Julie Walsh is an associate professor of political science at American International College in Springfield, Massachusetts. She has previously published an academic work, The Intellectual Origins of Mass Parties and Mass Schools in the Jacksonian Period, which drew heavily on democratic theory, and has written several reference pieces on political parties and elections. In recent years, she has gained firsthand experience of the politics of leashing, attending organizational and political meetings about the issue and informally speaking with people who have fought against leash laws and/or to