Members of Congress to Join PETA’s Inaugural Eve Drive-In Party

Sheila Jackson Lee, Jamie Raskin, Others Who Support Animal Protection Legislation Will Make Digital Appearances, Pledges

For Immediate Release:
January 8, 2021

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Washington –

PETA is not letting recent events prevent it from welcoming the new administration with a dog-friendly and socially distant drive-in inaugural eve party at Washington, D.C.’s The Drive-In at Union Market that will celebrate animals and their champions in Congress as well as welcome Major, the first “first dog” (FIDO) to be adopted from an animal shelter.

“COVID-19 didn’t stop us from working to protect animals, and we are not going to roll over because bullies have attacked our hometown of D.C.,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA intends to raise spirits, commemorate those who have been on the front lines during the pandemic, and welcome in a new administration with a wish for compassion, unity, and understanding across all party lines.”

The following representatives, some who are vegan and will no doubt cheer for the fabulous menu that night, will participate:

Earl Blumenauer (Oregon’s third district), who hosted PETA scientists for a congressional briefing on cutting-edge, non-animal test methods and who co-chairs the Congressional Animal Protection Caucus
Brendan Boyle (Pennsylvania’s second district), who urged the National Institute of Mental Health to end its electroshock and near-drowning tests on animals and who cosponsored the BEST Practices Act
Steve Cohen (Tennessee’s ninth district), who called on the FBI to stop stabbing and shooting animals in outdated trauma training exercises
Alcee L. Hastings (Florida’s 20^th district), who cosponsored the Preventing Future Pandemics Act and called for oversight of China’s enforcement of its ban on wildlife slaughter markets in the wake of COVID-19, a zoonotic disease
Sheila Jackson Lee (Texas’s 18^th district), who cosponsored the BEST Practices Act (seeking to end the use of goats and pigs in military trauma training) and who received PETA’s Congressional Leadership Award for clamping down on trophy hunting imports after Cecil the Lion’s killing
Eleanor Holmes Norton (District of Columbia), who received PETA’s Justice in Action award for her support of bills to end horse slaughter, phase out the military’s tests on animals, and stop the use of elephants in performances
Jamie Raskin (Maryland’s eighth congressional district), who pledged to promote vegan eating for the sake of “species survival,” as animal agriculture is a leading cause of climate change
Lucille Roybal-Allard, (California’s 40^th district), who worked with PETA to end the government’s psychological experiments on baby monkeys as well as the Coast Guard’s stabbing and shooting of animals in outdated military training exercises and is pushing the National Institutes of Health to decrease its experiments on animals
Dina Titus (Nevada’s first district), who fought to keep dog leather out of the U.S. and to end the use of aircrafts for animal-abusing spectacles such as “turkey drops”

Hosted by actor Edward James Olmos, the inaugural eve party will also feature stories about past FIDOs and the presidents who loved them, a screening of Disney’s Lady and the Tramp, and a delicious multicourse vegan menu—plus vegan peanutty treats for dogs. Event sponsor Maker’s Mark has also donated “doggie bags” packed with everything needed to carry on the celebration at home with a vegan hot toddy, including bottles of its oak-finished 46 bourbon (for the 46^th POTUS), “bee-free” honey, cinnamon syrup, and even a lemon.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.