it never reached the Senate. Maybe you're not aware, but bills take time to pass. Safe Port Act passed the Senate in May and didn't pass the House floor until September (and it was a slam dunk bill that was going to pass). DC doesn't move in a day and obv there's a damn good chance that bill could have hit the Senate given it's support in the House.

The Senate did not vote on it as a freestanding bill. It was part of the SAFE Port Act when it passed the Senate. Unfortunately, the move to the broader bill was done because the session was running out of time, not to get around (nonexistent, sadly) opposition to the bill within the Senate.

Rep. Jim Leach (R-IA) thought showing leadership on this issue was the ticket to reelection for him in 2006 (he lost that election, BTW).

And Frist thought the way to the Republican presidential nomination was to suck up to Leach on Igaming because of the importance of IA in the nomination process. When Leach lost, Frist lost an important ally in IA. Just deserts to both of them.

Its just not good looking if none of this gets action before the new calendar year...election years suck

More than anything else, I had issue with the semantics of your original post. If someone were to read your post, they would think the most important issue in 2006 was anti-gambling. My point was that it was an issue of a tiny hand few, and the rest couldn't give a hoot. Not giving a hoot can mean that you vote for it or against it in mass, BUT Congress as a whole didn't give a crap. The converse isn't always true. ***Just because you don't care doesn't mean you are in opposition to something.*** Thats my take, if I'm wrong, I'm wrong, been there, done that.

I listed Kyl & Frist. Throw Leach into that very tiny group in Congress that gave a hoot about this issue.

Like I said it was more of a semantics issue with your post.

That's sounds a lot different from your first post, but whatever. Thanks for continuing to participate in the fight back, as that's what we all need to do now.

It really doesn't matter at this point, but it's interesting to me from a historical perspective. Didn't Frist first try to get Sen. John Warner to attach it to some Armed Services bill, and Warner refused, expressing concerns about portions of the bill? In addition, didn't several Senators have problems with portions of the bill Goodlatte wanted, and they were finally removed to assure passage?

Yes, but these were relatively minor changes. The general content of the bill wasn't too controversial in the Senate, unfortunately.

Yes. In fact, IMO had the poker community been more active at that time, I believe we would have won one of those changes.

Which one of those changes, TE? Poker excluded?

Yes. If that bill came out today, IMO we could certainly either block the bill or keep poker out of it.

I don't think its unfair to suggest that had we gotten organized in 2002, and grown as much as we have from 2007 to 2011, online poker might have gotten some kind of carve-out in 2006.

Though to be realistic this would have to mean that in that time frame we were able to change the position US gaming interests as well as the position of a good number of politicians.

Even more probable is that if poker players had the kind of political presence then that we have now, things might have become too complicated for the last minute inclusion in the Port Security Bill of the watered down UIGEA.

As sba9630 correctly remembers, there was reluctance to attach a House bill that had not been previously explored in the Senate. At the time it was, however, clearly not reluctant because of any principled belief in individual responsibility. It was reluctant because a number of special interests (who contribute a lot to politicians and lobbyists) were scared the law might adversely affect them. This resulted in much ambiguous, watered down language, and a clear carve out for the biggest special interests: fantasy sports (NFL); Horse race betting (horse owners may or may not be popular themselves, but people do love horses); and state lotteries (duh). It mostly resulted in the now famous part of the law that states that the law does not change any other law about what is legal or illegal.

If in 2006 we had US casino interests clamoring to enter the market and players organized to fight back, the result could easily have been quite different.

Skallagrim

I think we would have gotten the carve-out for sure, as that bill had to be fairly unopposed in principle to pass the Senate the way it did.

It's entirely possible that a follow-on bill could have taken a shot at at poker, of course, but we'd have been in a good position to stand up for ourselves.

It seems that the interests of the larger casino interests would be served either by a system where they could offer services, or prohibition for all. As it seemed unlikely casino interests could hope to move online poker legislation in the political climate of the early 2000s, it's not surprising that some sought to stop the untaxed (by the U.S.), unlicensed competition.

Had there been a viable option of licensed poker, it probably would have interested some of them. And, if it seemed more likely than not that legislation could get passed, we probably could have gotten a few casino interests of that era to side with us.

In fact, I largely think of our fight in terms of swaying public opinion and our regard on the Hill toward us. As that balance has shifted in our favor, groups have moved toward our side.

Absolutely, and this is what I was referring to earlier. That bill would likely have had to jettison poker to get through that process.

This. An active poker base plus casinos would have almost certainly yielded a different result in 2006.

Thanks for the comments, TE and Skallagrim.

I emailed the author of the NYP article on Kyl/Reid asking him to clear up whether the Reid bill will get introduced end of 2011 or 2012.

He said: "I meant the end of this year, so within the next few weeks."


According to his sources.