Frist's End Around Attempt Stymied

For once, sleazy politics lost.

Congressional staffers confirmed Monday that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's (R-Tenn.) attempt to attach anti-online gambling legislation onto the FY 2007 defense appropriations bill has failed.

Frist had tried to enlist Senator John Warner (R-Va.), the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, to help him add the legislation. Warner, in turn, discussed it with Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who is the ranking Democrat on the same committee, but decided that because it was not relevant to the defense bill, it should not be included.

Representative Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.), perhaps the most outspoken member of the House against the anti-online gambling measures passed this summer, wrote Warner a letter encouraging to him to stifle anything like the additions Frist wanted.

Said the reasonable Berkley, "We must not use this important (defense) bill as a convenient vehicle for political pet issues such as a ban on Internet gaming."

Originally published September 19, 2006