NOVEMBER STATE BALLOT MEASURES
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1998:
Alaska Ballot Measure 9, the Wolf
Snaring Initative, qualified to face the voters on
August 17, when the Alaska Supreme Court overturned
without comment a May ruling by Superior
Court Judge Ralph R. Beistline that if it passed, it
would infringe upon the Alaska Legislature’s exclusive
right to manage wildlife. Backed by Friends of
Animals, the bill bans all snaring of wolves.
Arizona Proposition 201, the Cockfighting
Initiative, survived a court challenge on
September 22 when Judge Robert Myers of the
Maricopa County Superior Court threw out a suit by
the Arizona Game Fowl Breeders Association which
attempted to invalidate more than 42,000 of the
153,494 signatures that the Arizona Secretary of State
earlier ruled were valid––40,000 more than were necessary
to put the bill to ban cockfighting to a vote. The
well-connected Game Fowl Breeders have killed anticockfighting
bills in agricultural committees of the
Arizona Legislature 23 times since 1954, but may be
out of tricks. The Arizona Star reported on September
3 that an independent poll found 87% of Arizona voters
are opposed to cockfighting. Cockfighting is currently
legal in the U.S. only in Louisiana, New
Mexico, Oklahoma, and Missouri––but Missouri too
may ban it this November.