Interesting comments BluffTHIS, as usual. You make very important points about what we'll need to do to pass legislation. I guess I'll share my two cents.
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Even *if* Frank's or Wexler's bill, or a combo of both, were to pass the house, that legislation is DOA in the senate where Kyl and others will place an immediate hold on it. So the real focus of lobbying by the PPA and other allies needs to be on the leadership of both houses, and on the committee chairs of major committees. Because the ONLY way we are going to get something passed is via the same route the IUGEA passed, i.e. by being attached to must pass legislation in conference committee.
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The only issue there, IMHO, is that we have to win the smaller battles before we can fight the war. After all, we lost the HR 4411 [the bill that became the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA),
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/...t8Vqw:e220380:] vote 317-93. We really have to win in the Financial Services Committee before the next battle, I think. We should all fight hard to get Senate support, of course (I've been writing to mine often and have kept this as a "Fight for Online Gaming" action), but it seems right to focus on the current battle. After all, Frank doesn't have the committee votes yet. And, he said he needs 50 cosponsors to move forward for a House vote (after all, we don't gain anything by losing badly in another House vote), so we need to participate in this before moving on to a Senate fight.
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So the current processes ongoing in the house need to be looked at as merely fine-tuning the language to a form that is acceptable to the most legislators in both houses, for subsequent attachment to some other bill, rather than as processes that will produce a stand-alone bill that has a snowball's chance of making it to enactment on its own.
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The bill still has to pass the Financial Services Committee. No matter what, that's the next step. I guess that's job #1 for us. If we build one success on another, our momentum will carry us into the Senate. Even if we don't pass legislation this year, we can at least build our movement.
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watering down the regs as much as possible so as to have no chance to be effective, or *better yet* to reject the regs in their entireity which congress can do, or the equivalent action of refusing to fund enforcement of them.
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Definitely. That's been our
Fight for Online Gaming!! -- Weekly action thread focus for the past few weeks, and will continue to be until the regs are focused.
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The PPA and others should waste no further resources in seeking to get more co-sponsors for the bills in question, but rather on fine-tuning the language and lobbying the democratic leadership of both the house and senate to be willing to attach such language to something else. When all is said and done, it won't matter if there are 300 co-sponsors and a bill passes the house when Sen. Kyl just has to put a secret hold on it to kill it in the senate.
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Sorry, but Frank says he needs 50 cosponsors to win this round of the fight. I say we make the calls to help. After all, if we can't find 50 cosponsors, how can we pass this bill?