Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is trying to use the tax cut package President Barack Obama brokered with Republicans to legalize online poker, POLITICO has learned — a move that could further complicate the deal Obama announced Monday.
Already, the online poker proposal has exposed the Nevada Democrat to charges of flip-flopping on a controversial issue, as well as using his Senate leadership position to repay big casino interests that helped him win reelection in a hard-fought campaign against Republican Sharron Angle last month.
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Reid, who has previously opposed online gambling, declined to comment Monday through a spokesman.
But Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), as well as several senior congressional sources and gambling lobbyists, confirmed that Reid and his staff have reached out to other Senate offices to try to build support for adding the online poker legislation — a draft of which POLITICO has obtained — to a measure extending the Bush-era tax cuts. "They're trying," said Hatch, who next year will become ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over parts of the gambling measure. "Sen. Reid would like to do that."
Republican leadership aides said the poker measure, which was drafted over the weekend at Reid’s request, wasn't part of the deal the GOP reached with the White House. But a senior congressional official with knowledge of the ongoing talks said Reid has privately discussed the measure with the two Republican senators representing their caucus in the negotiations — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona.
Kyl, a leading opponent of online gambling, told POLITICO he intends to block Reid’s proposal and vowed there is "zero chance — no chance whatsoever that would be part of the tax deal. I don’t think it would be the right thing to do.”
Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers in both chambers have blasted the deal Obama reached with the GOP because it would extend tax relief for Americans earning more than $250,000 and reneges on Obama’s own campaign pledge to eliminate it. They warned that the White House has work to do to rally support within Obama's own party for the tax package itself, let alone if it included special-interest gambling legislation.
“The House Republicans will go crazy if this is in the bill,” said one senior congressional aide, declaring it “a total, 100 percent payback” for the support Reid received from gambling interests. The aide asserted that lobbyists for the Las Vegas-based casino operator Harrah's, now known as Caesars Entertainment Corp., even helped write the legislation.
“You could call him ‘Harrah Reid’ at this point,” the aide quipped.
The company, through its employees and political action committee, contributed $83,000 to Reid’s reelection campaign, making it his fourth most generous supporter, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. Another Vegas casino operator, MGM Resorts International, was Reid’s biggest donor, at $192,000.
The two casino companies combined to contribute at least $375,000 to Patriot Majority, an independent political group that spent more than $3.3 million attacking Angle, whose down-to-the-wire campaign against Reid was fueled with millions of dollars from tea party donors. Reid and Angle spent more than $41 million between them, making their Senate race the second-most-expensive contest, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1210/46095.html#ixzz17VYVzXuE In addition, e-mails obtained by the conservative National Review appear to show Harrah’s officials working to get their employees to the polls early for Reid. One official, apparently concerned about a lack of urgency, wrote, “Waking up to a defeat of Harry Reid Nov. 3 will be devastating for our industry’s future. I know everyone is working hard, but somehow the effort is not getting through the ranks.”
Caesars Entertainment, which owns the World Series of Poker franchise, has been among the most aggressive advocates for legalizing online gambling, which would require overturning a 2006 bill called the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. That law bars financial institutions from processing electronic payments for online gambling.
