The officers of this company should be charged with fraud. Talk about false advertising, they are the posters for it!

Another good picture would be to change this to how much money has been spent on lobbying and ballot initiatives in each state.  I bet California, Missouri and DC would be HUGE!!

Mark - don’t forget OR and WA.

Looks like they are most ‘generous’ where they’ve established the most law.

UGH!

@ Mark - I think the amounts HSUS spends on ballot initiatives is identifiable, even though they filter some of it through local organizations to make it less obvious. State disclosure laws make it pretty hard to “invisibilize” the money poured into direct purchase of citizens’ votes.  I’m not sure if they have to include what they spend to hire out-of-state petition mongers, though - they might be able to claim that as an “employee expense” even though the entire “job” is to get the signatures of unwary people who may think they are signing an opinion poll, or are fooled into thinking they are helping a good cause.

What’s spent on lobbying, though, is much harder to assess.  Tax rules allow them to apportion some costs of lobbying just as they do in many fundraising efforts - put the “vote this way” exhortation into other material and call the majority of the expense “program” or “education,” even though the purpose is to influence votes.  Some lobbying costs are disguised, some are just plain unreported.  Even with all the sleight-of-hand in keeping most of their lobbying expenditures below the radar, HSUS’s tax returns show they spend more on the lobbying they admit to than they do on grants to hands-on pet shelters. And HumaneWatch has done a very fine job of documenting HSUS’s historical bylaws and policy statements to show that they are spending way more on legislative activities and way less on support of shelters than they are committed to on paper.

and the only reason Lousiana got the $ was because of the initial fraud charges filed after Katrina - unless someone knows of any other reason—

Just shared this ON http://www.pinterest.com ....one more way to spread the word!!!!

@ elaine - That’s all true, though if you put it together, it is still obvious that they have well exceeded the lobbying permitted by their NPO charter.

What’s more annoying is that they have bragged *publicly* about ‘all the laws they have passed’. That should be enough to bury them right there, since they claim responsibility for emplacing more than 1,000 laws at all levels in one year!

The website: charitynavigator.org, which rates charities on their performance, gives the HSUS a 3 star rating (out of a possible 4 stars).
I thought I could trust their evaluation of the worthiness of a charity, but now I’m not so sure.