[NoSoup4U]

I am not nearly as well-connected as Mr.K and Berge, but I do have some personal contacts with Sen. Warner's office and an intermittant need to discuss issues with my friend. I spoke to my friend today and he said that it was his understanding that Warner was steadfast on blocking extraneous junk from the bill. I asked if this was due to philospohical opposition to that approach or because it would diminish the chance of it passing and he laughed at me. I believe that they consider certain proposals from the House (especially the immigration changes) to be a poison pill that will block adoption of the bill. I don't get the impression that the gambling provisions are really that important to them, because they don't seem to think that they will absolutely block the bill. If the House Rs would agree to a reduced package of ammendments that everyone thought would pass, I think Warner would let it go to the floor. My friend said that it isn't his direct issue to work but that his understanding was that no one was close to an agreement on a reduced set of changes and that he was fairly sure Warner would never allow the full slate of crap that Hastert wants to go through. He did caution me that as it got down to the last minute someone might blink, but his best guess was that the authorization would not pass until the lame duck session.

I used whatever leverage I had to argue against the gambling provision in any form. He more or less told me that if they got the thing packaged right it would most likely pass the Senate in some form. He thought Warner was typical of most Sentors who don't really have a bug up their butt about gambling, but have no particular reason to step up and defend it either. He also said that the authorization bill was probably irrelevant to us if it doesn't get added now. He said once they got to the lame duck session there were a million different ways they could try to get the thing passed, with or without involving the authorization bill. He said if Frist really wanted to get it done in the Lame Duck session, he probably would. He did point out that its political value will go way down after the elections and that everything might look very different then. He did say that they had been receiving calls from poker players, so I guess that is a good thing.