FORMER Rep. Andrew S. Salas is appealing the District Court for the NMI’s decision dismissing his lawsuit that challenges the federal ban on cockfighting in the Northern Marianas.
Salas, through his attorney Joseph Horey, informed the court that he is appealing the court’s decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
In his lawsuit filed in June 2022, Salas asked the federal court to issue a judgment declaring that Section 12616 of the Agriculture Improvement Act or AIA and 7 U.S.C. § 2156 are not applicable to or effective in the Northern Marianas.
The lawsuit also asked the court to issue an injunction prohibiting the U.S. government and its agents from enforcing Section 12616 of the AIA, or 7 U.S.C. § 2156, or any other provisions of statutory or regulatory law that depend on its validity, in the Northern Marianas.
According to Salas’s lawsuit, prior to Dec. 20, 2019, cockfighting in the CNMI was lawful and regulated, pursuant to the Saipan Cockfighting Act (10 CMC §§ 3601-18), the Tinian 21 Cockfighting Act (10 CMC § 241 1-19), and the Rota Cockfighting Act (10 CMC §§1401-21).
Salas said the Covenant establishing a political union between the United States and the Northern Mariana Islands effectively exempts the CNMI from federal prohibitions on cockfighting.
But according to the U.S. government, it has imposed prohibitions on animal fighting in the states and the territories since 1976. The complaint’s legal theories about the power of Congress to prohibit cockfighting in the NMI are meritless, it added.
Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona granted the request of the U.S. Department of Justice and dismissed with prejudice the lawsuit.
In a 15-page decision and order, Judge Manglona said, “Plaintiff’s proffer of providing more facts about how deeply entrenched cockfighting is the CNMI would not cure the deficiency. Such amendment would be futile because the federal interests in regulating interstate commerce, preventing the spread of avian flu, and ensuring the humane treatment of animals outweigh the degree of intrusion into the internal affairs of the CNMI as it relates to the tradition of cockfighting.”
