Goodlatte Plays The Abramoff Card

Published: Friday, April 07, 2006 Online-Casinos.com

GOODLATTE PLAYS THE ABRAMOFF CARD

Trying to regain a little ground for banning bill

Following the roasting that his Bill to ban online gaming received at the Judiciary Committee hearings earlier this week Rep. Goodlatte played the disgraced-lobbyist-Jack Abramoff card in pushing to revive his proposed crackdown on Internet gambling.

Goodlatte told a House subcommittee his bill would provide tools to combat offshore operators of thousands of Internet gambling sites that are "sucking billions of dollars out of the United States."

"The greed that motivates many of these offshore establishments has also motivated nefarious lobbyists such as Jack Abramoff to spread misinformation about previous attempts of the Congress to ban online betting," he said.

In 2000, the House defeated an earlier version of Goodlatte's bill, and it later was reported that lobbyist Abramoff helped defeat it. Abramoff has pleaded guilty in an influence-peddling scandal.

Rep. Robert C. Scott was a leader in efforts to derail Goodlatte's bill. Scott, senior Democrat on the House crime subcommittee, predicted the bill would prove ineffective because of the difficulty of prosecuting offshore operators, especially when foreign governments might not cooperate.

Pointing also to the difficulty of identifying Internet gambling activities, Scott contended, "If we wanted to be effective in prosecuting illegal gambling over the Internet, we would prosecute individual gamblers." The bill does not propose that.

An official representing the Independent Community Bankers of America, Samuel A. Vallandingham of Barboursville, W.Va., criticised the "enormous regulatory burden" the bill would cause.

Much of the hearing was devoted to questions about whether the bill would have the effect of allowing interstate betting tied to horse racing, online lotteries and fantasy sports, all of which are exempted. These questions elicited varying interpretations and debate and were not resolved. Some lawmakers, including Rep. John Conyers, suggested that the implications of online gambling be thoroughly studied by a committee before any prohibition was proposed