Goals & Objectives of a New Poker Lobbying Organization

[jason75]

[ QUOTE ]
jason,

Ok thanks for your replies above. I think we're wording ourselves differently, although as I said I view what we need as a primarily ground up (from the state and individual grassroots level) organization, rather than a top down one. I will admit though that PPA has soured me on the latter, and that with the right board that actually represented and allowed input from the total membership, I wouldnt' have a problem with most policy decisions being made at the top.

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When I say "top-down", I mean networking relationships. For instance, say you're lobbying for regulation of poker. And you find out so are the B&M lobby, and maybe the PPA, and others. You could try to enter into a coalitional effort to lobby around this bill and pool your resources. This is what we call a "top-down" relationship. The decision to enter this coalition can be made by whatever mechanism the organization sets up for making it.

As for how the organization acutally makes its decisions, (corporate board vs. some kind of membership run group), that's up to you.

[jason75]

Some more thoughts as I'm eating dinner: You all need to start thinking about what types of existing relationships you have with online cardroosm, B&M (even local ones) cardrooms, professional poker players, anyone in the known poker world. How about any relationships with elected officials (even if it's the dogcatcher, write it down)? Don't contact these folks yet . . . . just start thinking about any relationship you can bring to the table. Make a list . . .

Also, you need to start making lists of the poker players you do know who might join your organization . . . I'm talking about everyone with a phone number and/or email . . . start making a contact list. And make a list of every poker board, group, website, etc that you know of.

And . . . know any lobbyists/fundraisers/web gurus/database folks/graphic designers/attorneys/political consultants (other than me)? Make a list again.

[BionicComma]

I am interested in getting involved with any lobbying effort to defend poker.

Question: What does everyone have against the PPA?

In my opinion its great to talk about this sort of thing but we need someone that can be absolutely comitted to getting it running. Do we have such a person? Do we have people with experience getting these groups together?

[jason75]

BTW - If you guys haven't discovered www.freeconferencecall.com for your conference calls, check it out. We use it all the time and it's the best service I've found. We've had up to 100 callers on before.

[addictontilt]

I want to express my appreciation to everyone that has commented here, and sent me PM's. both group chat sessions have been emailed to email addresses I have.

Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems that the goal here is to end "poker persecution" (hope I spelled that right)whether it is live or online, does that stike a chord with the majority?

[tiltowhirl]

Since foreign corps cannot lobby directly, ask the sites to add a cashout option to donate a portion to the new organization for which the site will match 100%. Then the money is being donated from teh US player technically and players and sites end up funding the fight to keep their moneymakers.

Anyway, we should get Michael J Fox to represent, holla!

[tiltowhirl]

Reading earlier posts by Chex I also wanted to mention that the forum does seem reactionary to the news (how many posts in PokLeg since yesterday?). Maybe creating contingency plans and discussing them here would be good? There are a lot of excellent critical thinkers here but it seems there isn't as much planning ahead (not that there have been zero attempts).

Time to start thinking, if X happens we should do Y, or even Y,Z,W or V. Going forward anyway, we are supposed to be good at being one step ahead of the competition. A lot of these guys we are against floated through with C averages at Yale paid by daddy warbucks, we can take em.

[rokstedy]

IMO, any plan of this nature needs to include a system to bring the hosting to the united states in order to tax them. I refuse to believe that any government that is willing to lie to it's population, send them to wars over oil and kill their own for the sake of more power, operate from a POV that internet gambling is a BAD for it's people.

In the end, money talks.

Of course, they already know all this and probably already have something in the works to make this happen.

[PokerBob]

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GTF out of here. Many of us including myself have been here from the beginning of this forum, which was over 6 months before the legislation passed. So either contribute or just STFU.

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I agree with all of this.

[addictontilt]

How about this for a goal-

Keep poker legal or Make poker legal

I like the first one. But I am open.

primary objective - get online poker running and stop the feds from shutting down the ewallets.

2nd objective - get live poker more accepted, thoughts?