TPA to Congress: Do Not Use Spending Bill to Ban Online Gambling

The Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) has repeatedly pressed Congress to only have a very limited and specific agenda during this Lame Duck session of Congress. TPA believes that Congress should focus on the following: passing a continuing resolution to keep the government functioning, passing Defense authorization, and passing a permanent extension of the Internet access tax moratorium. While there have been reports from Capitol Hill that a long-term spending bill will ultimately hit the floor next week, in the form of the hybrid of a continuing resolution and Omnibus called a “Cromnibus,” there is also word that some members of Congress are looking to place provisions into the large bill that not only have little to do with the issues Congress needs to address, but also harm the free market and how voters make decisions in their state. In particular, TPA has been following the fight over passing a Federal Ban on Internet Gambling. Some in Congress may be looking to address this in the Cromnibus with the Restoration of America’s Wire Act (RAWA), S.2159 and its companion House legislation H.R. 4301, both of which were introduced in Congress earlier this year. Any form of this legislation should not be included a long-term or short-term spending bill. Shoving a provision that would ban online gambling at the federal level is irresponsible and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) should ensure that this does not happen. Recently TPA signed a coalition letter urging Senate and House Leadership outlining opposition to RAWA and clearly defining the reasons why the legislation would be harmful.

You can read the coalition letter below:

November 20, 2014



The Honorable Harry Reid Majority Leader

The Honorable Mitch McConnell Minority Leader

The Honorable John Boehner Speaker of the House

The Honorable Nancy Pelosi Minority Leader

Dear Majority Leader Reid, Senator McConnell, Speaker Boehner, and Representative Pelosi:

We write to inform you of our strong concerns about S.2159, Restoration of America’s Wire Act, and its companion House legislation H.R. 4301, both known as RAWA.

While RAWA supporters contend that this legislation is a simple fix to 53 year old Wire Act legislation on sports betting, RAWA attempts to apply federal sports betting regulations to online gambling – even though this legislation was created decades before the invention of the internet.

The states have always led the way in regulating gambling and that is why a diverse coalition of organizations including the Democratic Governors Association, National Governors Association, National Conference of State Legislatures and numerous civil libertarian, free market and conservative groups have already spoken out against this legislation.

Regardless of your personal opinions on gambling, we encourage you to preserve the authority of the states to prohibit or regulate gambling as the 10th Amendment directs.

This S.2159 and H.R. 4301 are an assault on our Federalist system; so much so, that the legislatures of New Jersey and Pennsylvania are currently considering resolutions to Congress to ask you to vote against such legislation.

These claims that the Wire Act provides federal authority to supersede state authority in intrastate gambling matters have been conclusively debunked in a recent paper from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas by Competitive Enterprise Institute Fellow, Michelle Minton.

Minton documents the original debate regarding the Wire Act and shows that Congress had a very narrow intent for the legislation because of the same federalism concerns that exist today. Courts have repeatedly upheld that intent, which was the basis of the Justice Department’s 2011 opinion of the law.

The real intention of this bill is to remove the state’s 10th Amendment authority to regulate online gambling as states see fit within their own borders. We hope you not allow RAWA to become yet another instance where the federal government expands its encroachment into the states’ purview. State governments are more than capable of making this decision.



Sincerely,

Grover Norquist, President, Americans for Tax Reform

Steve Pociask, President, American Consumer Institute

Lawson Bader, President, Competitive Enterprise Institute

Gov. Gary Johnson, Honorary Chairman, Our America Initiative

Larry Hart, Director of Government Relations, American Conservative Union

John Tate, President, Campaign for Liberty

Andrew Langer, President, Institute for Liberty

David Williams, President, Taxpayers Protection Alliance

Katie McAuliffe, Executive Director, Digital Liberty

Jeff Mazzella, President, Center for Individual Freedom

Tom Giovanetti, President, Institute for Policy Innovation

Andrew F. Quinlan, President, Center for Freedom and Prosperity