I keep running into what, in my mind, appears like a problem, and I can't find any informed opinions on it.
Working With Words dictates that when you are paraphrasing or indirectly quoting a speaker in an article you do not put a comma between two independent clauses because you want it to be clear that the speaker said both statements. "According to John Smith, independent clause A and independent clause B."
I am curious as to whether there is a similar rule for independent clauses that are both modified by the same introductory element:
Before the Humane Society opened, the cats in the city were in a very bad spot and the dogs that lived around the county were arguably in a worse one.
Best Answer
The Humane society sentence is correctly punctuated. Otherwise the reader might be justifiably upset to read
The Humane society isn't supposed to do things like that.
It would also be correct to add (if desired; I dislike extraneous commas but would use one here):
Please keep in mind that comma use is not written in stone; there is flexibility in its use.