Update - Wednesday September 27

[Berge20]

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

It is clear that both the House and Senate will be working late into Friday or more likely Saturday to complete must pass legislation.

Senate Majority Leader Frist continues to use his position to pursue all options for adding the internet gambling language to these bills.

Options are still:
Department of Defense Authorization Conference Report
Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Conference Report
Legislation dealing with Port Security
Legislation dealing with detainment of foreign non-combatants

Perhaps others (brain not 100% at the moment)

Senator Frist has ran into some heavy resistance from key Senators on the DoD Authorization bill, but House Speaker Hastert is also attempting to add extraneous measures to either DoD Authorization or the Homeland Security Appropriations measure.

At this point, it remains difficult to say what the odds are of attaching the IG language to one of these vehicles or another before they break for the elections.

One thing is certain ---Frist will continue trying, even if it requires efforts in the "lame duck" session after the elections.

Continue to be vigilant and keep yourself updated. This thread should be used for productive discussion, news, and other relevant information. I will attempt to keep it free from other items that are not quite as helpful.

Updates from earlier in the week can be found here:
Early week updates

[BluffTHIS!]

Berge,

Would it be correct to say that none of those potential vehicles are must pass as far as right now instead of later?

[Bilgefisher]

Are there any chances of getting this bill represented by itself?
If so are we still, SOL it comes along solo?

Also, what are the chances of this bill being pushed passed the lameduck session? (ie: being dropped?)





Adding Nates post from other thread as well. He went through some time preparing it.

[ QUOTE ]
FWIW, here is how I came up with that number.

I figure there's about a 10% chance that some form of the legislation passes this week. Others can disagree but I don't see Specter and the Dems rolling on DHS, and I don't see GOP leadership being anywhere near organized enough to broker some kind of overarching deal. Also, we aren't 100% sure that Frist is targeting the DHS bill anyway. Certainly, there is some probablity of one of these bad things happening, along with other backdoor routes that Frist might attempt, but that's my assessment of the situation.

Post-midterms ... if we get there ... the two things we have learned within the past 7-10 days are that:

(i) Frist is genuinely determined about this issue, at least for right now.
(ii) There is higher-than-usual resistance to non-germane legislation being attached, at least for right now.

To what extent these two things hold after the elections I'm not certain, but I'd guesstimate that:

- there is a 2/3 chance that Frist makes a serious attempt to push this legislation in the lame duck session if the GOP retains both chambers, and a 2/3 chance that he succeeds if he makes the attempt (44% total).

- there is a 1/2 chance that Frist makes a serious attempt to push this legislation in the lame duck session if the Dems win one or both chambers, and a 3/10 chance that he succeeds (15% total).

Of course there are some in-betweens there ... if there's a 1994-style takeover by Dems then Frist will be tarred & feathered by both parties and I don't see him getting any parting gifts ... if the Republicans manage to maintain or even add to their margins then they'll take that as a mandate to do whatever they want ... if there are a couple of disputed election results a la 2000 (not at all unlikely IMO) then almost nothing will get done in the lame duck session except what absolutely has to get done to keep the government running. And the results of individual races (AZ Senate, IA House, perhaps TN Senate if it's taken as a referrendum on Frist) may matter too. But those are the two base cases.

Republicans right now have about a 50% chance of holding on to both chambers, per Tradesports.

Combining all those probabilities yields 36.5%, with a +/- of at least 10%.

[/ QUOTE ]

[Nate tha\\\' Great]

[ QUOTE ]
Options are still:
Department of Defense Authorization Conference Report
Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Conference Report
Legislation dealing with Port Security
Legislation dealing with detainment of foreign non-combatants

[/ QUOTE ]

Berge,

Per Roll Call today, the four bills that Frist is planning on addressing before the end of the session are:

1. Detainees. Being debated right now.
2. Border fence
3. DoD appropriations
4. DHS appropriations

My understanding is that it's probably too late/impractical on the first three so it really comes down to the DHS bill, which may not even hit the floor. A very up-to-date assessment of the current sitaution can be found here.

[Berge20]

[ QUOTE ]
Berge,

Would it be correct to say that none of those potential vehicles are must pass as far as right now instead of later?

[/ QUOTE ]

I would say that these are not all *must* pass, although all have fairly large political/election impact in the eyes of Republicans.

The Dept of Homeland Security Appropriations is probably closest to must pass.

As for the question of if the Internet Gambling bill could still move on its own, I think it is unlikely at this stage...even before or after the elections.

That said, additional legislation such as a year-end omnibus spending bill normally ends up as a Chrismas tree so possibilities are still plenty even if we survive this week.

[Nate tha\\\' Great]

The Senate just adjourned today, leaving them at 0-for-3 on the week in terms of passing legislation by floor vote. Do you guys realize how many bills have actually been passed by floor vote in the Senate in the September session? Three. Yep, three. Two of those were the DoD Appropriations bill and the port security bill, which had to go back to conference anyway. But at least the United States-Oman Free Trade Act got passed once and for all.

[Bigwig]

[ QUOTE ]
The Senate just adjourned today, leaving them at 0-for-3 on the week in terms of passing legislation by floor vote. Do you guys realize how many bills have actually been passed by floor vote in the Senate in the September session? Three. Yep, three. Two of those were the DoD Appropriations bill and the port security bill, which had to go back to conference anyway. But at least the United States-Oman Free Trade Act got passed once and for all.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've been looking for an answer on this board, and can't seem to find one. So please, answer me this: If the ban does pass, will we be able to play for a certain period of time? I've heard 270 days being tossed around. Will we be okay for that period, until the final language is decided?

Thanks.

P.S. I always think that the less congress gets "accomplished," the better.

[Nate tha\\\' Great]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The Senate just adjourned today, leaving them at 0-for-3 on the week in terms of passing legislation by floor vote. Do you guys realize how many bills have actually been passed by floor vote in the Senate in the September session? Three. Yep, three. Two of those were the DoD Appropriations bill and the port security bill, which had to go back to conference anyway. But at least the United States-Oman Free Trade Act got passed once and for all.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've been looking for an answer on this board, and can't seem to find one. So please, answer me this: If the ban does pass, will we be able to play for a certain period of time? I've heard 270 days being tossed around. Will we be okay for that period, until the final language is decided?

Thanks.

P.S. I always think that the less congress gets "accomplished," the better.

[/ QUOTE ]

The Leach bill which passed the House this year proscribed up to 270 days time frame for regulations on the banking/creditcard components of the bill to be established. From there, there might be some additional time frame before the regulations were implemeneted. So there would be some time, perhaps as long as a year, before the regulations became effective. Of course, the quality of games could deteriorate well before that.

Also, keep in mind that if a internet gambling bill passes this year, it will probably differ in some material respects from the Leach bill.

[dibbs]

[ QUOTE ]
The Leach bill which passed the House this year proscribed up to 270 days time frame for regulations on the banking/creditcard components of the bill to be established. From there, there might be some additional time frame before the regulations were implemeneted. So there would be some time, perhaps as long as a year, before the regulations became effective. Of course, the quality of games could deteriorate well before that.

Also, keep in mind that if a internet gambling bill passes this year, it will probably differ in some material respects from the Leach bill.

[/ QUOTE ]

Pardon my ignorance on this one Nate, but how likely is the Leach bill to become law?

[Nate tha\\\' Great]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The Leach bill which passed the House this year proscribed up to 270 days time frame for regulations on the banking/creditcard components of the bill to be established. From there, there might be some additional time frame before the regulations were implemeneted. So there would be some time, perhaps as long as a year, before the regulations became effective. Of course, the quality of games could deteriorate well before that.

Also, keep in mind that if a internet gambling bill passes this year, it will probably differ in some material respects from the Leach bill.

[/ QUOTE ]

Pardon my ignorance on this one Nate, but how likely is the Leach bill to become law?

[/ QUOTE ]

I estimated above that there is presently a 30-40% chance of an internet gambling law getting passed this year. This estimate is not authoratative, of course.

If a bill passes, it will probably be attached to some other legislation and scaled back from the Leach bill to some degree. So if you want to get really technical about it, the odds that the Leach bill itself passes are quite long, but the odds of some undesirable piece of internet gambling related legislation passing are higher than we'd like.