With the 2024 Democratic National Convention wrapping up in Chicago, Vice President Kamala Harris is now officially the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party. That makes this the right time to assess Harris’ record on animal protection issues. Harris has had a long political career and held offices at the local, state and federal levels in which she has had substantial opportunities to advance animal protection policies.
As with our profile of Republican nominee Donald Trump, we do not make judgments based on party affiliation or on stances candidates might take on any other issues. We focus on their animal protection records, and their electability. We understand that clear, factual evaluations are critical for voters who prioritize humane ballot choices. As the nation’s leading voice on animal protection politics, the Humane Society Legislative Fund produces nonpartisan analyses you can trust as you prepare to vote.
This is the first time in our organizational history that we can consider a presidential candidate’s animal welfare record as a prosecutor and the chief legal officer of a state, and Harris deserves great credit in this regard. As California’s Attorney General, Harris successfully defended the state’s law on the sale of inhumane and unsafe battery cage eggs. She also defended California’s ban on the possession and sale of shark fins and the sale of foie gras.
During her four years in the U.S. Senate, Harris consistently supported pro-animal bills and earned a lifetime score of 100+ on our federal Humane Scorecard, through her record and willingness to lead on these issues. Among other actions, she cosponsored bills to crack down on horse soring cruelty, ban public contact with big cats, reduce wildlife trafficking, strengthen federal laws against shark finning and tackle the scourge of doping in horse racing.
It is more difficult to evaluate Harris’s record as vice president because sometimes there are understandable limits on what vice presidents can do to shape an administration’s policies; in some areas, Harris has been able to pursue certain priorities within the context of a broader agenda set by President Biden along with his cabinet and the heads of federal agencies. In other sectors, and with respect to some federal agencies of relevance, the path for her in shaping the administration’s agenda may not have been so clear.
It is clear, however, that the case for the Biden-Harris administration on animal welfare is mixed, especially when it comes to the protection of captive chimpanzees, equines, and animals raised for food, to cite a few key concerns. We had been hoping for much better from an administration led by two individuals who gained our 2020 endorsement and took office with strong animal protection credentials.
Most conspicuously, in 2023, the Biden-Harris Administration positioned itself firmly on the wrong side—and the losing side—of the historic U.S. Supreme Court case concerning California’s Proposition 12, a pioneering, public health and animal welfare law enacted by 7.5 million voters, nearly a two-thirds majority of those who turned out. The U.S. Department of Justice submitted a brief in support of the backwards-looking and self-serving position of the National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau Federation, putting industry profits ahead of guaranteeing millions of animals the basic freedom to stand up, spread their wings, or turn around.
Even worse, Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture, has pandered to the NPPC and the obstructionist segment of pork producers, essentially serving as chief lobbyist for special interests that cling to the use of cruel and archaic gestation crates that deny mother pigs their most basic behavioral and biological needs. The administration’s failure to support our position in what is arguably the most important legal battle in the history of animal protection, combined with Vilsack’s constant efforts to put his thumb on the scale in the matter, are difficult to excuse.
If there was a bright spot in the administration’s agricultural policy, it came with the USDA’s reinstatement of an organics rule—repealed by the Trump Administration—which promised to improve the lives of upwards of 50 million animals raised for food each year, by setting standards for outdoor access and for natural movements for animals raised under the organics label.
In respect to the horse protection issues of concern to us, the administration’s record is a middling one. We continue to advocate for a permanent end to horse slaughter operations, and we’re pleased with the administration’s continued determination to defund federal inspections of these facilities in its annual budget requests, preventing the return of horse slaughter on American soil. We’re also pleased that the USDA has issued a final rule to tackle the scourge of horse soring.
When it comes to wild horses, unfortunately, the administration has made little discernible progress in meeting congressional demands that the Bureau of Land Management embrace a robust and comprehensive program to manage wild horses and burros—one that prioritizes fertility control tools and other humane measures. Instead, the Biden-Harris Administration, like others before it, has simply continued to remove wild horses and burros using the old playbook of crude roundups without nuance and without sufficiently increasing its use of fertility control.
On several wildlife issues of consequence, the Biden-Harris Administration has made some progress. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service kept up the fight against cruel hunting practices through a proposed rule which, if finalized, would ban predator control on the National Wildlife System, a move which promises to protect bears, coyotes, cougars, foxes, bobcats and other natural predators living on refuges from cruel and senseless killing. The agency also finalized a rule that will better regulate imports of critically endangered African elephants and their parts. However, we were seriously disappointed by the administration’s denial of a petition to give wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains the Endangered Species protections they desperately need.
In a move of great importance, the USDA under President Biden and Vice President Harris finalized a rule extending Animal Welfare Act coverage to birds used in commerce. We also recognize the signs of a strengthened commitment to stricter oversight of breeders and exhibitors under the AWA. In another notable action, the DOJ reached a settlement with a laboratory animal breeding company for violations of the AWA, including a fine of $11 million—the largest such fine in American history.
With respect to other animals used in research and testing, one particularly disappointing administrative failure involves the actions of the National Institutes of Health in stalling the transfer of 30 chimpanzees to the sanctuary Chimp Haven. In refusing to act, the NIH is denying these animals the care that they deserve after enduring lives as test subjects, and it is also violating federal law.
As an elected official charged with enforcing laws, including animal protection laws, in her state and as a legislator in the U.S. Senate, Kamala Harris established a strong and creditable record. Still, it should be said, that when she and Joe Biden took office, we expected to see more advances for animals, and we haven’t. We hoped that they would choose agency leaders who would prioritize animals and were disappointed in the cases in which they didn’t. And we certainly didn’t expect their Secretary of Agriculture to carry on a shameless campaign to undermine Proposition 12.
With several months remaining before an incredibly consequential election, and five months left in their administration, there is still time for Vice President Harris to reassure animal advocates of her record on animal welfare, and for her and President Biden to cement their administration’s animal protection legacy. As Election Day draws closer, please remember to update your voter registration, request an absentee ballot, and participate in this critically important election.
Be sure to consult our analysis of former President Trump’s record on animal protection.
