RICHMOND – A Senate committee voted this morning to approve legislation to toughen penalties for those who engage in the fighting of dogs, game fowl and other animals.

The Senate Committee on Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources voted unanimously to approve Senate Bill 592, sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Tommy Norment, R-Williamsburg. The bill would broaden the Class 6 felony applied to dogfighting to other animals, make attendance at an animal fight a Class 1 misdemeanor, give law enforcement officials additional tools to conduct warranted searches and penalize the use of drugs or other materials intended to enhance animals’ fighting ability.
 
That latter provision applies to cockfighting razors as well as performance-enhancing drugs that Norment said turns “dogs and chickens into the Barry Bonds of Virginia.”
The bill now goes to the Senate Courts of Justice Committee for consideration of the language specific to criminal penalties.

The legislation is endorsed by Gov. Tim Kaine, Attorney General Bob McDonnell and a coalition of animal welfare groups. It was inspired largely by the case of Michael Vick, the former Virginia Tech and NFL quarterback who pleaded guilty and is serving 23 months in federal prison for his role in a Surry County dogfighting ring.

The committee’s unanimous vote included votes from Sens. Emmett Hanger, R-Augusta County, and Mark Obenshain, R-Harrisonburg, who had voiced wariness about the bill earlier this year. John Goodwin, deputy manager of animal fighting issues for the Humane Society of the United States, said he believed they voted to support the bill because the broad coalition of organizations behind the bill “makes it hard to oppose it.”