[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 15]
[House]
[Pages 19762-19763]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




      THE BARBARIC PRACTICE OF GAME BIRD AND ILLEGAL DOG FIGHTING

  (Mr. BLUMENAUER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, for the last 5 years I have been working 
with a bipartisan group of my colleagues to make it illegal to continue 
the barbaric practice of game bird and illegal dog fighting.
  Unfortunately, these practices continue because the purveyors of them 
have settled on the tactic of having minimal sanctions, not having 
meaningful penalties in our statutes. Unfortunately, this takes on new 
urgency because it is not just the fighting and the violence and the 
illegal betting and other criminal activities. We are now finding, for 
instance, that viruses like bird flu can be spread through this vile 
trade.
  Mr. Speaker, it is time for the House Republican leadership to stand 
up to the dark, shadowy forces that allow these evil practices to 
continue. Allow the bill that has been cosponsored, bipartisan, 324 
cosponsors, to be voted on, on a suspension calendar. In fact, it won't 
even take the 40 minutes we normally allocate, because I am quite 
confident that we don't find any of the apologists for this barbaric 
trade who would be willing to stand up in public to defend what they 
protect in the back rooms of Congress.

[[Page 19763]]



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