ChrisAJ
04-10-2006, 09:55 AM
I've heard a few stories about some of the Members they played cards with... but here's the latest:
Poker Maestros Show Strong Suits on Hill
By Jill Barshay, CQ Staff
Chris Ferguson is one of the few people who can have $20 bills thrust at him in the corridors of Congress and not fear imminent indictment.
Ferguson is the 2000 champion of the World Series of Poker, and he was besieged by congressional aides seeking his signature on their Andrew Jackson portraits last week — even as he was seeking to thwart the handiwork of many of their bosses. Ferguson was on the Hill to argue that Congress should not move to ban online gambling, a $12 billion-a- year industry. Ferguson, who’s also a computer scientist, helped design the software for the Full Tilt Poker Web site, in which he also has a commercial interest.
He joined Howard Lederer and Greg Raymer, two other poker stars, in making the lobbying rounds for the Poker Players Alliance, which seeks to carve poker out of any Internet gaming crackdown. The group styles itself as a grass-roots movement of ordinary poker players and boasts that it has signed up 20,000 members in the last four months. But revenue from $20 membership fees comes something shy of the group’s ante for outside lobbying and message crafting, which includes such heavy hitters as the Federalist Group and Dittus Communications; lobbying records show that the group had already paid $220,000 to the Federalist Group alone at the end of 2005.
Rep. Jim Leach of Iowa, who together with Republican colleague Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona is leading the charge to kill Internet gambling, humored the champs by playing a hand of betting-free Texas Hold ’Em with them in his office.
While poker is enjoying a boom in popularity, both off the Hill and on — regular House players include Californians Bill Thomas , a Republican, and Linda T. Sánchez , a Democrat — the alliance knows that wresting an exemption for the game would be akin to drawing to an inside straight.
As with so much of the new mood on the Hill, the decisive factor appears to be Jack Abramoff. In the disgraced superlobbyist’s plea agreement, he fingered former Tom DeLay aide Tony Rudy as the one who killed an anti-Internet gambling bill in 2000 to appease an Abramoff lottery client. So the poker player’s alliance is worried that House GOP leaders are keen to move face-saving legislation before this fall’s midterm election.
Some Hill observers say that in giving a free pass to lotteries but overlooking the noble American pastime of poker, Congress would actually be extending Abramoff’s legacy. “The irony is that the . . . bill carves out the lotteries, the very entity that Abramoff was lobbying for,” says one lobbyist, who declined to be named. “You’re giving Abramoff his go-to-jail present.”
Poker Maestros Show Strong Suits on Hill
By Jill Barshay, CQ Staff
Chris Ferguson is one of the few people who can have $20 bills thrust at him in the corridors of Congress and not fear imminent indictment.
Ferguson is the 2000 champion of the World Series of Poker, and he was besieged by congressional aides seeking his signature on their Andrew Jackson portraits last week — even as he was seeking to thwart the handiwork of many of their bosses. Ferguson was on the Hill to argue that Congress should not move to ban online gambling, a $12 billion-a- year industry. Ferguson, who’s also a computer scientist, helped design the software for the Full Tilt Poker Web site, in which he also has a commercial interest.
He joined Howard Lederer and Greg Raymer, two other poker stars, in making the lobbying rounds for the Poker Players Alliance, which seeks to carve poker out of any Internet gaming crackdown. The group styles itself as a grass-roots movement of ordinary poker players and boasts that it has signed up 20,000 members in the last four months. But revenue from $20 membership fees comes something shy of the group’s ante for outside lobbying and message crafting, which includes such heavy hitters as the Federalist Group and Dittus Communications; lobbying records show that the group had already paid $220,000 to the Federalist Group alone at the end of 2005.
Rep. Jim Leach of Iowa, who together with Republican colleague Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona is leading the charge to kill Internet gambling, humored the champs by playing a hand of betting-free Texas Hold ’Em with them in his office.
While poker is enjoying a boom in popularity, both off the Hill and on — regular House players include Californians Bill Thomas , a Republican, and Linda T. Sánchez , a Democrat — the alliance knows that wresting an exemption for the game would be akin to drawing to an inside straight.
As with so much of the new mood on the Hill, the decisive factor appears to be Jack Abramoff. In the disgraced superlobbyist’s plea agreement, he fingered former Tom DeLay aide Tony Rudy as the one who killed an anti-Internet gambling bill in 2000 to appease an Abramoff lottery client. So the poker player’s alliance is worried that House GOP leaders are keen to move face-saving legislation before this fall’s midterm election.
Some Hill observers say that in giving a free pass to lotteries but overlooking the noble American pastime of poker, Congress would actually be extending Abramoff’s legacy. “The irony is that the . . . bill carves out the lotteries, the very entity that Abramoff was lobbying for,” says one lobbyist, who declined to be named. “You’re giving Abramoff his go-to-jail present.”