that California as an isolated market excluded most of the country, and giving statistics like a friend of Ashley's who sold tens of thousands of dollars of snakes outside of the state. I will send Carolina additional information soon, including the Wikipedia quote that "As of 2008, the gross state product (GSP) is about $1.85 trillion, which is 13% of the United States gross domestic product (GDP)." (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_California>) In other words, California businesses lose 87% of our potential sales by limiting ourselves to this state alone.

If I hear anything more, I will add to this report.