Animal Wellness Action Calls Out Broken Arrow Candidate Endorsed by the Oklahoma Cockfighters Front Group

Tulsa, OK — Animal Wellness Action today urged Republican primary voters in Oklahoma Senate District 33 (Broken Arrow, Tulsa) to reject Shelley Gwartney in her quest for that seat because of her full-throated acceptance and touting of an endorsement by the Oklahoma Gamefowl Commission.

The Oklahoma Gamefowl Commission is a cockfighters’ political action committee, and Gwartney has expressed sympathy for “their stories of injustice due to … corruption within our criminal justice system.” In the two-candidate run-off, Animal Wellness Action endorses Broken Arrow Vice Mayor Christi Gillespie, who opposes dogfighting and cockfighting.

In November 2023, candidate Gwartney attended the cockfighters’ annual legislative meeting in McAlester, where cockfighting t-shirts and paraphernalia were on open display and several speakers openly endorsed cockfighting. Cockfighting is a felony in Oklahoma as well as by federal law. In December 2023, Ms. Gwartney touted her endorsement by the cockfighters’ group on her campaign Facebook pages.

Animal Wellness Action has reviewed this information and confirmed concerns about Ms. Gwartney’s support of the cockfighter group’s agenda, deeming it ‘highly concerning.”

“Based on my involvement in working to dismantle animal fighting operations over 40 years, I believe the barbaric practice of cockfighting has no place in Oklahoma,” said Kevin Chambers Oklahoma state director for Animal Wellness Action, a national organization that promotes legal standards against cruelty and specializes in combating animal fighting. “Support for cockfighting and the supplying of fighting roosters for cockfighting — perhaps one of the most reprehensible forms of animal cruelty — is disqualifying for public office.” 

Animal Wellness Action has previously discovered that cockfighters maintain an extensive network of cockfighting operations in Oklahoma. Anthony Devore, owner of a fighting rooster farm in Caddo, Oklahoma, and president of the cockfighters’ PAC, is a major donor to Ms. Gwartney’s campaign.

Congress is now considering the FIGHT Act, H.R. 2742 and S. 1529, to crack down on dogfighting and cockfighting in a more determined way. With more bipartisan support than any other animal welfare bill in this Congress, the FIGHT Act has nearly 700 endorsing agencies and organizations, including the National Sheriffs’ Association, which links animal fighting to “crimes against people including, but not limited to, child abuse, murder, assault, theft, intimidation of neighbors and witnesses, and human trafficking” and ties it to “intricate criminal networks and connections to organized crime, trafficking narcotics, illegal firearms, and attempted bribery of elected officials.”