Update - Week of September 25th

[Berge20]

As the Congress moves into the last week of work before departing for elections, the internet gambling legislation is still being battled over.

Monday was filled with what some view as good news as House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) is making his own push to add unrelated items to the Department of Defense Authorization legislation currently in conference committee. Ultimately, this may hold up the bill or it could muddy the waters to allow other unrelated items to get in.

Discussion Thread

NROG firmly believes that the Internet gambling legislation or similar language will not be inserted into the DoD Authorization bill. See above link and discussion.

However, Monday night The Hill, a reputable newspaper of record for actions in Congress carried a different tune.

Hill Article Discussion

Please use this tread for substinative discussion for actions over the week.

Nothing is certain until Congress adjourns for the year, but the major threats of this week deal with attaching the IG language to the DoD Authorization (or other must pass bills) legislation. Remember that things change hourly, conference reports can be changed up until the minute they are filed and we may not know until the last moment if something is in or out.

Please do your best to keep this thread on topic and full of useful information for the week. I will also be jumping in and deleting what I feel are posts that are not useful, wrong, etc.

[redbeard]

is it possible that we could benefit from frist getting the internet gaming language into the dod authorization bill. if this happened and house speaker hastert held to his word is it possible that this bill would simply die. if that were to happen i assume senator frist would not be able to go back and add the language to a later bill (ie omnibus)-- is that a correct assumption? and is the department of defense authorization bill a must pass bill or could hastert prevent it from ever passing?

[JuntMonkey]

I think that the DoD bill will almost definitely pass, but likely not until the lame duck session. I thought Hastert had said he would not bring it up for a vote THIS week if those extra issues were not included.

In other news - a guy on RGP (rec.gambling.poker) is reporting that Hillary Clinton plans on introducing even stricter anti-online gambling legislation with harsher penalties. That doesn't make much sense if it's already going to pass - I have no idea if the guy is joking around or not.

Edit: The Hillary Clinton guy was joking.

[Berge20]

Redbeard,

Getting language inserted in the DoD Authorization bill and it not moving does not preclude Senator Frist from adding the exact same language to another legislative vehicle such as a year end omnibus spending bill.

[DrPhysic]

I think the DOD bill HAS to be passed by some date or other. I don't know when, possibly Oct 1. Several years ago, they failed to pass the DOD appropriations bill on time and the military service personnel, gs people, etc did not get paid until they did pass it. So this is not an option, although they may still have until some specified date to get it done.

Doc

Edit by Berge20 - DoD Appropriations bill (spending) will be passed this week without IG language. DoD Authorization is a different bill entirely.

[JuntMonkey]

Berge - I did not quite understand something you said in another thread. Were you saying that the Authorization bill might be held up past elections, or that it might not pass at all this year?

Not that it matters all that much since he'll just put it on something else.

[Wynton]

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?

[Mr.K]

[ QUOTE ]
Berge - I did not quite understand something you said in another thread. Were you saying that the Authorization bill might be held up past elections, or that it might not pass at all this year?

Not that it matters all that much since he'll just put it on something else.

[/ QUOTE ]

I can't claim to know what Berge was talking about, but yes, it is possible that the DoD Authorization may not pass before elections, and in fact it may not pass all year. It almost didn't pass last year or year before (I forget). I still think it will pass at some point, though. Of course the question remains of what ends up in the conference report and what ends up left on the cutting room floor, so to speak.

[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?

[/ QUOTE ]

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.

[otctrader]

Update from Roll Call:

http://www.gambling911.com/bill-to-b...ss-092606.html

Cliff notes: Anything is possible