Local News
Majority of local legislators against ban
By Jason P. Montoya/Current-Argus Staff Writer
Mar 3, 2005, 02:48 am

CARLSBAD — If a ban on cockfighting in New Mexico were left up to local state legislators, the ban would fail in a 3-1 vote.

House Bill 878 — which would make participating in cockfighting for monetary gain or entertainment a fourth-degree felony — was passed by the House Tuesday in a 50-15 vote.

Local representatives John Heaton, D-Carlsbad, and Joe Stell, R-Carlsbad, voted on opposite sides of the issue. Heaton voted for the ban, while Stell voted against it.

“I just think it is a brutal sport,” Heaton said. “I think it sends the wrong message to children and society — that we believe it’s OK to pit one animal against another in a fight to the death. It’s a brutal, blood-letting sport. I think it teaches violence, and that’s the wrong thing to teach.”

Stell said he is probably personally opposed to cockfighting but he believes the issue should be left for individual counties to decide.

“I thought that the county — our local people — should have acted first,” he said. “It is within state statute to allow counties to ban the sport. Our county has not made that decision, and they have been aware of cockfighting. There must be reasons why they haven’t acted. I hate for the state to overrule the counties.”

Stell added that he would hate to see people involved in cockfighting turned into criminals because of a ban.

“You’re making a felon out of anyone that fights with those chickens,” he said. “I don’t believe they are criminals and hate to see them made into criminals.”

Neither representative said he believed the bill would make it through the Senate.

The bill now sits in the hands of the Senate Conservation Committee, which tabled a similar Senate bill in a 5-2 vote last week, effectively killing it.

Sen. Vernon Asbill, R-Carlsbad, said he would vote against a ban on cockfighting if the bill reached the Senate floor.

“I really feel this is a local issue,” he said. “I feel if a community doesn’t want it, then they need to go to the city council or county commission. I don’t believe it is up to the legislators to be dictating what goes on in the counties.”

Asbill said he has attended one cockfighting event but doesn’t have a strong personal opinion on the issue.

“I don’t have a big feeling on it one way or another,” he said.

Sen. Carroll Leavell, R-Jal, expressed similar sentiments about the state’s role in banning the sport.

“I have never been to a cockfight and never intend to go, but I support the counties’ right to make the decision, rather than having the state dictate to the counties what they should do,” he said.

“This is something that there is strong support on both sides of the issue. In Lea and Eddy counties, there is probably some of the strongest support for cockfighting in the state, and I am here to represent my constituency,” he said. “As such, I have resisted, and continue to resist, any movement to outlaw the sport.”