November 8, 2006
Jim Leach, UIGEA architect, ousted from Congress
by Otis
I'm too tired to fully explain how happy this makes me. Suffice it to say, after serving fifteen terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, the man who once said of Internet gaming, "You just click the mouse and lose your house," is now going to have to figure out what to do with his life.
In a race that Republicans ignored because they didn't think it could be lost, in a race the national media ignored because they didn't see it as a potential pick-up for Democrats, in a race that even the candidate didn't think he could lose, Rep. James Leach (R-IA) lost his seat to a guy named Loebsack.
Damned right. Jim Leach got Loebsacked.
There's a part of me that wonders if we could've held UIGEA at bay for a few more months. If we had, we might never have seen it. Bill Frist needed Jim Leach to win the Republican Presidential Caucuses in Iowa. Leach wanted his bill passed. Now, Leach has been Loebsacked. I regret voters couldn't turn out to knock off Senator John Kyl. For now, I'll have to be happy about Leach looking for a job.
Karma, bitches.
Misplayed on all streets, Leach. I hope someone introduces a repeal, and soon. I purposely left my Party money in, hoping for a new Congress.
Unfortunately, that's a bit of wishful thinking. No Congressman can afford to get on the record repealing a bill that fights online gambling. It's just not politically tenable.
They just have to stick it in as a rider to something else. The All-In Act of 2007 won't fly, but riders are riders. It isn't like the original law had broad-based appeal.
I understand what you're saying about a rider... but can you name one single Congressman who's making the repeal of this bill a priority? Can you name one who has even raised the issue?
Nope. Don't go killing my buzz just because the rest of Congress didn't go as you wanted. ;)
Nope, but it gives the PPA a little more validation with the politicians as a viable lobbying organization. Not that I'm in favor of more lobbyists, but I wouldn't mind seeing the PPA someday become the poker player's equivalent of the NRA, focused on regulating, not eliminating the activity, and working against those that would infringe on our rights.
Ha! Except Congress did go as I wanted. I said before the election that I'd rather the voters send the Republicans a message that they lost their way. The only way to do that was to vote them out :-)
The problem is that too many liberals and Democrats who care about this online gaming issue have a utopian idea that now that Democrats are in power, someone will step up to fix this wrong. It's not going to happen. Democrats are just as complicit in this as the Republicans.
The best lobbying effort to repeal this is from the banking industry, they can make it some congressman’s priority, the financial burden of enforcement has been left to banks and private industry doesn’t like to do the government’s dirty work unless it’s compensated well for said work.
I was talking about the other Congress. The Hamburger Party won an astounding 78 out of 100 fat, fat seats.
CJ is rarely right about politics (nyahh) but he's spot-on this time. There's no way any congresscritter will repeal this act right now. and honestly, there's a much bigger mess to be cleaned up now, anyway.
On the contrary, my friend from the left coast... I'm always "right" about politics. I'm just not always correct!
I believe evets hit it right. The banking community is anticipating huge expenses because of this, both in attempting to comply and the cost of defending the lawsuits that are certain to follow.
If, in their zeal to be good lackeys for the federal government, the bank mistakingly thwarts a non-gambling transaction, the customer who is damaged will probably sue. A court would most likely hold that the standard for the bank should be, "Was there a reasonable basis for a good faith belief on the bank's part that the transaction in question was related to gambling?"
This would be a question for the jury. Juries notoriously love insurance companies and banks, especially when they muscle a customer to whom they owe a fiduciary duty. I see the banking community being placed in a completely untenable position on this.
Did anyone notice who just became the Senate Majority leader?
He might know a thing or two about gambling rights...
Could be good, could be bad.
