[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 50 (Thursday, April 18, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H3622-H3623]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           MONEY AND POWER INFLUENCE ON GAMBLING LEGISLATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Wolf] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, money and power. That is the influence too 
often on Capitol Hill when it comes to the legislative process.
  Money and power.
  The American people more and more every day hold this institution in 
disrepute because of the influence they see wielded by special 
interests whose bottom line is money and power.
  That influence has been evident throughout the legislative history of 
a bill to create a national commission to study what a front page 
article in today's Washington Post calls the ``explosive growth in 
legalized gambling.'' And today, as Post reporter Blaine Harden 
reports, ``Nevada-based gambling interests working with prominent 
Republican lobbyists'' have ``sabotaged'' a bipartisan effort in 
Congress to pass legislation to establish a National Gambling Study 
Commission.
  Money and power.
  Those special interests are poised to effectively neuter legislation 
that would provide information to the American people on the effects of 
what has become a $40-billion-a-year industry that generates, according 
to the Post article, ``six times the revenue of all American spectator 
sports combined.'' Think about that. Six times the revenue of all 
spectator sports combined. And when you add to spectator sports revenue 
other leisure activities for which American spend their money, such as 
movie box office totals, theme parks, cruise ships, and recorded music, 
that combined total is over $3 billion less than gambling revenues in a 
year.

  As our colleagues will recall, we unanimously passed a responsible 
and fair National Gambling Study Commission bill in the House on March 
5. There was bipartisan support for the legislation which has over 140 
House cosponsors and which garnered the support of family interests 
groups across America and major newspapers including the Atlanta 
Journal and Constitution, Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, Cincinnati 
Enquirer, Dallas Morning News, Los Angeles Times, Houston Chronicle, 
Philadephia Inquirer, USA Today, Portland Oregonian, New Orleans Times-
Picayune, Indianapolis News, and Washington Post, among others.
  But money and power have an insidious way of spreading their 
tentacles of influence and the gambling interests unleashed their money 
and power and were ready this morning with killer amendments to the 
gambling study bill in the Senate that would have made a mockery of the 
legislation. Perhaps the light of the Post article today shone too 
brightly on this disgraceful show because the Senate bill was pulled 
from the markup.
  But the fingerprints of the gambling industry are all over the 
current effort in the Senate to stop the National Gambling Study 
Commission. Gambling interests last year set up the Washington-based 
American Gaming Association headed by Frank Fahrenkopf, former chairman 
of the Republican National Committee, who the Post report says is being 
paid over a half million a year for his work. He, in turn, hired 
Kenneth Duberstein, former top adviser to President Ronald Reagan, and 
other Republican Party and Presidential aides, as well as a former 
Democrat Member of Congress and the former chief floor counsel to then 
Democrat Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, among others, to carry 
the water for the gambling industry and wield its money and power 
influence.
  Just what did the gambling interests get for their high-priced and 
well-placed cadre of lobbyists? They have managed to rewrite the 
gambling bill that was ready for markup today in the Senate with 
amendments which would turn the study commission into a library study 
group with no power to convene investigative hearings, no power to 
subpoena information, no authority to do any original research and 
confined to only reviewing information that already exists, and with a 
limitation to only make recommendations on Indian and Internet 
gambling.
  And one more amendment from the gambling interests: the Commission is 
directed not to examine the economic impact of gambling on businesses, 
political contributions, the relationship between gambling and crime, a 
review of the demographics of gamblers, a review of law enforcement, a 
review of State, Indian and Federal gambling policy, advertising or 
other issues the Commission chairman may deem appropriate.

  And a final amendment: for what is supposed to be an objective 
commission charged with the responsibility of studying the full effects 
of gambling on American society, the gambling interests successfully 
pushed their way to the study table with the amendment to provide that 
individuals with an interest in the gambling industry should be 
appointed to the Commission.
  With these amendments, the National Gambling Study Commission may as 
well convene at the library and chat about the books the gambling 
interests check out to read. This is a sham and a disgrace and an 
insult to the American people who are being suckered in by an industry 
which thrives when it operates in the shadows, much like roaches which 
find their way around in the dark. When the light shines though, the 
gambling interests, much like the roaches, scurry to hide.
  Money and power.
  High-priced lobbyists and political connections at work to thwart an 
attempt to provide basic information to cash-strapped local and State 
governments being drawn into the promises of easy money from legalized 
gambling. Why are the gambling interests spending millions of dollars 
in political contributions and lobbying campaigns to

[[Page H3623]]

stop a national study of gambling's effects on America? Why are they 
trying to stop a bill that will allow an objective, comprehensive, and 
impartial legal and factual assessment of gambling, a bill that does 
not outlaw gambling, that does not tax gambling, that does not regulate 
gambling?
  Why would they turn a blind eye to the stories of poor mothers 
playing the slots with their children's lunch money, or teenagers so 
addicted to gambling that they prostitute their girlfriends to pay off 
their mob debts, or the accounts of Americans who are so distraught 
over their mounting gambling debts that their only perceived recourse 
is suicide.
  From what information we have gathered today, we see a picture of 
gambling hurting people and businesses. How many suicides and near 
misses does it take to make the case? How many bankruptcies and broken 
homes? How many failed careers, failed marriages and broken dreams are 
needed to register on the misery meter?
  What is the gambling industry afraid of? What is driving their effort 
to stop this national commission to study the explosive influence of 
gambling on the American culture?
  Money and power.
  Consider these facts:
  In Missouri, the gambling lobby spent $11.5 million, mostly raised 
from out-of-state companies, on a successful 1994 referendum to allow 
slot machines in casinos. According to an Associated Press report by 
Jim Drinkard, ``after failing in its first attempt to legalize slot 
machines on Missouri riverboats, the gambling industry took no chance 
and spared no expense.'' Following a pattern that has been repeated 
across the country, Drinkard reported that it hired the chief 
strategist for then House Democrat majority leader, considered to be 
Missouri's most visible politician, paying her $218,750 to help win 
passage of the 1994 referendum.
  In Louisiana, the gambling lobby contributed $1.07 million to State 
legislators in 1993 and 1994, $1 out of every $5 given to lawmakers and 
three times as much as was given by the petro-chemical industry.
  In Florida, the gambling lobby spent $16.5 million on an unsuccessful 
referendum campaign to legalize casinos in 1994, only $1 million less 
than the Republican and Democrat gubernatorial nominees spent in the 
Governor's race combined.
  In Connecticut, four gambling groups spent $4.9 million over the last 
4 years in an unsuccessful campaign to lobby the State for a casino.
  In my own State of Virginia, gambling lobbyists spent over $1.1 
million over 2 years to convince the general assembly to legalize 
casinos.
  In Illinois, the gambling lobby contributed $1.24 million to 
candidates for State office between July 1, 1993, and June 30, 1994. 
Also in that State at one point gambling interests in Illinois had 
under contract people who formerly were Governor State senate 
president, house majority leader, attorney general, State police 
director, circuit judge, Chicago mayor, and two U.S. attorneys. The 
former head of the State gaming regulatory board now lobbies for a 
major gambling group and at least three former board officials are on 
casino payrolls.
  According to figures compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, 
a nonpartisan research group in Washington, over the past few years the 
gambling industry overall gave at least $4.5 million to the Republican 
and Democrat parties and their candidates for Federal office, including 
$1.8 million in ``soft money''--unregulated, unlimited contributions to 
party committees donated since 1991.
  These money and power brokers have been at work since House passage 
of the national gambling study bill to negate any responsible, fair or 
objective effort in the Senate to pass similar legislation. And with 
their money and power, as today's Washington Post headline proclaims: 
``Don't Bet on a U.S. Gambling Study.''
  How much longer will the best interests of the American people take a 
backseat to the influence of money and power in Washington?
  Money and power.

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