veteran really kind of integrates very well into this show because we talk about all those things so i'm going i'm going to put you on the spot on a lot of that other topics that were kind of focusing today on on animal issues on drug issues and mental health issues and i know you're involved in all of those all three are in my wheel house legislative place that's great yes so what i want to do is ask you a couple questions you were in your veterans so you were on a branch of the service i was in the u s navy and i was a jag so as a lawyer in the navy and i was a prosecutor in iraq i actually prosecuted terrorists in the iraqi court system and i was a defense attorney as well for for navy seals sailors marines coast guards and i did dad did that from two thousand and twelve to i'm sorry two thousand and seven two thousand and twelve and then you returned back to the states yes and you entered into private practice and law firm yes i was in private practice for a year at a multi township mount lebanon or st clair jefferson it was pleasant hills that the entire swath of the south it's amazing how they do that but it is it's a big area it is a big area it's a phenomenal district and the district really cares about  education funding they care about that it's a district which makes it fun to represent it's a diverse group of people a diverse group of people but we have some of the best schools in the state which is we have an right in moon so it's a it is diverse in that sense but it's just it's just a pleasure represent this district and now you're running for the same district as congressman so i'm running in the fourteenth congressional that is where i was that chang right so there was a change so there's a redistricting so running for congress and that that that seat is washing county green county fayette and half of westmoreland so there's about seven hundred eighty thousand constituents in that district the state senate district has about two hundred seventy thousand constituents it's a big change there it is it's a big change for sure and a big challenge i'm sure it is but i'm all for yes so let's let's talk about some of the bills that you've brought welfare and prevention of cruelty to animals well i think if someone's going to be using animal the next step is a person right so whatever we can do to combat those who abuse animals we have to do it so for example last year we which was a bill increase that the penalty for someone who abused an animal now when i was this year judge the max fine was three hundred dollars for cruelty neglect an animal that was totally inadequate for a lot of these crimes so leave raise law allows a district judge and really relates the court system any judge in the court system to assess a higher fine and also in extreme situations charge prosecution charge a felony offense for cruelty in a glass so what is a felony offense and what does that actually perpetrator right to this this is the penalties go up so a lot more jail time with a felony also with a misdemeanor with a summary offense is how these cases were handled before it was ninety days maximum jail time and  three hundred dollars fine totally inadequate so with me brazen law we now have the full scale we can charge prosecutors can charge a misdemeanor summary offense again or they can charge a felony over the twenty five years that i've been pretty heavily involved with animals it's that is selling dogs cats or rabbits hatched the retailer has to source those animals from shelters and if you have to a fax one is it's going to help move animals from the shelters and get them into homes very important because we have a lot of dogs and cats and rabbits and shelters rabbits especially after easter ok so they're part of this too but the second part of this bill is it's going to kill the market for poppy mills because this point that the puppy mill breeders and these are horrific conditions just horrible conditions there won't be a market to sell those dogs and what's amazing that maybe our audience doesn't know is pennsylvania kentucky west virginia indiana  states for putting them we are in that sad we should not be proud of that pennsylvania is a leader in the pub email industry and i aim to end that and take the fight to this horrific practice of breeding the dogs in this manner you'll condition of any of the dogs that you see out there and the problem that part with this puppy mill stuff is they open up in a secluded area they operate for a while until they get caught or found out and then they close up shop and relocate somewhere right so there's a bill that you're putting forward for the state of pennsylvania will totally make it illegal even open up or operate a puppy mill sewell make it illegal to operate a pub email i'd like to have a bill that does that what this bill does is it kills the market for this puppy mills so the puppy mills will not be able to sell to the retail stores it will also be also not be able to sell outdoors so it out on the side of the road which we see in some places actually don't make too much of their profit off the actual sale of the dog they really make their profit on what comes with a dollar so the color of the balls the toys so some pet stores have already voluntarily started to adopt this practice i just want to ca fire and make sure it's a law that the pet stores have to source from shelters you know that's interesting i haven't read that bill i heard a little bit about it and hopefully that passed what's it take to pass the bill so well right now i'm getting co sponsors i had a whole bunch of rescue dogs from puppy mills in my office two weeks ago all the senators came by and were playing with the poppies and i really put a sell on them to co sponsor my bill so i got a lot of co sponsors that day and then the bill will go into a committee passed i believe before it came into the senate on horses increasing the penalties for those who abuse horses it's called cornelia's law so so we have a track record of being pretty aggressive on these bills and standing up for animals in the  senate i hope it succeeds what he said to a time span for this i'd like it to pass during the budget season but it all depends on how much the budget takes up our attention but this is a bill that we can maybe get through in june and if not when we come back in the fall i'd like to take it up awesome so we have some hope we do we do and i'd be remiss if i didn't mention my car cross reporting bill just like we were talking about people who  animals there's an eighty percent correlation by the people that abuse animals and people who have use children but it's tough to undercover undercover child abuse for a lot of reasons one's children are a lot of times nonverbal they were close you can cover up bruises with makeup what my bill does it says that if you're c y s officer child and you service officer and you don't see any indication of child abuse but you see animal abuse which is it which is very hard to cover operate very hard to hide  not see any indication of animal abuse but sees child abuse then that officer has to report the child abuse this will be this will give law enforcement a second bite of the apple and i think it will lead to more prosecutions and more convictions of the people who views children and animals so these bills are presented to the the house at the same time well first of they have to get passed in the senate and then they go to the house the cross reporting bill is currently in the judiciary committee which i sit on but you also are very involved with opioid addiction and you're working on bills and legislation as well as that could you tell us about that right well when it comes opioid addiction i really focus on what i perceive as the underlying issue and i think that is wheezes society need to have a paradigm shift on mental health i think that right now there's a stigma on mental health and people are reluctant to get care and treatment for mental health issues so i think that there's a lot of things we can do to get people help now when i was a dish or judge for instance if somebody was before me and they had a substance abuse issue or if they had an issue with truancy not coming to school i'd always want to make sure that that person was screened for  for mental health because a lot of times the root cause of the problem is an diagnose or untreated mental health issue and in that the defendant a lot of times the their self medicating or reacting negatively niggly to negativity toward that so that's one thing that we need to do in the criminal justice system if somebody does have a mental health issue or subs abuse issue then we should give that person a bed in a facility and not a cot in a jail cell so that's one that's one area that i'm really  on advocating for also i'm advocating a mental health screening bill for sixth grade and eleventh grade students i have a phenomenal partner in that dan miller who's a state representative in mount lebanon so he and i have partnered he's got the house bill i have the senate bill but what we'll do is when students come in a sixth grade and eleventh grade they'll be a screening for depression and if that student has depression then we'll be able to get treatment for that depression and hopefully that student with and learn of ways to cope with it with a mental health issue before that student turns to underage drinking and drugs and that eventually leads to opioid addiction so can you define that screening process a little more right so right now the navy does a good job in doing the military does this so  go into a physical the practitioner or the health care provider will ask a series of questions how are you feeling today have you had suicidal thoughts and there's a litany of questions that are prepared for the health care professional to ask if the students are the patient this case then pops for a positive that he or she may have a mental health issue particularly depression then that triggers a referral to a psychologist so i'd like to see this in our schools i think that a lot of students have undiagnosed mental issues and why not get that student's treatment if we're screening them from for physical issues why are we not doing the same thing for mental issues as well so why do you target that they target that age group well it was part of the answer the is part of a negotiation i think that we need to have screening i'd go as young as probably fifth grade fifth grade through twelfth grade and i would do screening for all mental  health issues i'd have a more expansive list of questions but i'm pragmatic that that's my style and i know that we have to negotiate start somewhere so the negotiation led to sixth grade and eleventh grade and for depression only once this bill is passed i will then work to expand this bill and have screening for all all grade levels i like i said ideally fifth grade to twelfth grade and expand from depression to other issues i'm not aware of the process audience what it takes to write a bill and then move it along the line it's extra doctor it's extremely tedious but i love it and but what you do is you have an idea or someone presents an idea to you you then write what's called a co sponsorship memo and it set so for this instance i want to have legislation to do mental health screening for high school students high school middle school students that memos uncirculated and any other senators interested joins a co sponsor or sometimes a co committee so so they then they investigate all the details in the fine tuning of the bill and that committee is that what their job is yes yes to the committee or the subject area experts so you have senators that focus on in this case education issues on the on the education committee but those senators really invest a lot of time in that i'm on the judiciary committee as well as some others but it makes sense because i'm a lawyer and former district judge former prosecutor so a lot of times these people have special expertise and that's why they're put on the committees but once it's in the committee other senators can amend the bill they can critique the bill they don't have to run the bill the bill may never get out of committee most bills never get out of committee and what does it mean actually that they don't get put on the be voted on or they get no voted in the committee write very few bills actually make it on to the floor and that's that the floor of the senate but let's say a bill does make it out of committee once it's on committee then you have ten days to consider the bill and the bill has to be considerate considered on three different occasions so first consideration the bill is read and that way everybody can take a look at the bill they have amendments or questions they can deal with it the second day the bill is under seven consideration where you can  amendments you can offer those in those in those are voted on by an up or down vote ok then the third day you can also offer amendments at that point but that is usually the vote and during that process a bill can be tabled meaning that's taken off the calendar and you have to make a motion to bring it back on the calendar so that isn't needed there's never going to look at again that right is just going to sit idle for a while exactly exactly which happens a lot so if the bill isn't run within ten voted on within ten days it's automatically table d but on that third day usually there's an opera down the benefit passes the passes if it doesn't then that's the end you can always reintroduce it but the vast majority of bills never run never make out a committee and never make it out of the senate really does a bill move but the system of government is set up that way we need to be a slow deliberative body to pass laws that have been thoroughly vetted and that are that are necessary right so i don't view that as a bad thing i mean there's literally thousands of bills that are entered but we need to prioritize put our political capital where needs to be and make sure that only that the necessary bills and best bills are passed so bill like animal abuse bill or mental health bill are really part of some type bills because those are those are affecting people on both sides of the aisle right place right and they generally easier is your bills to be shown so actually a lot of the animal welfare bills are rather  can be rather controversial the farm bureau understandably so sometimes has issues with it because where do we draw the line between do we draw the line at dogs and cats does this go to livestock rights there's a slippery slope so i would i know that some people think of dogs and cats as livestock i would take a much different view we as human kinds have engineered dogs and cats to be our companions and if you think about it there's a survival mechanism that we that we have with with dogs and cats so for instance i would say that we as humans would not have thrived as a species if we had not co opted the dog and arguably the dog would not have thrived as much as  when we needed them to hunt for food we as a species would not have been successful if it were not for our dogs cats there's evidence that cats would come around our campsites clear out rats and mice and spread disease right so there's a there's even a evolutionary reason why we have cats these animals deserve a spit just like dogs as well i'm sorry we're says a well as well these animals deserve special protection because they have been bred to interact with us to love us and to be our companions and that that means they deserve special protection under our law sixty percent of the people in the united states of us doesn't get us specifically speaking about dogs and cats right sixty eight percent most of those people like us and all of them because there are the idiots out there that abuse some of those rights very think of those the eggs and those cats as family members yet the law doesn't allow us to do that right we have to update the law and again i don't think if you look at the evolutionary aspect of why we have dogs and cats it's not a stretch to think that we look at them as family members right again we owe so much to the to the dogs in particular in looking at dogs and cats as just merely property has to change we have to say that they do have i don't want to say they have legal standing is that brings on a whole nother issue but we have to say they deserve special consideration under our law and if somebody is abusing a dog or a cat or a horse or any animal really i'm not a psychologist but i believe that's indicative of sociopath behavior and tendencies and if you can and if one can abuse a dog and helpless animal right who get it was bred to love us if that person can abuse that dog then there's nothing stopping that person from abusing a child or an elderly person right or or any other human it's really it's really indicative of sociopathic behavior and now it's why we need to target those who abuse these animals and stop them before they move on to humans i will tell you as long as i have a voice you will have my support thank you for that i say that are so important so far as i'm concerned thank you you know it's interesting to learn how this legislation works because as nonpolitical people on involved in politics or in government we don't really know how the system works right you know and we get a little education on it but we soon forget it so it's kind of interesting to hear you talk about the procession of how laws get passed and what's involved in all that the work that goes into th so interesting so this mental health program actually you know we're doing now a lot of work healthy pets healthy people and so forth the show with service dogs and for veterans in fact yourself and use all the stresses in the stresses you went through in doing what you were doing and help people come back and they are so devastated it is so important to have that protection for these animals and there there is a differentiation between service dogs and cats yes but there's becoming resistance to that and i don't know if you're following the airlines for example delta i think united as well have made it very difficult for people with  service animals to get their animals on board the plane right and maybe we can we can start looking at some legislation of that to bar that is more a federal level i know but but it starts somewhere you're does and then all these things are going on the airlines were people that are unaware or i don't even know what's causing where the dogs are dying in flight you know like that one big case that that happened where they and there were a lot of cases of animal neglect on the part of the airlines you know so there's a lot of things look at so this opioid addiction and you referred to the mental health addition so the problem that we a mental health issue that's being overlooked in the united states but some things we've done to combat it is one medical marijuana i think that medical marijuana will give physicians and other practitioners another tool to treat pain and if we have another avenue to treat pain with medical marijuana which is not physically addictive like an opioid then i think that will reduce the amount of heroin addicts in the amount of those who are abusing opioids because that patient will never get hope in the first place where they're not going to get hosed on marijuana gets physically not addictive said one thing we've done we've also put a limit on how many opioids can be prescribe at a given time one of the problems we have with opioids is there they're prescribed to such an extent that there's a lot of times a leftover amount and students have what are called pill parties and i had this when i was a dish or judge they'd raid their grandparents homes or their parents medicine cabinets put all the pills in a ball and then just take the pills right we shouldn't have that many opioids on the market and we'll also cut down how many o b woods are on the black market by by reducing the number that can be prescribe at a given time so you're looking for the way of marketing the market to the consumer they push the drugs on the on the practitioners right you know that probably should be expanded even more to to look into how they're they operate their system