Horse Council national meeting held in Madison
A group of 45 people representing horse councils in 13 states gathered in Madison last weekend to talk about issues facing the horse industry, better ways to communicate their messages and share ideas about how each of the councils does business in its own area.
Karen Kroll, president of the Wisconsin Horse Council, said the event was slated two years ago and has been a work in progress for the last 48 months. The Coalition of State Horse Councils is a standing committee of the American Horse Council, the national group headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was members of that group that attended the Madison gathering.
The national organization works to protect and promote the equine industry by representing its interests in Congress and in federal agencies, she added. There is a meeting of the group each spring when members from the states come to Washington to lobby their state Congressional delegation on issues of importance to horse owners. Each fall, they hold a session in a member state, like the one in Wisconsin.
The staff in Washington, said Kroll, is always advising state members about legislation that can affect the industry.
The council has its roots in the horse racing industry, said Kroll, and those businesses that have investments in racing are still a strong part of the organization. But in recent years the recreational horse industry has grown significantly, she said, and that is now a big part of the organization.
Kroll said one of the major issues of interest to the horse industry is immigration reform. "People think we're exaggerating when we say that these people are doing the work that Americans won't do, but it's true," she said.
The role of the lobbying group is to present lawmakers - most of whom know nothing about horses or the horse industry - with the facts before they make major decisions on legislation, she said.
Jay Hickey, president of the American Horse Council, who was a keynote speaker at the fall gathering in Madison on Saturday (Nov. 5), agreed. Getting comprehensive immigration reform through Congress is a very important issue to the horse industry, he said. There are currently several lawsuits pending in New York against the Department of Labor from equine businesses that are trying to get their workers in through the government's H2B program.
Under the current federal program, farms and ranches can bring in foreign guest workers through the H2A program while non-farm businesses bring in workers through the H2B program. This is a "non-farm" program that, for example, allows horse trainers to bring in grooms and other assistants, he said.
"Every year they bring in a good number of those workers," he said. "But it's a cumbersome process."
Hickey said that there are admittedly a good number of undocumented workers in all industries, including the horse industry. "But to just expel them would have a huge impact on the horse industry," he added. "It would affect horse owners, trainers, veterinarians, horse shoers. It even affects betting at tracks because betters prefer to place bets on larger fields.
"If trainers can't handle greater numbers of horses because they don't have grooms and assistants, there will be fewer horses in any given race, and that will mean smaller betting totals from spectators," he added.
"Immigration is an incredibly emotional issue and most members of Congress understand how important immigration reform is to our industry and to others, but it's almost like the third rail of politics," Hickey said. Still, lobbyists like him continue to try to get their message through to lawmakers.
"It is one of the top three issues," he told Wisconsin State Farmer in an interview. Other top tier issues for the industry include tax policy and the ways it can affect equine-related businesses and disease prevention and control from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which is facing cutbacks and budget shortfalls.
In fact, Hickey said both of those issues are related to the deteriorating budget situation in the federal government. One of the council's lobbying goals is to "make sure that as the federal government looks for additional revenue, that the horse industry doesn't suffer tax consequences that are out of proportion to other industries," he said.
When it comes to disease management, Hickey said the industry needs to look no further than the recent outbreak of equine herpes virus in horses in California. Though the outbreak of this virulent viral disease closed some shows, veterinarians from the USDA and the state of California acted quickly to confine it, which minimized the economic damage to the industry from the disease outbreak.
"We hope cutbacks in federal agencies won't affect situations like that," he added.
Recreational riding, said Hickey, has seen strong growth in recent years and the Horse Council serves as a watch dog on those issues. There is a tax on off-road vehicles that is given back to states to help with the creation and maintenance of trails for a variety of uses. As a lobbyist representing members who use a variety of trails in many states, Hickey said he is watching to make sure that the money in the trails fund doesn't get diverted to something else.
Hickey, who has been with the council for 15 years, said he looks at it as a job representing small business. It is also a job of educating and fighting stereotypes among members of Congress, who think people who own horses are rich, he said. "For most of them, their only exposure to horses is the first Saturday in May," he said, referring to the day when the Kentucky Derby is run each year.
But the industry is so much more than that, he said, accounting for $102 billion in economic activity and 1.4 million jobs related to the nation's 9 million horses.
In Wisconsin, the industry has a $1.4 billion economic impact and the value of horses in the state is $1.1 billion. The state's horse industry generates $932 million in revenues, according to survey figures generated by the state horse council.
Wisconsin's horse industry generates 36,000 jobs and horse enterprises add $3.25 billion to the value of properties in Wisconsin; the survey data showed that 9 out of 10 horse owners in Wisconsin keep their horses on their own property.
Another issue that comes up, at both the state and national level, is the question of whether or not horses should be considered "companion animals" or livestock. "From our perspective, horses are livestock and we'd like to see it stay that way," said Hickey. "They are bred on farms and ranches and, like other animals on farms and ranches, they are livestock."
Having that designation is important, he said, because it assures that the USDA will be involved in disease issues, which the industry favors. The designation also has implications for issues of taxation. Another, similar question is whether or not stables are "commercial" properties or "agricultural" properties.
Frank Bowman, executive director of the Illinois Horsemen's Council, talked to fellow state horse council members about how important it is for them to be aware of legislative issues. His council was "caught flat-footed" in 2005 when animal rights groups targeted horse slaughterhouses.
Since Illinois had such a processing plant for horse meat that was destined for foreign consumers, the state became a battleground between the interests like his horse council that wanted to see the De Kalb processor stay in business and those who wanted it shut down. When the council hired a contract lobbyist, he said, they eventually learned that this person had mixed loyalties and wasn't doing the work of the horse council. The animal rights concerns won the day, securing the closure of that processing plant.
"We were happy out riding our horses and doing our own thing, and we were caught off guard," he said. The loss on that issue and the ineffectiveness of the contract lobbyist woke his group up to the importance of having a legislative presence. That's when Bowman stepped in to become the lobbyist for the group.
An engineer and construction specialist by trade, Bowman boned up on all the state's rules and regulations that affected horse owners and registered as a lobbyist with the state. One of the most important things he has done, said Bowman, was build relationships with the lawmakers.
"Those relationships are all about education. In the Assembly, there are only two members who own horses," he said.
There has also been some coalition building done with other farm groups, he said. As the animal rights issues unfolded, other farm groups saw that those on the other side of the issue could use the horse industry as a stepping stone to get to mainstream production agriculture. "They used to think 'that could never happen to beef or pork,' and now they're at the same committee meetings we're at," said Bowman.
He encouraged his colleagues to find their advocates in their states and bring them to the state capital. "It opens their eyes and helps them to see how these things work," he said. Bowman also encouraged other horse council representatives to get their members to write letters to lawmakers on important issues.
"If they get two letters, they think they have an issue. If they get five letters, they know they've got a problem," he said.
