Cockfight supporters seek Bailey re-election

By Lee Mueller
Eastern Kentucky Bureau

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PAINTSVILLE -- Cockfighters are rallying behind state Rep. Benny Ray Bailey, who has twice sponsored legislation to legalize the sport in Kentucky.

Bailey, 51, a 16-year incumbent who faces state Sen. John David Preston, R-Paintsville, in the realigned 29th Senate District, said yesterday he welcomed the support.

S. Ray Slone, a Floyd County resident who pleaded guilty in 1990 to a misdemeanor cruelty-to-animals charge stemming from a raid on a Doty Creek cockfighting pit, consulted Bailey recently before mailing a letter Oct. 23, seeking campaign donations from "sportsmen.''

"Stick with those who have stuck with us,'' Slone wrote. "Benny Ray has been a champion for us, never afraid to speak out ... .''

Bailey, D-Hindman, said he thought it sounded like a good letter and could help his campaign. Most rural Kentuckians have been to a chicken fight, he said.

"I'll take support anywhere I can get it,'' he said. "My position on chicken fighting is certainly not a secret.''

Thanks largely to Bailey, cockfighting appeared to be legal in Kentucky for more than a decade. In 1980, he co-sponsored a law that exempted birds from the state's animal-cruelty statute. He claimed his bill was intended to help Western Kentucky farmers legally shoot disease-carrying blackbirds.

Then-Gov. John Y. Brown Jr. vetoed the bill, but a dispute arose a decade later about whether it was vetoed after the 10-day deadline.

While that fact was being litigated, Bailey tried unsuccessfully in 1990 to legalize chicken fighting outright.

In 1994, the state Court of Appeals officially made cockfighting illegal again, ruling that a cockfighting promoter had failed to prove Brown's veto was late.

Preston, 45, declined comment on the issue. Slone's letter, he said, "speaks for itself.''

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