ADVANCE, NC – Today Animal Wellness Action announced its endorsement of U.S. Rep. Ted Budd in the race for U.S. Senate, a seat being left open by the retirement of Richard Burr, in recognition of his solid advocacy for horses and other animal protection policies.
“Ted Budd is a tremendous advocate for equine protection and has backed every major horse protection measure brought before the U.S. House since he first took office,” said Marty Irby, executive director at Animal Wellness Action and a past president of the Tennessee Walking Horse Breeders’ & Exhibitors’ Association. “We applaud Budd’s terrific work and hope the voters that care about animals will send him back to Washington, D.C. as a U.S. Senator from the Tarheel State.”
Budd has backed numerous animal protection measures in the U.S. House:
- Budd is an original cosponsor of the Prevent All Soring Tactics (PAST) Act and voted in support of the measure in July of 2019 that would end one of the most egregious abuses in the equine show world, the painful practice of ‘soring’ Tennessee Walking Horses. As a walking horse owner, Budd has a great passion for this issue and spoke on the floor in favor of passing the measure in 2019 in a very powerful speech.
- Budd will provide one more Senate vote for a long-overdue measure to ban the slaughter of American horses for slaughter. He is a cosponsor of the Save America’s Forgotten Equines (SAFE) Act that would permanently end the slaughter of equines on U.S. soil, and the transport of equines over state and federal lines for that purpose.
- Budd is a cosponsor of the FDA Modernization Act to eliminate the animal testing mandate for all new drug development practices. We look forward to working with him in the Senate to end needless, costly, and inhumane forms of animal testing, ushering in a new era dominated by 21st-century alternative methods.
- “Ted Budd understands the importance of animal welfare, and he understands that North Carolinians care about treating them right,” said Wayne Pacelle, president at Animal Wellness Action. “He has a long record of supporting animal welfare issues during his House career.”
- Budd was a cosponsor of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act, that took effect in July of this year, signed into law to ban the use of race day doping in American horse racing. The measure created a uniform national standard for drug testing and track safety overseen by the private non-profit Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority that will provide much needed certainty for the industry.
- Budd was an original cosponsor of the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act that was signed into law by President Donald J. Trump in 2019 – the first ever anti-cruelty statute in American history that outlawed the most egregious of animal abuses on the federal level.
- Budd cosponsored and voted for the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act that passed the U.S. House in the Fall of 2019 that would end the trade in shark fins.
- Budd was a cosponsor of the PAWS for Veterans Therapy Act that was signed into law in 2021. The new law requires the “Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to implement a five-year pilot program to provide canine training to eligible veterans diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder as an element of a complementary and integrative health program.”