Wrapping up his comments before a newly formed game fowl group in Kentucky, Anthony DeVore buoyed their spirits by touting the political clout his similar chicken- breeding organization has back in Oklahoma.

DeVore is president of the Oklahoma Gamefowl Commission, a nonprofit advocacy group pushing to lessen the state’s criminal penalties for cockfighting. On Dec. 9, he told members of the Kentucky Game Fowl Commission at their first meeting in Langley, Kentucky, that his group in Oklahoma has the political support of U.S. Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-OK2). DeVore said he met two days earlier with Brecheen in Washington, and a picture of the two of men dated Dec. 7 appears on the Oklahoma group’s Facebook page.

“Josh is a good guy, a real staunch constitu-tionalist,” DeVore said in Kentucky. “We were in a meeting with several people and the people looked at him like, what are you talking about? He said, ‘Dude, we’re talking about chicken fighting.’ He said, ‘Chicken fighting ought to be legal.’ He said, ‘I don’t have an issue with it. Neither should anybody else.’ And this is a U.S. congressman.”

Asked about DeVore’s comments, Ben Decatur, Brecheen’s communications director, released a statement Wednesday attributed to Brecheen.

“I, like many Oklahomans, support the decriminalization of cockfighting,” Brecheen said. “With our border crisis and rise of violent crime, Oklahoma law enforcement should be spared from having to spend their limited time and resources investigating who is chicken fighting and who is not.”

However, according to an April 2023 Sooner Survey, fewer than 10 percent of Oklahomans think cockfighting should be legal, and nearly 90 percent of voters favor the existing statewide ban that makes cockfighting a felony. The poll showed 88 percent of those surveyed in the OKC and Tulsa areas saying cockfighting should be illegal, while 87 percent of those in the 71 rural counties also responded that the blood sport should be outlawed.

In each of the five congressional districts in Oklahoma, at least 83 percent of respondents want cockfighting to be illegal, and in no congressional district did support for legality exceed 12 percent, according to the poll.

In Brecheen’s 2nd Congressional District, which includes all or part of 24 counties in the eastern part of the state, 83 percent polled said cockfighting should be illegal, while 11 percent said it should be legal, according to the poll.

Cockfighting is illegal in all 50 states, with Louisiana becoming the last state to ban it in 2007. In 2002, Oklahoma voters criminalized hosting, attending and raising birds for cockfighting events. Federally, the Animal Fighting Prohibition Reinforcement Act also makes animal fighting a felony charge. Attending a fight or selling, buying, transporting or delivering any sharp instruments intended to be used for fighting birds can also result in criminal charges.

During his Kentucky speech, DeVore also name-dropped Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, although he was less accurate when discussing a video message Stitt sent his group in November “to cheer you on from the sidelines.”

“If you didn’t see that the governor in Oklahoma came out, made a video in support of us, you’re missing out,” DeVore told the crowd, according to a recording provided to NonDoc by an animal rights group opposed to DeVore’s efforts. “We’re real thankful for him, and he faced a lot of heat from animal rights activists and the liberal news stations.”

DeVore then claimed that Stitt contacted him directly about the issue.

“He called me up and said, ‘Them damn slimeballs,’” DeVore told the crowd. “He said, ‘I hate them.’ He said, ‘I hate ’em with a passion.’” Abegail Cave, the governor’s communications director, said Stitt never talked to DeVore.

“The governor does not know anybody named Anthony De-Vore (and has) not called anybody named Anthony DeVore,” Cave said Dec. 22. “To hear somebody say that he would have said ‘them damn slimeballs’ was my first red flag that that was not something that actually happened. But I did call the governor and he said he has never met anybody named Anthony DeVore.”

Later that day, after a meeting of the Oklahoma Board of Equalization, Stitt himself denied knowing DeVore or making a call to the cockfighting advocate.

Cave said she didn’t know why DeVore would attribute comments to the governor that he did not make.

“Probably flexing would be my guess,” she said.

Reached Thursday, DeVore admitted the phone call from Stitt never happened.

“I was paraphrasing that,” DeVore said. “He didn’t call me directly, he called one of our constituents.”

Blake Pearce, secretary and policy chairman of the Oklahoma Game Fowl Commission, added that it’s unknown if that even happened.

“We don’t have any proof or anything that he actually said that, that could be hearsay,” Pearce said. “We did not hear the governor say that himself.”

Despite Stitt’s November video cheering DeVore’s organization, Cave said the governor would not sign a bill decriminalizing cockfighting if the Legislature sent one to him.