Interesting ... potential DoD bill clusterfu*k

[Nate tha\\\' Great]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...092400861.html

Summary: Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the House, says he will not bring the DoD bill to the House floor this week unless both a court security bill and an immigration measure are attached. The immigration measure is quite controversial. There are fights between Democrats and Republicans, between committee members and leadership, and between the two chambers. There is a fairly good chance that these fights will prevent the DoD Authorization bill from passing before the recess.

There is no mention of internet gambling, although I would not read anything into that. I'll leave it to our resident policy wonks to explain whether this is good or bad for us -- my guess is a bit of each.

[palmdrive]

Interesting article Nate. This excerpt caught my eye:

"The last-minute confrontation is pitting the House's most powerful member against Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.), who has said he will not add extraneous measures to the annual defense authorization bill unless they can garner unanimous support from Democrats and Republicans alike."

The unanimous support provision inspires some optimism. On the other hand if Hastert succeeds in attaching the security and immigration measures it may facilitate the addition of other non-germane items as well.

Looking forward to some expert thoughts. Should be an interesting week to say the least.

[Sephus]

hooray! another week to agonize about this.

[Nate tha\\\' Great]

Okay, since nobody else has chimed in on this, let me try my attempt at analysis. Keep in mind that I am an amateur at best at this stuff.

There is very little chance that a "clean" version of the DoD bill (e.g. with no non-germane langauge attached) goes out before the congress goes to recess at the end of the week. Even if Warner/Levin decide they want to call Hastert's bluff, it will probably require until after the elections to do so.

I don't know how likely it is that a "dirty" version of the DoD authorization gets out before the elections. These measures that Hastert are insisting upon are genuinely controversial, far more so than the internet gambling language is, and they are far more visible, especially the immigration langauge w/r/t how hot the issue is in midterm election border states. But my guess is that there is less than a 25% chance that this all gets resolved this week, especially since Hastert just threw this curveball today (Sunday).

Whether this will increase or decrease Frist's resolve to attach the internet gambling language is not clear. Certainly, Frist has been upstaged, and this takes the internet gambling issue out of the spotlight. He could decide that this is the perfect opportunity for him to slip the gambling language in under the radar, or he could decide that too many cooks spoil the broth and look for another bill (or none at all) to attach the gambling language to. Finally, internet gambling language could become involved in horse-trading, which could work either for us or against us.

If this does get delayed until the lame duck session, that is probably a good result for us, but only because the momentum was running against us in the waning days of last week. A delay gives us the chance to reset, as well as the chance for political (e.g. the midterms) or geopolitical events to intervene. Put differently, if the visiting team has just gotten a couple of big hits and is threatening to score, and your relief pitcher isn't ready to go just yet, you really wouldn't mind a rain delay.

[kickabuck]

Thanks Nate for the headsup. Your thoughts, observations and links to relevant sources are very much appreciated.

[Halstad]

I've read the DoD bill has to go through this week. So, quick question. What happens if the DoD bill doesn't go through this week? Does it actually have to go through or could it possibly wait until after the elections?

[Nate tha\\\' Great]

[ QUOTE ]
I've read the DoD bill has to go through this week. So, quick question. What happens if the DoD bill doesn't go through this week? Does it actually have to go through or could it possibly wait until after the elections?

[/ QUOTE ]

No, it doesn't have to go through this week. A lot of "must pass" bills won't go through until after the elections, and it now looks like this might be one of them.

[Bigwig]

I'm certainly no expert either, as my political knowledge is more theory based, and not in the hypocritical minutiae of congress. But my general guess is the same as Nates. This could be good, or bad. My initial worry is that the gambling language could sneak in as a compromise with the other measures, but Hastert and Frist are on the same side of the aisle. So--and I'm guessing here--if the GOP and Democrats are the ones at odds over this issue, perhaps this is more good news than bad.

However, as Mr. K has pointed out, the longer this lasts the more likely the provision gets snuck in.

[Sponger.]

[ QUOTE ]
"The last-minute confrontation is pitting the House's most powerful member against Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.), who has said he will not add extraneous measures to the annual defense authorization bill unless they can garner unanimous support from Democrats and Republicans alike."

[/ QUOTE ]

possible stupid question... if they can garner unanimous supoprt from Democrats and Repulicans alike why would they even need to attach it to the DoD bill? Couldn't they just spend 3 seconds of floor time to pass whatever stuff on its own?

[Nate tha\\\' Great]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm certainly no expert either, as my political knowledge is more theory based, and not in the hypocritical minutiae of congress. But my general guess is the same as Nates. This could be good, or bad. My initial worry is that the gambling language could sneak in as a compromise with the other measures, but Hastert and Frist are on the same side of the aisle. So--and I'm guessing here--if the GOP and Democrats are the ones at odds over this issue, perhaps this is more good news than bad.

However, as Mr. K has pointed out, the longer this lasts the more likely the provision gets snuck in.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll tell you what -- I think the near-term goal is to make sure (e.g. hope and pray) that internet gambling langauge doesn't get into any bill that passes before the midterms. IMO, this latest development reduces the chance of that happening, perhaps by a lot.

In other words, if on Friday it looked like...

35% chance that DoD Authorization is passed before midterms with internet gambling provision

55% chance that DoD Authorization is passed before midterms without internet gambling provision

10% chance that DoD Autorization does not pass before midterms

...it now looks like:

10% chance that DoD Authorization is passed before midterms with internet gambling provision

15% chance that DoD Authorization is passed before midterms without internet gambling provision

75% chance that DoD Autorization does not pass before midterms

The fight over internet gambling can and probably will resume in the lame duck session, but this was true anyway, since First could have lobbied to include the langauge in the omnibus spending bill or something else. I'll take my chances with that, if it means giving our lobbyists another eight weeks to work with, deflating the momentum on the issue, and allowing political and international contingencies to run their course.