INDEPENDENT Saipan senatorial candidate Andrew Sablan Salas has sued the U.S. government for banning cockfighting in the CNMI.
Through attorney Joseph Horey, Salas has 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 asks 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.
Salas served in the House of Representative in the 13th CNMI Legislature, and was the secretary of Commerce from 2004 to 2006.
According to his lawsuit, Salas has been regularly and actively involved in the sport of cockfighting since childhood.
He has raised hundreds of roosters for cockfighting purposes, and regularly entered such roosters in competitive cockfights in the CNMI for many years prior to 2019.
Salas desires and intends to resume raising roosters for cockfighting purposes, and entering such roosters in competitive cockfights in the CNMI, his lawsuit stated.
However, if he does so, a credible threat exists that he will be prosecuted for violation of law, particularly 7 U.S.C. § 2156, which provides that “[i]t shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly sponsor or exhibit an animal in an animal fighting venture,” his lawsuit stated.
It added that “animal fighting venture” is defined in such a way as to include cockfights.
According to the lawsuit, on Dec. 20, 2018, U.S. Public Law 115-334, or the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, was signed into law by President Donald Trump.
Section 12616 of the AIA amended 7 U.S.C. § 2156 by deleting language, which had set out an exception to the aforesaid prohibition on sponsoring an animal in an animal fighting venture.
The exception had been applicable to “fighting ventures involving live birds in a State where it would not be in violation of the law. The term ‘State’ in the foregoing provision was defined as ‘a State of the United States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, or any other territory or possession of the United States.’”
Cockfighting had been prohibited by state law in all 50 states of the United States and in the District of Columbia since 2008 when it was prohibited in Louisiana, the last state where it had been legal.
Section 12616 of the AIA therefore had no effect on the law in any state, or in the District of Columbia, and affected only the law in “the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, [and] any other territory or possession of the United States,” which included the CNMI.
According to Salas’ 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).
Andrew Salas
