On Nov. 5, Oklahoma voters overwhelmingly passed an initiative banning cockfighting in that state. But a Kiowa Indian association claims that the new law does not apply to Kiowa tribal lands.
Mike Turner of the Kiowa Association for the Preservation of Cultural and Rural Lifestyles told the Ada Evening News that,
The Kiowa Tribe has a treaty with the state, which gives us aboriginal rights of occupancy. Under the Constitution, all treaties are recognized in all courts and considered supreme law. This is something the state has overlooked. You can’t change precedence.
Turner said that his Kiowa Association will begin selling permits to allow cockfighting in Oklahoma on the tribe’s territory. The cockfighting license would be configured such that the tribe would lease flocks, property and other facilities currently used by cockfighters, thus making it protected as tribal activities.
The state of Oklahoma, not surprisingly, disagrees. Neal Leader, senior assistant attorney general of Oklahoma, wrote a letter to Turner that read, in part,
It appears . . . you are attempting got create a safe haven from Oklahoma’s recently enacted Anti-Cockfighitng Law for cockfighting activities taking place on Kiowa Tribe Indian Country and elsewhere . . . under Federal Law, Oklahoma’s Anti-Cockfighting Law is as applicable in Indian Country as it is outside Indian Country.
This dispute will likely be resolved by the courts.
Source:
Kiowa members claim cockfighting legal on tribal land. Jeremy Cantrell, Ada Evening News (Oklahoma), November 25, 2002.