The St. Landry Parish Council took up a measure to start the process of re-legalizing cockfighting, and an animal rights group has plenty to say about that.
On Wednesday night, the council voted on a pair of resolutions.
The first was a formal request to State Representative Dustin Miller, whose district includes St. Landry Parish, to introduce a bill to repeal or modify Louisiana’s cockfighting ban.
In 2007, Louisiana became the 50th and final state in the country to make cockfighting illegal (the law went into effect in 2008), and cockfighting has been a crime at the federal level since 2014.
That motion initially deadlocked 6-6 and ultimately failed when Council Chairman Wayne Ardoin cast his tiebreaking “no” vote.
“This was a bizarre action by the cockfighters,” says Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action. “They got an audience from the St. Landry parish council, but no damage has been done.”
The vote came after a pair of residents addressed the council, urging it to support the re-legalization of cockfighting.
“You need to educate people on what cockfighting is about,” Nadea Comeaux told the council. “If you leave them in a yard, they’re going to fight to the death of them, regardless if no one is there or not. Why not capitalize on some of these things?”
Pacelle was not swayed by her argument.
“The whole idea by the cockfighters to try to create a cockfighting enclave would be a terrible embarrassment to St. Landry Parish and to the State of Louisiana,” said Pacelle.
Comeaux argued that cockfighting is, in her opinion, wholesome entertainment.
“You see men. This is a man’s sport. These are respectable men. You see women and children. They’ve got potlucks, they’re feeding everyone. There are no drugs, there are no guns, nothing involved in that,” Comeaux explained.
Pacelle says Comeaux couldn’t have been more off-base if she had tried.
“Cockfighting is bound up with a range of criminal activities, illegal gambling, tax evasion, very often money laundering, very frequently in narcotics trafficking, illegal firearms,” Pacelle said.
Cockfighting had a rich history in St. Landry Parish, and resident Jim Demoruelle told the council that re-legalizing it would mean huge revenue for the parish.
“The first state gets back legal — the first place — you’re probably looking at an excess of a billion dollars of economic impact in the first year,” said Demoruelle.
Councilwoman Nancy Carriere said just because something brings in revenue doesn’t make it right.
“We have people shooting dice. That’s gambling,” Carriere pointed out. “We have people wanting to dogfight. So if we want to repeal that law, can we do that too?”
The council unanimously adopted a resolution to make a formal request to Attorney General Liz Murrill for her opinion on whether the state’s law banning cockfighting is unconstitutional.
In the form of a social media post, the council got its answer — well, sort of.
“It’s the long-standing policy of the Louisiana Department of Justice not to issue opinions on the constitutionality of State laws. Cockfighting remains illegal in Louisiana,” Murrill posted on her office’s official Facebook page.
Demoruelle said laws mean nothing to those who stage cockfights.
“There is no place in the world, no place, where cockfighting ever stopped because the law was passed against it, Demoruelle said.
Pacelle says cockfighting was, and still is, almost universally condemned, as evidenced by the vote to outlaw it in Louisiana.
“The vote in the state house in 2007 was 134-1 to make cockfighting a felony,” said Pacelle. “The vote in the Senate was 31-4.”
(Louisiana’s law makes staging a cockfight a felony and attending a cockfight a misdemeanor.)
Furthermore, Pacelle says efforts are underway to crack down on all forms of animal fighting even further, led by one of Louisiana’s own.
“Senator John Kennedy has a bill to strengthen the national animal fighting law,” Pacelle noted. “It’s called the FIGHT Act (Fighting Inhumane Gambling and High-risk animal Trafficking, introduced with New Jersey Democrat Cory Booker). It has more than 1,000 endorsers, including the Louisiana District Attorney’s Association, the National Sheriff’s Association, the National District Attorney’s Association (and) the American Gaming Association.”
This story, originally posted Thursday, January 22, has been updated throughout.
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