Betting ban bill clears hurdle: Ensign within one vote of defeating NCAA legislation

Benjamin Grove

Thursday, May 3, 2001 | 11 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- In a moment of dramatic legislative maneuvering, Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., today nearly killed a controversial bill that would outlaw betting on college sports in Nevada.

The setting was a "markup" hearing for the bill in the 22-member Senate Commerce Committee. The legislation's highest-profile supporter, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., planned to move the bill quickly out of committee. That would set up a full Senate vote.

But Ensign had a plan to thwart the bill: He introduced an amendment that effectively would have nullified it by allowing Nevada casinos to continue taking bets on college games in the state's sports books.

McCain tersely derided the Ensign amendment, saying it would "gut" his bill.

McCain then called for a vote, and Ensign pleaded for a delay because Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, was not present. McCain denied the request. The result was a 10-10 tie, with Stevens and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., not present. The amendment failed because of the tie.

The committee passed the McCain bill a short time later.

Still, Ensign said it was a moral victory.

"The fact is that the momentum is clearly on our side in this," Ensign said.

Ensign said Stevens would have voted with him on the amendment, giving him an 11-10 edge. He said his staff had been trying to verify Steven's vote so that Ensign could vote for him by proxy.

Stevens was reportedly caught in another hearing on Capitol Hill; Kerry was out of town.

Observers have said that McCain's bill has majority in the Senate. The 10-10 vote was the result of a frenetic campaign by Nevada lawmakers and gaming industry lobbyists who have been pressuring members of the Commerce Committee for months, sources said.

The atmosphere in the hearing was notably different from last year during a similar showdown on the same bill in which McCain butted heads with then-Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev. Bryan attempted to introduce a number of amendments designed to sink the bill but got little support from other committee senators.

McCain and other bill supporters say the legislation will curb illegal gambling by college students. Nevada officials say it won't. Nevada lawmakers have introduced their own bill that increases penalties for illegal gambling and requires colleges to implement anti-gambling programs on campus.

"We can't keep lugging the facts out in front of the senators without them paying attention to them at some point," Nevada Resort Association lobbyist Wayne Mehl said. "Their bill will not help deal with the problem that they propose to deal with."

Lobbyists, along with Ensign and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., have been repeatedly pleading with senators to look closely at the tenets of the Nevada alternative bill, American Gaming Association lobbyist Frank Fahrenkopf said after the hearing.

"The merits of our case is what made this such a close vote today," Fahrenkopf said. "It was just unfortunate that Ted Stevens wasn't able to be here."

McCain plans to bring the bill to the full Senate for a vote. His options include attaching the bill as an amendment to other legislation, such as an education spending bill, or to simply try to call for a vote on the measure as a stand-alone bill.

During the hearing, McCain said, "I intend to get it to the floor one way or another."

Either way, Ensign and Reid vow to try to block a vote. They plan to continue to lobby senators behind-the-scenes on the issue.

"We just have to continue to fight and fight hard," Ensign said.

Ensign introduced two amendments that the committee accepted: one would require universities to monitor illegal gambling through links on university websites; the other would allow the state of Nevada, or other interested party, to challenge the McCain bill in federal courts in an "expedited" review process, if the bill passes.