Jacob Grier

My colleague Nicole Kurakowa reports on how Congress is stepping up to address the important issues of the day:

By a vote of 302-96 last week, the House of Representatives passed the Captive Primate Safety Act, a bold step on the road to outlawing pet monkeys. The House bill boasts 26 co-sponsors, including three from Illinois, Republican Mark Kirk and Democrats Jan Schakowsky and Luis Gutierrez. The Senate is expected to take up the companion bill in the next few weeks….

Did Congress step in because of an absence of pre-existing monkey regulations? No. The monkey industry does not operate in a vacuum; states have various restrictions on primate ownership, varying from licensing to breeding restrictions to total bans. If monkey-owning is your hot-button issue, as opposed to, say, taxes or abortion, you are free to move to a more monkey-permissive, or anti-monkey, state.

Read the whole thing here.