Our Neighbors in New Mexico Move Against Cockfighting

It looks like the New Mexico Legislature has the fortitude to move towards banning cockfighting themselves!! I wish our Legislature had the same degree of courage.


Election Fraud and Cockfight Proponents


Speaking of our Legislature, as we mentioned yesterday, Walt Roberts, a former state Legislator and candidate for Congress pleaded guilty to election violations. Walt was one of the defenders of cockfighting during his days in our state Legislature. The following from Animal People gives an idea of how Walt operated:

"Alleged cockfighting violence even spilled into the Oklahoma state legislature in January, when according to representative Charles Gray (D-Oklahoma City), Oklahoma Game Breeders Association member Walt Roberts “told me that if I filed a bill to ban cockfighting, he’d have 4,000 to 5,000 people come to the state capitol and work me over. I don’t take kindly to being threatened,” Gray explained to Mick Hinton of the Daily Oklahoman. “Roberts is still mad because some of us didn’t support him enough” in an unsuccessful race for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in November 1998. “So I included in the bill some other things that Roberts likes, like rodeos and hunting, and I like them too,” Gray continued.

Roberts denied threatening Gray––and got what he wanted, when the breadth of the Gray bill convinced Oklahoma house criminal justice committee chair Bill Paulk to table it without consideration. Cockfighting has been legal in Oklahoma since 1963, but a Daily Oklahoman poll of 750 residents found in early January that 54% were unaware it is legal, 65% would vote to outlaw it, 30% would favor it, and only 6% would actually attend a cockfight. "

Walt's pro-cockfighting buddy, Senator Gene Stipe, is also in trouble in the election fraud scandal. Is that a surprise?