UIGEA and the only too common congressional deception

There are two things that you are better off not knowing how they were made: laws and sausages. This famous quote cannot be attributed to any one person, but goes back centuries. There is some great wisdom behind it, but sometimes its better to know about what types of underhanded activities actually go into passing controversial laws.

There is one prime example that comes to mind, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006. This law prohibits financial organizations such as banks from processing transactions to internet gambling organizations, the effect of which blocks credit card and wire transfers from the gamblers to the casinos. Naturally, this type of law is somewhat controversial. Internet gamblers and poker players were angered, but additional resistance came from Banks who claim they do not have the ability to enforce this act and from oversees countries such as Antigua and England where some of these internet gambling corporations are based.

Yet despite the notoriously strong banking lobby, the UIGEA passed by unanimous vote in the senate and suffered only 2 votes against it in the house. Those numbers by themselves should raise some eyebrows, and it begs the question, how?

The UIGEA was attached as an amendment to the Safe Port Act of 2006. The Safe Port Act was designed to help improve security and customs protections in US ports, a measure that had extremely strong support in both houses of congress. It passed quickly in the House and Senate and went to a conference committee to iron out the small differences between the two versions of the bill. At this point, no one had heard any mention of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. That’s because it was added during the conference committee meetings.

After the conference committee, the act was sent back to congress for approval. The vote was rushed, knowing that many of the congressmen would not have time to review all 33,000 words of the Safe Port Act and might miss the UIGEA now attached. Also, there was not very much chance of debate or attempt to remove the amendment, and no one really wants to vote against the “Safe Port Act.”

Thus, the law was passed and congress effectively made most forms of internet gambling illegal (with exceptions for off-track horse race betting and fantasy sports leagues). The internet gambling community was stunned, the publicly traded stock of some internet casinos fell as much as 60%, and the American public remained for the most part unaware that any of this had happened.

This is probably my favorite example of a law being passed in some sort of underhanded or deceptive way. Whether or not this law should be passed, it at least deserves proper debate. What we really need from our government is openness. We can pretend that laws are like sausages and look the other way, or we can demand that our government stops these disingenuous practices. Is it any wonder why the vast majority of our country believes congress is doing a poor job, or that we do not trust our leaders?