Illinois Politician Backs Off Support of Gas Chambers

A couple of weeks ago, we told you about Bill Brady, the Republican nominee for Governor in Illinois. Brady, a state senator, got himself into hot water with animal advocates by sponsoring a bill making it easier for animal shelters to use gas chambers instead of lethal injection when euthanizing animals.

Brady's opponent, incumbent Governor Pat Quinn, chose to make Brady's support of gas chambers a campaign issue, releasing a devastating ad (which a newspaper in the UK called, "America's Nastiest Political Ad").

Just a few days after Quinn seized on the euthanasia issue, Brady backed off, telling the public that, far from supporting the mass-killing of companion animals in gas chambers, he would, as governor, veto any such legislation. It's a complete reversal from his position this spring, when he apparently believed that the ability to gas animals was so important that it merited consideration by the State Senate and a change to the existing law.

Now, suddenly, he's squarely in the animal protection camp.

I'm not buying what Bill Brady is selling here, and I don't think you should buy it either, especially if you're an Illinois voter. As the Illinois political blog Capitol Fax notes, Brady not only sponsored the offending legislation, he twice voted against legislation cracking down on gas chambers in Illinois.

Of course, now there's an election around the corner, and Brady is no doubt all too aware of the 6.5 million pet owners in Illinois. So you'll pardon my cynicism if I say that this is all about political animals, and not animal politics.

As Lindsey Miller of the Examiner points out, the only reason Brady sponsored the gas chamber bill in the first place was because one veterinarian in his district asked him to. Then, realizing that he had made a political error, he dropped his sponsorship of the bill. And, when his opponent, Pat Quinn, called him out for being pro-gas chamber, he did a 180 and vowed to veto any legislation that even looks like the bill he sponsored less than twelve months ago.

So yeah, I'm skeptical.

It's not that Bill Brady hates companion animals, or even that he loves gas chambers (which puts him in a different camp than, say, the American Veterinary Medical Association). To look at the facts, it's painfully obvious that he just doesn't care. And in a lot of ways, that's even worse. If Bill Brady wins, expect Illinois' animal policy to be directed by whichever political winds are blowing the hardest in the governor's office.

Photo credit: Hamed Saber