Delegates lose effort to block cockfighting ban

Despite the efforts of the four of the territories’ non-voting delegates, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a version of the farm bill that includes a ban on cockfighting in all U.S. territories.

H.R. 2 passed last week on a 369-47 vote.

While cockfighting is illegal in all 50 states, territories have been allowed to set their own rules on the activity, which involves placing bets on the outcome of fights between roosters with razors strapped to their legs.

Cockfighting is practiced in American Samoa, the CNMI, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Guam governor-elect Lou Leon Guerrero, who takes office Jan. 7, said that cockfighting is an important Guam tradition that must remain legal. She vowed to work to repeal the ban.

Delegate Gregorio Kilili Sablan (Ind-MP) earlier said that the farm bill, if signed into law by President Donald J. Trump, would override local laws that legalizes and regulates cockfighting in the territories like the CNMI and Guam.

“The [non-voting] representatives from Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and I opposed the provision banning animal fighting in the territories. But there was just too much bipartisan support for us to defeat it,” said Sablan.

In a previous statement, Sablan believes that banning cockfighting should be a local issue for territories and not the U.S. Congress. “If [CNMI] officials decide to ban cockfighting in the Marianas, I would have no problem with that.”

“But I have an issue with the Congress enacting legislation overriding a Commonwealth law without input from [CNMI] citizens and officials.”

Sablan added that the CNMI Legislature could have acted on House Bill 20-24 introduced by Rep. Edwin K. Propst (Ind-Saipan) that would prohibit cruelty to animals while providing penalties for such acts.

“Perhaps, if the Commonwealth Legislature had acted on Mr. Propst’s bill months ago or last year, we could have used it to help defeat the ban on animal fighting. But now it is much too late to have any effect,” Sablan said.

Bordallo, on the other hand, said it was not reasonable that territories were not given consent or their voice heard regarding the imposition of a federal ban on cockfighting.

“Each of my colleagues from the territories and I strongly opposed the provision because it ignored the will of our constituents and

established local laws in our jurisdictions,” said Bordallo in a separate statement.

“We worked diligently to try and defeat this provision, including successfully defeating the provision in the Senate bill and offering to work with the House sponsor in order to find a mutual agreement. However, our offers were not reciprocated.”

Leon Guerrero said: “Cockfighting has historical significance on Guam and continues to be a regulated practice today. Despite our community’s collective efforts in expressing clear opposition to such a ban at the highest levels of government, we were once again ignored.”

Annie Harvilicz, president of the Animal Wellness Foundation, has called staged animal fights “disgraceful and barbaric.”
“It is insulting for apologists of dog fighting and cockfighting to claim there is a cultural right to conduct these activities,” she said in May.

If the law is changed, those who sponsor or exhibit birds in a cockfight face a fine and a maximum prison term of five years. Attending a cockfight would be punishable by a fine and up to one year in prison. Bringing a child younger than 16 to a cockfight would be punishable by a fine and up to three years in prison. (With AP)