[Mr.K]

[ QUOTE ]
Allow me one very premature question:

Assuming that nothing this year gets passed, is there any reason to believe that the legislation will not promptly be resubmitted in the next session?

I'm not asking whether Frist and company will make this a priority, because I think their intentions are now clear. Rather, I'm asking about scheduling at the start of the new session.

Assuming that the Republicans retain control of each house, are there certain matters that invariably take priority at te beginning of each session, meaning that new anti-internet gambling proposals could not be considered for at least several months?

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Yes, if the bill doesn't pass this time, I guarantee it will be resubmitted next year. The thing is, even if they move at light speed on it, it would be May or June before they really actually got going on it. That's just the way things go when you start both a new year and a new Congress (the 109th Congress ends this year, and the 110th Congress will start in January with all the newly elected members).

At the start of the new year/new Congress they have to "reorganize," which means allocating committee seats and such, and then pass a budget (painful), do a supplemental appropriations bill (usually, often military focused), and do some other housekeeping that takes months. Only after all that crap is out of the way do other items on the agenda start to emerge -- not by rule, but rather by practice.


EDIT: Tuesday gossip from Capitol Hill...

Looks like people are saying now that the DoD Authorization is "dead in the water" for the time being, partially due to Hastert's insistence on attaching those two measures (court security and the immigration enforcement measure), partially due to an ongoing stalemate on the prayer provision, partially due to scheduling pressures, and partially due to some other lingering differences between House and Senate negotiators.

Apparently Chairman Hunter (from the House) is under some pressure from his own committee members to drop his insistence on the prayer language and move the bill, but he has not yet relented. He has, however, apparently caved at least to a degree regarding nongermane add-ons. I don't really know to what degree, though. Warner, on the other hand, has been said to remain against nongermane addons that do not have unanimous or nearly unanimous bipartisan support. Again, I don't know how hard and fast his position is, and I have to believe that as Chairman of SASC, he wants his bill to move and will cut deals to accomplish as much.

So, that's the latest. All of it subject to change on a moment's notice. This afternoon's news should be interesting following the weekly party luncheons in the Senate, as we usually get a better idea of that chamber's roadmap for the week after those meetings. Also, I'm standing by my Saturday adjournment prediction. Heck, maybe even Sunday, but 99.9% not Friday.