[Mr.K]

Good find on the article, Nate, and I agree with much of your analysis in this thread. This is a real curveball, and it breaks across all kinds of crazy lines. We have Dem versus Republican on this (at least the immigration piece -- which you all need to know is not the big immigration reform bill, but a smaller, more limited package focusing on deportation of criminal aliens). We have House versus Senate, featuring the most powerful man on Capitol Hill (Hastert) against a guy known to buck his party when he wants to (Warner). We have a deadline of passage by Friday, and we have elections coming up, which puts pressure on passage of troops bills. All in all, we've got ourselves a real Potomac drama here, with Internet gambling stuck right in the damned middle.

The gambling bill's fate rests as much on events totally unrelated to it as it does on the holds and battles immediately related to it. I want to comment much more extensively on how this will begin to play out, but I will refrain from doing so until I get a chance to talk with some people tomorrow and read the Hill rags, which I guarantee will have a good beat on this story. CongressDaily, CQ Today, and Roll Call will all probably have value-added coverage tomorrow AM.

Here's the thing that all of you need to know about this week: All the usual rules go out the window on procedure. All of them. This is the last week before one of the most tumultous elections in the last 20 years. At no point in the past decade and a half have the House and Senate been so at odds with one another, at least as far as I know. The environment is not just about Democrats versus Republicans, it is Republicans versus Republicans as well on several major items, and we are going to see some crazy fireworks before week's end.

My prediction: leaders will assemble a monster bill that will roll taxes, military, energy, immigration all together in to a single package, and they will dare the rank and file to oppose it this close to an election. There will be plenty to complain about in this package... Chairmen will get their feelings hurt (again, in Grassley's case), moderates and partisans will explode with anger at certain provisions, interest groups will rally for it and against it, and in the end we'll have big, highly publicized votes on it in each chamber. It might pass the House, but it'll fail in the Senate, and the R's will go on calling the Democrats obstructionists. Or at least this is one way things could play out...

How the Internet gambling bill shakes out in that mix is anyone's guess at this point. More to come on that later.