Heller questions Reid's priorities as row escalates
Republican Dean Heller believes the US Senate majority leader would prefer that Democrat Shelley Berkley beats him in Senate race than have federal online poker.
Nevada Senator Dean Heller has accused Harry Reid of prioritising Shelley Berkley defeating the Republican in the state’s Senate elections in November ahead of progressing his federal online poker bill.
Along with Republican Jon Kyl, Reid has been preparing an online poker bill and had recruited Heller to muster up support within the GOP. Reid is believed to have gained the support of 45 Democrats for his legislation and set Heller a deadline to secure the votes of 15 Republicans by Monday last week to ensure a majority should the bill be introduced to Congress before the October recess.
However in an interview on Saturday, Heller told the Las Vegas Review-Journal: “We have a major problem and that is that Harry Reid would rather have Shelley Berkley win this race than have this bill pass. I told the industry that three months ago. And if someone would have told me this was going to happen right before the election I wouldn’t have been surprised. And I’m not surprised. This is all politics.”
The dispute between the Reid and Heller became public last week after Heller wrote a letter to Reid criticising the early deadline, with fellow Republican and Kyl also standing up for Heller.
Heller also insisted that introducing the bill this month had never been part of the agreed strategy and is merely an attempt by Reid to pin the blame on him. A summary of the legislation was also revealed last week and details show that it would block companies who operated post-UIGEA for five years, unless they can prove in court that they breached no federal or state laws in the process.
In response to Heller’s claims, Kristen Orthman, a spokesperson for Reid, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal: “Instead of fighting for Nevada and trying to secure his colleague’s support, Senator Heller has now chosen to question Senator Reid’s intentions and lay blame on everyone but himself. That’s unfortunate. Since May, Senator Heller has been tasked to secure Republican support, and Senator Reid has been willing to move on a bill as soon as he was told the support was there.”
The most likely scenario remains that the bill will be introduced after the November 6 presidential election in the lame-duck session, which ends on 31 December.