Posted February 21, 2014
A group associated with cockfighting has threatened Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) with political damage over his vote for the 2014 farm bill, according to an article by the Lexington Herald-Leader available here.
Craig Davis, president of the United Gamefowl Breeders Association said, “This will destroy Mitch McConnell in Kentucky.” Davis said he could move “as many as 60,000 votes against McConnell” in Kentucky’s Republican primary on May 20 if the groups concerns are not heard.
The group is angry over an amendment to the 2014 farm bill which makes it a federal crime to be a spectator at an animal fight. The “new law makes attending a cockfight or dogfight a federal misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in prison and $100,000 fine.” It also makes bringing a minor to these fights a federal felony, punishable by up to three years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
John Goodwin, director of animal cruelty policy for the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), said that the penalties in the new federal law “put serious teeth into what is already criminal activity, although Kentucky law enforcement officials have rarely cited individuals for the misdemeanor offense.”
“Law enforcement agents all across the country are really tired of these cockfighting pits because they see the cruelty, but they see these pits are magnets for other crimes as well,” said Goodwin. “What they’ve got to realize is, at the federal level, there’s nobody in Congress who wants to buddy up with people engaged in something that is illegal in all 50 states,” he said.
For more information on farm bills and animal welfare, please visit the National Agricultural Law Center’s website here and here.
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