Former U.S. Senate animal advocate Joseph Lieberman dead at 82

Had one of best U.S. Senate voting records on animal issues, 1990-2012

RIVERDALE, New York––Joseph Lieberman,  82,  a strong animal advocate during his 24-year tenure as a U.S. Senator from Connecticut,  but best remembered for running for U.S. vice president in 2000 alongside Democratic presidential nominee Albert Gore,  died on March 27,  2024 “due to complications from a fall,”  said a family statement.

“His beloved wife,  Hadassah,”  whom Lieberman married in 1982,  “and members of his family were with him as he passed,”  the family statement added.

First Jew on U.S. presidential ticket

“Lieberman,  a Shabbat-observant Jew,  fell 537 votes short of becoming vice president,”  recently recalled Franklin Foer for The Atlantic in an extensive exploration of anti-Semitism in current American public life.

Though at least two Jews,  the silversmith Paul Revere and the physician Joseph Greenleaf,  were instrumental from the opening of the American Revolution in winning U.S. independence from Great Britain,  and though several others served in the Continental Congress,  Lieberman was the first Jew on a U.S. presidential ticket.

“Responsibility to protect our non-human friends”

            “During my time in public life,”  Lieberman testified on September 13,  2005,  “I have always felt an obligation to protect those who cannot speak for themselves.  I believe that government has a responsibility to protect our non-human friends as well as our citizens and residents.”

Lieberman spoke two weeks after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans,  Louisiana,  and Gulfport,  Mississippi.

“It is heartbreaking,”  Lieberman continued,  “to hear of families forced to leave pets behind as they followed instructions to evacuate,  or were being rescued.

“As the ranking member of the Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs,  I have joined the chair,  Senator Susan Collins,”  a Republican from Maine,  “in calling for an investigation of this immense failure in the government’s response to the Hurricane Katrina tragedy.”

PETS Act

Lieberman ten days after that,  with Congressional Friends of Animals caucus co-chairs Christopher Shays,  a Republican Congressional Representative from Connecticut, and Tom Lantos,  a Democratic Congressional Representative from California,  would on September 22,  2005 introduce legislation to require the Federal Emergency Management Agency include pets in disaster relief planning.

The bill eventually evolved into the Pets Evacuation & Transportation Standards Act of 2006.

Born Joseph Isadore Lieberman on February 24, 1942,  in Stamford, Connecticut,  the son of a liquor store owner,   Lieberman while studying at Yale University broke into politics as a summer intern for then-U.S. Senator Abraham Ribicoff and the Democratic National Committee.

“He was my neighbor”

Completing law school at Yale in 1967, Lieberman was elected to the Connecticut state senate in 1970.  Serving 10 years there,  Lieberman went on to a six-year stint as Connecticut state attorney general,  1983-1988.

“He was my neighbor growing up in New Haven,”  Animal Wellness Action and Center for a Humane Economy president Wayne Pacelle told ANIMALS 24-7,   “a stone’s throw away,  almost perfectly parallel to my home and just one street over.  He always had great instincts on animal issues.”

Added Pacelle in a more formal statement,  “Senator Lieberman led a life of independent-minded service to the country and,  after winning a very tough election in 1988,  he became a strong voice in the U.S. Senate for nature and animal protection.  He was always a good man.

“Never took the lead”

“Though he never took the lead on animal issues,”  Pacelle said,  a point others might dispute,  “he had great instincts on the subject on issues that came up in the U.S. Senate,  voting to end subsidies to promote U.S. mink exports,  supporting making animal fighting a federal felony, opposing efforts to allow sport hunting in national parks,  and backing efforts to end the slaughter of American horses for human consumption. He will be missed not only by people in my home state of Connecticut but throughout the nation.”

Previously quiet on animal issues,  Lieberman in June 1990 cosponsored the Dolphin Protection Consumer Information Act,  which introduced “dolphin-safe” standards for the tuna industry.

88% record on humane scorecards

Lieberman in 2000 brought to the presidential ballot one of the best pro-animal voting records in Congress ever.

According to separate legislative scorecards kept by the Fund for Animals,  Friends of Animals,  and Humane Society of the U.S. (which absorbed the Fund for Animals four years later),  Lieberman over the preceding four years had favored 22 of the 25 animal protection bills that came to a vote,  or 88%,  and did not take a position on two of the other three.

Lieberman conflicted with the animal protection community only in opposing a 1995 amendment to an appropriation bill which would have axed two space shuttle missions that included animal research.

Endorsed by Farm Animal Rights Movement founder Alex Hershaft

Animal protection group endorsements of Lieberman flooded the Internet.

Farm Animal Rights Movement founder Alex Hershaft remembered that Lieberman “supported every pro-animal bill introduced during the first session of the 106th Congress, including bills to restrict federal support for fur trapping on national wildlife refuges,  to maintain the intent of the severely weakened dolphin-safe  tuna import standard,  to prevent interstate transport of gamecocks,  and to prohibit both international and interstate shipment of bear viscera.

“Lieberman also co-sponsored legislation against importing garments made from dog or cat fur; spoke from the floor of the Senate in favor of reauthorizing the Endangered Species Act;  spoke against opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling;  and asked President Bill Clinton to oppose the recent Japanese expansion of so-called research whaling to kill Bryde’s whales and sperm whales,  as well as 300 minke whales.”

Had history with Friends of Animals

“Our only disappointment with Lieberman,”  said Friends of Animals president Priscilla Feral,  as head of the largest national animal protection group based within his constituency,  “was way back in 1979 when as a state senator,  despite his promise to FoA to vote for a Connecticut bill to ban leghold traps,  he walked off the floor after a labor lobbyist made a throat-cutting gesture across the room.”

The AFL-CIO was at the time both highly influential within the Democratic Party and strongly supportive of the heavily unionized U.S. fur garment manufacturing industry,  now diminished to political invisibility by slow fur sales,  foreign competition,  and an aging workforce.

“The bill was killed on a tie vote in the Connecticut senate,”  Feral continued,  “when the Lieutenant Governor refused to break the tie.  Lieberman later called me at home to apologize.”

Re-elected as independent

Often aligned politically with former U.S. Senators John McCain of Arizona and Lindsay Graham of South Carolina,  both Republicans,  Lieberman lost the Democratic nomination to run for re-election to the U.S. Senate in 2006,  but was re-elected anyway as an independent.

Lieberman,  fellow independent Bernard Sanders,  and Democrats Barbara Boxer of California,  Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey,  and Benjamin Cardin of Maryland were in 2007 instrumental in blocking George W. Bush administration efforts to weaken the Endangered Species Act.

Primate bill stalled

Lieberman,  Lautenberg,  and Robert Menendez of New Jersey in May 2007 joined co-authors Boxer and David Vitter,  a Republican from Louisiana,  as original co-sponsors of the Captive Primate Safety Act, which would ban the sale of non-human primates as pets.

Repeatedly re-introduced,  the Captive Primate Safety Act remains pending.

Also still pending,  after repeated reintroductions,  is the National Mercury Monitoring Establishment Act,  introduced in January 2008 by Susan Collins,  Republican Senator from Maine,   with Lieberman and Hillary Clinton,  then U.S. Senator from New York.

Mike Markarian,  then president of the Humane Society Legislative Fund,  in 2008 recognized Lieberman for co-sponsoring nine pro-animal bills,  second in the U.S. Senate only to Boxer and Lautenberg,  who co-sponsored ten pro-animal bills each.

Great Cats & Rare Canids

Markarian also mentioned that Lautenberg introduced the U.S. Senate version of the Great Cats & Rare Canids Act, to help fund overseas protection for species including jaguars,  clouded leopards,  African wild dogs,  the Ethiopian wolf,  and the Iberian lynx.

Introduced in 2007,  2008,  and 2009,  the Great Cats & Rare Canids Act never advanced beyond committee.

Lieberman enjoyed more success as co-author of 2008 and 2009 bills that reauthorized the existing Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act with increased funding.

Retiring from the U.S. Senate in 2012,  Lieberman joined the conservative American Enterprise Institute,  and appears to have retired at that point from active animal advocacy.

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