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Mr. Speaker, for the last five years I have been working with a bipartisan group of my colleagues to make it illegal to continue the barbaric practice of game bird and illegal dog fighting. Unfortunately these practices continue because the purveyors of them have settled on the tactic of having minimal sanctions - not having minimal, meaningful penalties in our statutes. Unfortunately, this takes on new urgency because it's not just the fighting and violence and illegal betting and other criminal activities, but we are now finding, for instance, that viruses like bird flu can be spread through this vile trade.

Mr. Speaker, it's time for the House Republican leadership to stand up to the dark shadowy forces that allow these evil practices to continue. Allow the bill that has been co-sponsored bipartisan - 324 co-sponsors - to be voted on on a suspension calendar. In fact, it won't even take the 40 minutes we normally allocate because I'm quite confident that we won't find any of the apologists for this barbaric trade who would be willing to stand up in public to defend what they protect in the back rooms of Congress.