Columnist Jon Ralston: This is Congress’ idea of ‘open mind’?

Wednesday, June 14, 2000 | 10:13 a.m.

Jon Ralston, who publishes the Ralston Report, writes a column for the Sun on Sundays and Wednesdays. Ralston can be reached at 870-7997 or by e-mail at ralston@vegas.com.

WASHINGTON -- In the same room where the first votes were cast to forever tarnish Bill Clinton, the same House committee Tuesday weighed whether to pass the first article of impeachment against Nevada's gamers.

But as the Judiciary Committee put an industry rather than a president in the stocks, one difference was clear: This was as bipartisan as that inquisition was partisan. Consider that South Carolina Republican Lindsay Graham, the author of the House NCAA betting ban bill and one of Clinton's most eloquent tormentors, and California Democrat Maxine Waters, one of the president's most ardent defenders, were on the same side in this attempt to impeach the credibility of Nevada's gaming industry.

The results were predictable and comical, poignant and silly. Nobody expected this to be a Nevada-friendly committee -- no state interests deal with the members regularly. And so we had the de rigueur state name-mangling -- nearly every member used the Steve Wynn pronunciation of Nevahduh -- and Chairman Henry Hyde twice referred to the Nevada governor of his own party as Kenny Gun.

But this was not a day for respect from lawmakers, the kind of deference the gamers so often find in another capital along U.S. 395. No, from the moment the hearing commenced, the die was cast.

Hyde opened with a prepared statement in which he said that "more dollars are spent on campuses on gambling than alcohol." Then, after finishing his diatribe, the jowly chairman declared, with a straight face: "I come to this hearing with an open mind." It was surely as reassuring to the gamers and the Nevada delegation as it was to Clinton all those months ago.

No relief came when Democrat John Conyers, the ranking Democrat, gave his opening statement and called gambling "a pervasive problem in our society." If any more hints were needed, Graham was more explicit when he followed up by twanging that he, the sponsor of the bill, did not have "much to add" to the chairman and the ranking member's statements. No kidding.

The rest was fairly uneventful, with each side chanting their mantras. The Nevadans went on and on about the real problem being illegal gambling and the number of jobs the legislation would cost in the state. The proponents talked about the integrity of the game and the fact, as Waters emoted, that "you're betting on children."

The only members of the panel who seemed to chafe at the illogic of the proposition were Pennsylvania Republican George Gekas, who wondered about the proliferation of even more illegal bookies; New York Democrat Anthony Weiner, who called the bill a "supply-side solution to a demand-driven problem"; and Utah Republican Chris Cannon, who sounded as if he were reading off an American Gaming Association anti-NCAA briefing booklet.

The super-sharp Graham, though, mercilessly picked apart the logic of the AGA's Frank Fahrenkopf and regulators Bobby Siller and Brian Sandoval, especially the notion that the Nevada books raison d'etre was to protect the sanctity of college sports, the first line of defense against point-shaving, and so on. Then maybe, Graham suggested with a smile, Congress never should have banned wagering elsewhere and it should reconsider that decision so regulatory systems could be set up in other states to catch the illegal bookmakers? Beautiful. He and others also pointed out the hypocrisy of the Nevada exception to betting on local school games, whereupon Sandoval said the rule is "ripe for reconsideration."

All of this was probably just noise, albeit entertaining noise. The gamers received assurances again from leaders that the bill is dead, although the number of cameras and the sympathetic committee might lead one to believe it could still get momentum.

By the end of the three-hour-plus hearing, the gamers knew how Clinton must have felt. The difference, ironically, is that while Clinton succumbed to and then was rescued by the partisan nature of his impeachment, the casinos will survive because both parties don't want to gamble on losing the donations that a priori reduced Tuesday's impeachment to an ephemeral show.