Sen Harry Reid Questioned On Poker Bill Progress

12/12/2012 : REID EXASPERATED BY LATE REPUBLICAN SUPPORT FOR ONLINE POKER LEGALISATION BILL
 
"What the hell would I put it on?"
 
Nevada's Sen. Harry Reid, co-author of the Reid-Kyl online poker federal legalization bill, showed a flash of exasperation during a Capitol Hill press briefing on fiscal cliff issues Monday when questioned about the lack of progress of his poker measure as the current session of Congress winds down.
 
A reporter told Reid that his co-author on the bill, Republican Senator Jon Kyl, and fellow Republican Senator Dean Heller had boasted that there was now sufficient Republican Congressional support to get the bill through.
 
InfoPowa readers will recall that just weeks ago there were testy exchanges between Reid and Heller regarding the latter's failure to bring Republicans on board for the Reid-Kyl bill.
 
Reid appeared surprised and perhaps irritated by the news, saying: “Everyone listen to this. We suddenly have Republican votes on internet poker. Two weeks before Christmas… Without being vulgar, what the hell would I put it on?”
 
The publication Roll Call clarified the Heller and Kyl boasts, reporting that the duo felt that there would be sufficient Republican votes to overcome possible procedural hurdles the online poker proposal might face in the Senate.
 
However, Kyl qualified this by noting that there remained a problem, asking: "How you ever get a bill like that up. If it ever comes up to the Senate, and it’s offered in the appropriate way – that is to say, not part of some bill that nobody’s going to vote for – then there’s no question about Republican votes in my view.
 
"You can’t put [poker] on the FISA bill. You can’t put it on the ‘cliff’ bill, whatever that is, so a lot of it depends on how it all comes up.”
 
Kyl additionally cautioned against Reid attempting to tack the bill on to a ‘Christmas tree’ measure that might include all manner of unrelated  legalization that would probably not pass pass on its own.
 
Reid's "What the hell would I put it on?" comment is at the four minute mark on the CSPAN video here:
 
http://www.c-span.org/Events/Senate-Leaders-Attend-Weekly-Policy-Lunches/10737436517-1/