The Compassion Index (CI) - AWI's Legislative Action Center gives you access to current alerts, lets you contact elected officials on key bills, sign up for eAlerts, contact media, review Congressional schedules, learn Capitol Hill basics and more.  With all this and more, the CI’s Legislative Action Center is a great place for compassionate activists to start taking action on behalf of animals.  To take action on various issues, click here.

The Animal Welfare Institute created the Compassion Index (CI) to facilitate the advancement of federal bills benefiting animals and to defeat measures detrimental to their welfare. Updated daily, the CI provides data on the positions taken by each Member of Congress on pending legislation and key votes. It features a tally system that rates elected officials based on their position regarding relevant legislative measures.

The CI serves as a powerful tool for constituents and a means to hold legislators accountable for their actions both for and against animals. With its real-time legislative tally, links to action letters, and additional information - including district-by-district press contacts, links to Congressional databases and more - the CI empowers the grassroots constituency to pressure Congress to be more responsive to animal protection initiatives. To find out how your elected officials rank on the Compassion Index, click here.

The Compassion Index (CI) tracks and rates members’ positions on a number of key animal protective measures, both good and bad.  Tracked bills and issues are chosen by a number of criteria including their potential impact on the animals in question, the likelihood of the legislation moving and the desire to cover a range of issues affecting a cross-section of animals (wildlife, laboratory animals, animals used in agriculture, those used for sports and entertainment, etc.).  While most legislation included is beneficial to animals, the CI may also rate legislation harmful to animals which, if cosponsored, would assign a negative rating to supporters.  With the CI's real-time feature, new bills may be added at any time in the Congress.

The Compassion Index (CI) tracks the positions of U.S. Senators and Representatives on a broad spectrum of issues related to animal welfare and conservation, such as pending legislation to prohibit the slaughter of horses for human consumption, to restore protections for wild horses and burros, to ban the sale of random source dogs and cats to experimental laboratories, and to end interstate and foreign commerce in the steel-jaw leghold traps and furs obtained through use of this barbaric device.
For more information on these issues, click here.

The Compassion Index is the Animal Welfare Institute's (AWI) Legislative Action Center. Founded in 1951, AWI is an international non-profit organization dedicated to reducing the sum total of pain and fear inflicted on animals by humans. As the unsurpassed leader in obtaining laws to benefit animals in need, AWI has worked for the successful adoption of the vast majority of federal laws passed to protect animals, including the Animal Welfare Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and the Humane Slaughter Act. While passing this type of legislation is our primary goal, our work also includes combating measures detrimental to animal welfare, pushing for sound regulations to implement existing laws, and strong funding to enforce beneficial government programs.
For more information on AWI, click here.