By Tony Batt
Lasvegas.com Gaming Wire
WASHINGTON -- Deciding not to wait for action in the Senate, two members of the House said Thursday they will offer a bill early next week, probably Tuesday, to prohibit Nevada casinos from taking bets on college games.
Reps. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Tim Roemer, D-Ind., originally had hoped to offer the bill this week. But they did not want to get in the way of a much-publicized report by the watchdog group Public Citizen criticizing the casino industry.
"The Public Citizen report was driving the publicity, and the House adjourned early (on Thursday)," said Graham spokesman Kevin Bishop.
The Public Citizen report, released Thursday, charged financial contributions by the Nevada gaming industry helped kill the college sports gambling ban last year in Congress.
Bishop said the introduction of the Graham-Roemer bill will draw attention away from competing legislation being pushed by Reps. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., and Shelley Berkley, D-Nev.
"The Gibbons bill has had the playing field to itself, and it’s time for another team," Bishop said. The Nevada-sponsored bill calls for a national study of illegal gambling instead of a betting ban.
Frank Fahrenkopf, the casino industry’s chief lobbyist, said Graham and Roemer are moving up their bill’s introduction to stop momentum being generated by the Nevada lawmakers.
"I think what has happened is they have seen the Gibbons-Berkley bill has close to 40 co-sponsors in the House and Senator (John) Ensign (R-Nev.) and Senator (Harry) Reid (D-Nev.) have won the support of a powerful (Senate Judiciary Committee) chairman like Senator (Orrin) Hatch (R-Utah)," said Fahrenkopf, who is president of the American Gaming Association.
Unlike last year, sponsors of the NCAA bill do not plan to hold a news conference to announce the bill’s introduction, according to Roemer spokesman Chris Mehl.
"We probably will have a joint news conference with Senator (John) McCain (R-Ariz.) and Senator (Sam) Brownback (R-Kansas) in the weeks to come but not right away," Mehl said.
In January, NCAA officials said they expected McCain to introduce their bill by late February or March. But McCain said Tuesday he does not plan to offer the NCAA legislation until the Senate completes consideration of his campaign finance bill.
"The NCAA doesn’t have a grand strategy," said Wally Renfro, the NCAA director of public relations.
"That’s not our role. Our role, it seems to us, is to support the efforts of those representatives and senators who introduce the bills. They are the ones who are leading this effort."
Senate debate on campaign finance reform is scheduled to begin Monday and is expected to take two weeks. After that, the Senate will begin consideration of President Bush’s budget. The earliest McCain could ensure maximum attention for the Senate version of the NCAA bill would be April 23, sources said.
Brownback reportedly wants to offer the NCAA bill to McCain’s campaign finance reform bill. By doing that, Brownback could prevent other senators from adding amendments to the NCAA bill and get a clean up or down vote. But McCain has signaled he will resist efforts to amend the campaign finance reform bill.
Meanwhile, Fahrenkopf and Gibbons met for about 20 minutes Thursday with Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., the new chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Sensenbrenner will oversee hearings later this year on the NCAA bill and the Nevada alternative bill.
"We just went in for a chat about the legislation. Nothing substantive occurred one way or the other," Fahrenkopf said.