Reid details stance on boxing bill

Benjamin Grove and Steve Kanigher

Tuesday, March 28, 2000 | 11:17 a.m.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., this week is clarifying his opposition to a boxing reform bill in the wake of accusations that controversial fight promoter Don King was influencing his stance.

Reid said he first voiced objections to the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act -- now stalled in Congress -- early last year, long before Don King Productions gave Reid $50,000. King objects to the bill because it loosens the grip promoters hold on boxers.

Reid first outlined his concerns about the bill at an April Senate Commerce Committee hearing. On Monday he sent a letter to the bill's sponsor, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to summarize his objections. Today he chatted with McCain further, he said.

Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., a primary co-sponsor of the bill, has been a vocal supporter of it.

Reid said the bill fails to include cable channels such as HBO and Showtime even though those companies often take advantage of fighters even more than promoters, he said. He also is concerned that casinos that host fights may be unfairly punished under the bill.

"My No. 1 concern is why should (boxing promoters) Bob Arum and Don King be treated any differently than HBO or Showtime?" Reid said today.

In his letter to McCain, Reid wrote, "(HBO and Showtime) could have as much undue influence and exploitative power over that boxer's short career as any conventionally licensed promoter or manager."

King opposes the Senate bill because it would make it a federal crime for promoters to pressure fighters into open-ended contracts that did not limit the contract to a specific number of fights or a certain amount of time. The bill calls for punishments up to a year in jail or a $100,000 fine.

Reid's stance on the bill surfaced again this month because an ESPN2 television commentator on March 17 and a New York Post columnist on March 24 blasted Reid for putting an anonymous "hold" on the bill in November, just before Congress adjourned for the year.

The Senate had passed the bill, and the House had passed a watered-down amended version of the legislation. The Senate was poised to vote on it again when the anonymous hold stopped it in its tracks.

But Reid said the two media outlets got it wrong -- he did not put the hold on the bill.

"No -- I didn't need to," Reid said, saying the bill had Republican opposition.

Reid denied accusations he is in the pocket of promoters.

"I have known Don King and Bob Arum a long time. They have helped me for many years. I know them well," Reid said. "I'm going to do everything I can to help them in their legitimate causes for boxing."

McCain and Bryan have said they wanted to clean up boxing and have sought to prevent promoters such as King from signing boxers to long-term contracts. They argue promoter-boxer contracts were corrupting the sport by giving promoters too much influence.

"Unfortunately the current system is so corrupt it is hard for a fighter to keep the hard-earned money he makes," McCain told the Tucson Citizen last May.

In a Nov. 28 story the Palm Beach Post in Florida quoted McCain as saying that "two unnamed Democratic senators have used arcane Senate rules to stop this bill for now. Boxing fans everywhere should be appalled. And I plan to make passage of this bill a top priority for next year."

Bryan spokesman David Lemmon today said Bryan also plans to push the bill within the next several months.

The Florida newspaper reported that there was speculation one of the senators who blocked the bill was Reid because he had received past campaign contributions from King and Arum. Arum's Top Rank Boxing gave Reid $10,000 last year, although Arum has voiced support for the bill.

The anonymous hold is sealed and cannot be verified.

King's $50,000 donation made him Reid's top money donor last year, according to a list of 51 "soft-money" donors that Reid released March 6.

Reid is a former amateur boxer, ringside judge and lawyer who once represented a boxer. His friendship with King was evident last September when King delivered brief remarks at a Washington, D.C., fund-raiser to benefit Reid's Searchlight Leadership Fund.

The event, attended by about 25 Democratic senators, raised $900,000. That's when King, who was introduced as a speaker by Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev, contributed $50,000 in soft money to Reid's fund.

King also gave Reid $21,000 for his 1998 campaign, according to the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics. He gave Republican Texas Gov. George W. Bush $1,000 and Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott $2,000 last year, according to the group.

King doled out $50,000 to Rep. Charles Rangel, D-NY, in 1996; $5,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee in 1995 and $5,000 to the Republican National Committee, according to Washington-based FECInfo.