+Testifying in Washington!
Ok..so I know I am late to post about my DC trip but I wrote a whole blog about it and then hit a wrong button and lost the whole thing! I was so mad I shut the computer down and took a couple of days for me to try again. Childish? Totally! But I was pissed off! But now I have calmed down. I no longer want my computer to go to &^(%(^%^%$ hell. I have made friends with it again. And as a peace offering I am blogging again…
So, Monday night, the 12th, I hopped on the red eye to DC to prepare my testimony for the House Judiciary Committee hearing. I was there to represent the Poker Players Alliance. But I was also there just as an American citizen appalled at the erosion of our civil liberties, the UIGEA being only a small example of that.
I arrived at 6 am, checked into my hotel and immediately went to sleep till noon. After working out for a couple of hours I got on the phone with Bob Pajich to talk about the upcoming hearing. You can see the result of that interview at http://www.cardplayer.com/author/article/all/187/10255 Bob was great to chat with and wrote a fantastic two parter on the interview with me that I hope gets across clearly the points that the Poker Players Alliance are trying to get across.
After I was done with the interview I headed off to go over my opening statement with John Pappas and Toby Moffet and other colleagues. So here is my confession: I know it seems like I am a pretty confident individual who is not easily fazed by much. But in this case, I was like Jello insided and here’s why: My testimony was not just for me or about my own views. I was entrusted to represent the voice of the poker players in general and boy did I feel the weight of that responsibility. I am never nervous when it comes to me screwing up just for me. But if I screwed this up I was screwing it up for not just the 800,000 member of the Poker Players Alliance but alos the 23 million people who place wagers online. So that was a huge deal to me and I really wanted to be well prepared.
We went over my opening statement a few times to figure out what out of my written statement we should include in the oral one. They only give you 5 minutes to give your statement so we really need to pare the testimony down since it would have taken about 12 minutes to read it. I think we did a great job at picking out the powerful points and you can listen to my opening statment on my site on the main page.
After we got the opening statement down everyone asked me questions they thought I might be asked in the hearing. I think I did a good job answering them but not one of the questions was actually asked of me! I was stil grateful for the opportunity because I know down te road I might get asked those questions and now I am pretty adept at answering them.
After finishing up the preparation, we headed off to dinner with Linda Sanchez. We met with her the last time I was in DC for the PPA fly-in and I had the pleasure of doing a poker lesson for her in the National Democratic Club. Linda is really cool. She is a representative from California and her sister is also a representative. We had a lovely dinner. The food was fantastic and so was the company. One of the main aspects I have really enjoyed in the work I have been doing with the PPA is getting to know the Congressmen and women. I have to say that overall I have been very impressed. Theirs is a tough ass job and not an easy one. Theirs hours are ridiculously long and their travel schedule is a nightmare. Linda flies back to California every weekend when Congress is in session. And she doesn’t fly back to relax either. She is working on the weekends as well, reaching out to constituents. I would want the job, I can tell you that much.
After dinner I headed back to my hotel, went over my testimony one more time and went to sleep. The next morning I got up early enough to get another workout in before heading off to the hearing at 9 am. I felt surprisingly calm considering how much I wanted to acquit the poker world well. I think I felt so confident in the arguments that I was able to not panic. Not panicking in the middle of a Congressional hearing is a good thing 
You can see the whole hearing here: http://judiciary.house.gov/oversight.aspx?ID=396 You can also read all the witnesses testimony there. It is all very interesting and definitely worth exploring and reading.
I am not going to go into the details of the hearing here since you can watch the hearing for yourself but I think my opening statement went over well. I basically focussed on the civil liberties issues, that in matters of adults doing wha tthey want on their own time, with their own money and doing no direct harm to others that the government should not intrude on their affairs. The UIGEA is basically a case of the government attempting to legislate morality. In the case of rep. Goodlatte’s testimony and Mr. McKlusky from the Family research Council, they both made it clear that they find gambing to be immoral and that that is part of the motivation for the ban. I made it clear that I completely respect their view on that and, in fact, would fight for their right to express the view that gambling is a sin. I also respect their right to not engage in the activity. What I do not respect, though, is their desire to impose that view on me or anyone else.
The problem for me is that the UIGEA is just not good government policy. It deputizes the banks to act as the morality police, creating a crime (faciliatating transfer of funds for illegal internet gambling) but refuses to define what that crime is since the regulations do not identify in any way exactly what constitues illegal internet gambling. Basicaly, they are saying, “There is a crime. We will come after you if you committ it. But we are not going to tell you what it is. That’s a secret.”
How bizarre is that? How ridiculous is that as government policy? As a mom who actually would like to enforce a rule in my house that internet gambling is not allowed I am unhappy that the government would create such bad policy to help me enforce. I want a government who regulates this industry and forced the industry to use the most cutting edge age verification software there is. That is what will keep my kids off the internet. Not a prohibition that in no way actually stops children or anyone else who are motivated to gamble online from actually doing it.
My favorite parts of the hearing were, first off, Professor Weiler’s testimony. he is a professor of law at NYU and he spoke on the WTO violations in terms of the General Agreement on trades and Services (GATS). He was not only eloquent and clear on the issues of the consequences of the US taking the stance that it has on internet gambling but also was very passionate. I was so impressed with both his testimony and him as an indivual. You can see his testimony here: http://judiciary.house.gov/media/pdfs/Weiler071114.pdf
The second favorite part for my was when Mr. Goodlatte questioned me. Now that was really fun for me, and not nerve wracking at all. I was actually looking forward to being questioned by him from the moment I found out I would be testifying in from the the Judiciary Committee. To me, his pushing on the morality argument is so deeply hypocritical that I really wanted to have a chance to call him on it…and call him on it I did. I pointed out that I did not see what the difference between placing a wager online or placing a wager in the Bellagio in Las Vegas was when it comes to morality. It is all gambling, just different technologies or methods to place the wager and it should all be viewed as equally immoral. I said got to say that I assumed that the Representative would be introducing legislation to ban gambling in the 48 sttes in which is it currently legal in order to be consistent in his moralistic stance.
Goodlatte then said something about the brick and mortar gambling being intrastate. I still don’t understand why that makes a difference from the morals stance but even so I pointed out that the UIGEA allows for two forms of interstate internet betting: horse racing and fantasy sports. Mr. Goodlatte then said fantasy sprts was not gambling which I couldn’t help but giggle at. Kids and adults bet thousands on stats like how many yards Tom Brady will throw on a Sunday. If that is not gambling I don’t know what is.
Anyway, I really felt like I did a good job in the debate with Goodlatte. You can watch Goodlatte’s Q and A here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itzlqsUpMCs and here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeGW_BP_OaE
Also worth watching is the Q and A from Representative Cohen which you can watch here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK64XgP_HEc He is a sharp guy and impressed me a lot.
All in all, the experience was one of the most exhilarating in my life. You can check out all the coverage and whatnot of the hearing here http://pokerplayersalliance.org/news/newsandarticles_article.php?DID=381#videos
I hope I can continue to fight for this cause effectively. I feel such passion about this and I am so honored to have been chosen as the representative of the community on an issue that matters so very much to me as a citizen who wants our laws to reflect the principles in our founding documents.