ANNAPOLIS - On March 17, the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee will hear testimony on just about every controversial issue you could name.
Abortion, the death penalty, gun control, hate crimes, gay marriage, reparations for slavery and cockfighting all are on the agenda that day.
Committee Chairman Brian Frosh, D-Montgomery, may be counting on the fact that witnesses would rather get to their St. Patrick's Day parties than wait interminably to testify that day.
He also might be sending a message that none of the bills, which fall mostly on the far ends of the liberal or conservative spectrum, have no chance of passing this year.
(Feb. 16) -- The brutal sport of cockfighting is illegal in most parts of our country. Still, it manages to thrive in isolated pockets, including here in Nevada. Cockfighting pits fighting roosters against each other in contests that tend to attract illegal gambling, drugs, and weapons.
Nevada Senator John Ensign, a licensed veterinarian, has sponsored legislation to have cockfighting considered a federal felony. Ensign's bill passed, but the penalties were reduced at the last minute. "We got a law passed through the Senate. When it went to conference committee, we had it as a felony. It was reduced down, one of those things that happens at midnight, reduced down to a misdemeanor."
Ensign says federal lawmen simply won't go after the cockfighting industry as long as penalties are mere misdemeanors, so Ensign has once again sponsored a bill to make it a felony activity.
The Channel 8 I-Team has been looking into the local cockfighting crowd and has uncovered what appears to be a breeding farm for fighting roosters, located in a southern Nevada neighborhood.