According to statements out of the Poker Players Alliance, Washington, D. C. might not be done with its tango with online gaming and poker.
The PPA tweeted yesterday that “the on again/off again iGaming hearing in Congress is now on again.” According to the PPA, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Utah Representative Jason Chaffetz, will be bringing his proposed legislation up in a hearing on December 9. Whether a vote on pushing the bill, HR 707 or the “Restoration of America’s Wire Act” (RAWA), will be held at that time or if it will just be another opportunity to gauge the winds around the Capitol is unknown.
What is known is that Chaffetz has had difficulty getting anything going regarding RAWA. Originally filed in mid-2014, RAWA was allegedly written by a lobbyist for billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his anti-gambling organization, the Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling. The CSIG, a pet project out of Adelson to stop what he considers a “cancer” on society, has been Adelson’s foot soldiers in the fight against federal legislation for online gaming or poker.
Chaffetz, along with South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, both presented their original RAWA bills during the summer of 2014 and, following the midterm elections in November, attempted to squeeze the bills through as a part of an omnibus program that would be able to hide it (a common tactic in Washington, to tack another bill that cannot stand on its own to one that has to be passed). Only the work of the PPA and its grassroots membership were able to snuff out RAWA in the last Congressional session.
With the new Congress seated in January, Chaffetz all but immediately jumped back on the bandwagon. In February, Chaffetz – using his new chairmanship of the House Oversight Committee – put RAWA back into the legislative mix. He immediately set out to push the legislation through the House by scheduling a hearing the very next month. That hearing, which was supposed to show Chaffetz’s abilities in getting the job done (especially to a major donor such as Adelson), instead demonstrated the power of the people.
The March hearing was derided for the list of witnesses that Chaffetz gathered for the hearing or, better yet, the witnesses that he didn’t. Chaffetz attempted to stack the deck against online gaming and poker by bringing out witnesses that continually pointed out the detriments of the industry. As for a pro-online gaming or poker voice, there wasn’t initially a witness. Reluctantly, Chaffetz was forced to put at least a nonpartisan voice on the panel who neither advocated for or against online gaming or poker.
Chaffetz has also faced strong backlash from many in his own party. Representative Bob Goodlatte, who has long been a thorn in the side of online gaming and poker, now comes from a viewpoint of gaming being a “state’s rights” issue rather than something that the government should have oversight (a position perhaps pushed by Goodlatte’s constituency being strongly behind the “liberty” movement). As of today, he hasn’t endorsed Chaffetz’s.
In the Senate, Graham has been less quick to jump back into the RAWA frenzy. He waited until June to reintroduce his own RAWA to the Senate, entitled as Chaffetz’s version with the nomenclature SB 1668. With his interests currently on his candidacy for the GOP nomination for President of the United States in 2016, Graham hasn’t pushed his version of the bill in the Senate nearly as hard as Chaffetz has pushed his.
The move by Chaffetz for new hearings on RAWA come as the PPA and other groups thought that its chance of movement in 2015 was essentially done. Such diverse and bipartisan organizations such as the Fraternal Order of Police and Campaign for Liberty have banded together to state their opposition to RAWA, bemoaning it as “crony capitalism” at its finest. Even with opposition as plentiful as it is, Chaffetz obviously still believes he can push the bill through to the full House for consideration, however.
