And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon, 7 Jun 1999 01:26:05 EDT
Subject: Conservatives, Casinos Square Off

Conservatives, Casinos Square Off
.c The Associated Press
 By JONATHAN D. SALANT

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Now that a national study commission has ended its work 
with recommendations for new controls on gambling, the action shifts to 
Congress and state governments -- and the lobbies that will fight for and 
against the changes.

Rep. Frank Wolf, the Virginia Republican whose bill created the commission, 
says he'll introduce legislation based on the panel's call for federal 
action. He also plans to write to the governors and urge them to approve the 
recommendations for state and local governments.

The National Gambling Impact Study Commission's recommendations include a 
moratorium on new lotteries and casinos, bans on gambling on the computer 
Internet and on college sports and increased help for problem gamblers. The 
report is scheduled to be presented to President Clinton, Congress, American 
Indian tribes and governors on June 18.

Republican presidential candidate Gary Bauer, a former head of the 
conservative Family Research Council, has endorsed the recommendations. The 
Christian Coalition also is prepared to lobby on the issue, said the group's 
executive director, Randy Tate.

But the gambling industry, which prefers the word ``gaming,'' is well-heeled 
and prepared to challenge its opponents. The American Gaming Association, a 
trade group, has taken top congressional Democrats and Republicans on 
behind-the-scenes tours of casino operations and held million-dollar 
fund-raisers for both parties.

``In Congress right now it would be a struggle to get any anti-gaming thing 
passed,'' said William Thompson, a professor of public administration at the 
University of Nevada-Las Vegas. ``They've got the bucks and the opposition 
doesn't.''

Among the industry's champions are Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, 
R-Miss., whose state is home to a growing casino industry, and House 
Democratic leader Dick Gephardt of Missouri, a home to riverboat gambling.

Lott led a group of Senate Republicans in 1997 to the MGM Grand Hotel in Las 
Vegas, where they toured an employee training center before mingling with 
political donors.

In 1998, Gephardt and other top House Democrats toured the Mirage Hotel in 
Las Vegas before joining donors at a shrimp and lamb chop buffet.

Gephardt and the ranking Democrat on the tax-writing House Ways and Means 
Committee, Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, returned last month to meet with 
Mirage Resorts chairman Steve Wynn and accept a $250,000 campaign 
contribution for House Democrats.

``They acknowledge we're going to take the House back and they're hedging 
their bets because they know the odds are in our favor,'' said Rep. Patrick 
Kennedy of Rhode Island, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign 
Committee.

Frank Fahrenkopf, the gambling industry's chief lobbyist and a former 
Republican Party chairman, said touring casinos and mingling with their 
executives helps educate lawmakers so they will better understand the 
business.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., a former board chairwoman of the Nevada 
Hotel-Motel Association, also has urged the casino industry to bring her 
fellow freshmen to Las Vegas.

``Gaming in Nevada is akin to cars in Detroit,'' she said. ``It is important 
for members to understand gaming is a business like any other.''

The American Gaming Association's lobbying expenses increased from $760,000 
in 1997 to $860,000 in 1998. Besides Fahrenkopf, the group's lobbyists 
include former Rep. Dennis Eckert, D-Ohio, and Kenneth Duberstein, White 
House chief of staff under President Reagan.

Since forming a political action committee in December 1995, the association 
has given $194,410 to federal candidates and political parties. Some of the 
individual casinos have given far more. Harrah's has contributed more than $1 
million since 1995. Mirage boosted its giving from $159,800 in 1995-96 to 
$528,846 in 1997-98.

``We have a right to be heard and represented in the halls of Congress,'' 
Fahrenkopf said. ``We want to be players.''

This increased financial support for congressional candidates is troubling to 
many religious conservatives.

``The more the parties become beholden to the gambling lobby, the more our 
families are at risk,'' the Christian Coalition's Tate said. ``We see this is 
as a disturbing trend. Gambling does nothing to enhance the local quality of 
life but does a lot to disrupt the family structure.''

AP-NY-06-07-99 0125EDT

 Copyright 1998 The Associated Press.  The information  contained in the AP 
news report may not be published,  broadcast, rewritten or otherwise 
distributed without  prior written authority of The Associated Press. 


Reprinted under the fair use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
doctrine of international copyright law.
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          Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
                     Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
                  http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/       
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