As one of them faces a tough fight for reelection and the other seeks to keep his highly prestigious seat as the Majority Leader, the dueling members of the Senate representing the state of Nevada continue to battle over the regulation and legalization of online poker, both publicly and privately.
The two men, current Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and junior Senator Dean Heller, have gone back to the Silver State with the close of the most recent session of the Senate, but that hasn’t calmed issues between the two men down on the key question of the regulation of the online poker industry. Sen. Reid, who negotiated a still-unintroduced bill with Arizona Senator Jon Kyl on that subject, tasked Sen. Heller with garnering the necessary votes from fellow Republicans that would ensure passage of the bill. Earlier this month, Sen. Heller allegedly balked at the proposition prior to the fall recess, bringing the ire of Sen. Reid upon him last week.
In discussing the current stalemate, Sen. Reid’s office accused Sen. Heller of not stepping up for his constituency in Nevada as well as the multitude of gaming corporations who would benefit from federal regulation. Calling regulation of online gaming and poker “the most important issue facing Nevada since Yucca Mountain (a reference to the stoppage of a proposed nuclear waste repository in the state),” Sen. Reid chastised Sen. Heller for not supporting the issue wholeheartedly. Sen. Heller, for his part, countered by stating in a letter that the issue was best left to the House of Representatives to take first action rather than the Senate.
Yesterday, Sen. Heller issued another salvo in the ongoing battle by saying that Sen. Reid was attempting to make a political issue out of the online poker fight. According to the Nevada Appeal, Sen. Heller stated that the legislation should be removed from the “partisan fights” between the two men so that it doesn’t “poison the waters” for passage later this year.
“I believe, at the end of the day, we will have the 10-15 (Republican) votes that we’re going to need in order to get a bill like this passed,” Heller stated to the Appeal. “But we don’t need the politics playing in it today and we don’t need to poison the water on this also.”
Even though there’s quite a bit of acrimony between the two, Sen. Heller does state that, in his belief, they will come together on the subject. “The internet poker bill was never going to pass before the election,” Heller said. “It’s going to happen, and I’m still committed, as Senator Reid is, to get a bill passed. When this is all said and done, both sides are going to come together and say, ‘OK, let’s do what’s best for Nevada.’”
Sen. Heller is locked in a particularly difficult fight for a second term as a Senator from Nevada. Oddly enough, the person challenging Heller for his seat, Congresswoman Shelley Berkley (currently representing the state in the House of Representatives), is supported by Sen. Reid in the 2012 elections on November 6. Rep. Berkley has been a supporter of federal regulation of the online poker industry and also fired off against Sen. Heller’s lackadaisical approach to the question in saying, “Senator Heller has failed to deliver for Nevada’s hardworking families who were counting on online poker legislation to boost the state’s struggling economy and to create thousands of good paying jobs.”
“Perhaps Senator Heller shouldn’t have spent so much time cozying up to Wall Street special interests by protecting tax breaks for corporations that ship American jobs overseas,” Rep. Berkley concluded.
The stakes are high for Sen. Reid on this subject also. If he is unable to deliver for the Nevada casino interests the federal bill they seek, then he would lose a great deal of support from those companies (according to the Las Vegas Sun, MGM Resorts International was Sen. Reid’s largest campaign donor in 2010 for his re-election campaign, followed by Caesars Entertainment). Sen. Reid may also be looking to shore up his place as Senate Majority Leader; if his efforts sway the voters to put Rep. Berkley in Sen. Heller’s seat, it would almost ensure that the Democratic Party would maintain its majority in the Senate and he would maintain his leadership position.
Currently, Congress is on recess for its members to head home to campaign (the entirety of the House of Representatives is up for re-election and one-third of the Senate is facing its constituents), meaning that nothing will get done on online poker regulation until after November 6. At that time, the “lame duck” session will kick in, but online poker is way down the list of issues the Congress must contend with, which include several major showdowns over taxation, budget issues and aiding the farming industry.
The rhetoric will probably continue, not only in Nevada but elsewhere, as the potential for federal legislation of online poker in 2012 becomes a problematic question.
There are so many fish playing online poker that even if they do have solid fundamentals they don’t follow the basic rules of online poker.They play too long hours,play when they shouldn’t be, and go on tilt with a blink of an eye.