How a Tradition Ends in New Mexico

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The Wall Street Journal

How a Tradition Ends in New Mexico
With Larger Prize in Mind, Gov. Richardson Nears Ban on Cockfighting
By CHRISTOPHER COOPER
February 13, 2007; Page A8

In 2003, about a year before he proposed building a $100 million spaceport in his relatively poor desert state, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson was buttonholed by a reporter: How did the Democrat and former U.N. ambassador feel about cockfighting? The widely banned sport is popular and legal in the Land of Enchantment. "Below my radar," the governor replied. Little incites more passionate political debate in New Mexico than the question of whether to join much of the rest of the country in outlawing cockfights.

Indeed, Mr. Richardson now admits he avoided the issue during his first term precisely because "the legislature wouldn't be able to do anything else" during the session were he to seriously press a ban on cockfighting. But that was his first term. Re-elected in the fall with nearly 70% of the vote, Mr. Richardson proceeded to take two of the biggest steps of his public career. In December, he came out in favor of a cockfighting ban. Then in January, he began campaigning for president. It was a natural progression, the governor said in an interview: "I didn't want an issue like cockfighting hanging over my presidential campaign."

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With a few sentences, Mr. Richardson breathed life into a longstanding proposal to ban cockfighting in New Mexico, one that has been offered -- and summarily killed -- in 18 consecutive legislative sessions. With the governor's blessing, a ban is on the verge of becoming law, having passed the state Senate, which traditionally served as the wrecking yard for similar proposals. Though the ban still needs House approval, Senate passage marks a turnaround on the issue. Legislation banning cockfighting had been such a lost cause, says state Sen. Joseph Carraro, that it was routinely employed to haze incoming lawmakers.

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