Media Coverage - Dove hunters afoul of gaming laws, group says
Dove hunters afoul of gaming laws, group says
By Dawson Bell
Free Press Staff Writer
Published June 2, 2006
Representatives of a group formed to reinstate Michigan's ban on mourning dove hunting said Thursday their pro-hunting opponents are using illegal gambling to raise money.
An attorney for the Committee to Restore the Dove Shooting Ban said sweepstakes tickets being distributed by a pro-hunting coalition called Citizens for Wildlife Conservation violate state gaming laws, and that Attorney General Mike Cox should investigate and prosecute.
The sweepstakes, advertised on the CWC Web site, offers prizes ranging from 40 acres of hunting land to a $100 gift certificate at Gander Mountain.
Attorney Mike Hodge called the contest "clearly illegal," and said state law "expressly prohibits sweepstakes of this sort from being used to finance ballot proposal campaigns."
That allegation was denied emphatically by Sam Washington, executive director of Michigan United Conservation Clubs, one of the constituent groups of Citizens for Wildlife Conservation.
A nearly identical tactic was used by another pro-hunting group in 1996, Washington said, during the campaign to defeat a measure that would have banned bear hunting with dogs and bait. He said the current sweepstakes was designed carefully to conform with gaming and campaign finance law.
CWC hopes to raise more than $3 million to defeat the dove hunting initiative, Washington said.
The anti-hunting coalition, led by the Michigan Audubon and Humane societies, collected 300,000 petition signatures to force a vote in November on whether the state's historic prohibition on the hunting of mourning doves should be reinstated.
The Legislature and Gov. Jennifer Granholm agreed in 2004 to allow a limited hunt in the state's southernmost counties. But the law permitting the hunt was suspended after one season pending the outcome of the election.
Contact Dawson Bell at 313-222-6604 or dbell@freepress.com.
