OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — Animal Wellness Action is urging Oklahoma voters to reject political candidates who have a record of supporting efforts to weaken the state’s voter-approved, broadly popular state’s anti-cockfighting law.
The animal welfare policy group identified candidates for governor, lieutenant government, and state legislature who have actively worked to overturn the state’s best-known anti-cruelty law.
Gubernatorial candidate and former Oklahoma House Speaker Charles McCall voted in favor of gutting the state’s anti-cockfighting law and pressured other lawmakers to support that anti-animal-welfare bill.
Lieutenant Governor candidate and former State Representative Justin Humphrey has been the perennial state legislative leader to gut Oklahoma’s anti-cockfighting law.
Convicted cockfighter Anthony DeVore is now a candidate for State Representative in House District 19. He was the founder and president of a cockfighting front group, the so-called Oklahoma Gamefowl Commission, and the commission was ordered to disband its PAC by the Oklahoma Ethics Commission for violating state campaign finance laws. DeVore’s current campaign is being bankrolled by out-of-state cockfighting proponents across the nation. DeVore is currently on probation on cockfighting charges for a cockfight in McIntosh County last year.
“Cockfighting is a form of malicious animal cruelty and organized crime, tied up with illegal gambling, money laundering, and other illicit practices,” said Kevin Chambers, Oklahoma state director for Animal Wellness Action. “Republican primary voters have a chance to vote for law-and-order and defeat these pro-cockfighting actors on the Oklahoma political stage.”
Sooner Survey pollster Pat McFerron conducted a statewide survey of Oklahomans revealing that fewer than 10 percent of Oklahomans think cockfighting should be legal, and nearly 90 percent of voters favor the ban on cockfighting. All five congressional districts showed overwhelming support for the voter-approved state law.
”When politicians side with animal fighting interests instead of law enforcement, animal welfare advocates, and responsible citizens, it puts them on the side of organized criminals and makes a mockery of their ‘law and order’ pledges to voters,” added Chambers.
Animal Wellness Action said the issue is especially important in rural Oklahoma communities, where law enforcement agencies and prosecutors have spent years combating illegal animal fighting operations.
Colonel Tom Pool, DVM, a Comanche County rancher and retired chief of the U.S. Army Veterinary Command, linked Oklahoma’s illegal cockfighting industry to broader public health concerns, including avian influenza outbreaks and illegal international trafficking of fighting birds.
“When I was working in Guam, I watched thousands of fighting birds arrive from Oklahoma exclusively for cockfighting,” said Dr. Pool, now the senior veterinarian with Animal Wellness Action. “I refused to approve import permits because the shipments violated federal law.”
“Oklahoma has made progress in distancing itself from the image of being a haven for cockfighting,” Dr. Pool added. “We should be moving forward, not backward.”
Animal Wellness Action Oklahoma has engaged in an independent expenditure to defeat DeVore in his race. You can see an image of one of the mailers here.
The organization also noted that Chip Keating’s father, former two-term Governor Frank Keating, has been an outspoken opponent of cockfighting and was instrumental in passage of the state law. The organization expects that the governor’s son shares his father’s antipathy for this form of malicious cruelty and favors actual law-and-order policies.
“What an embarrassment it would be for the state of Oklahoma to elect any candidate for public office with pro-cockfighting views,”added Chambers. “I am confident that Oklahoma voters will again show great judgment and send these pro-cruelty, anti-law-and-order candidates packing.”