Do Alabama Republicans Hate Online Poker?

Bachus seriously misquoted a study, asserting that teenagers who had gambled on the Internet were likely to attempt suicide; but the author of the study said there was such evidence, and that his research was not even in that area.

Spencer Bachus has been the Republican Congressman from Alabama's Sixth District since 1993, running virtually uncontested for the last several terms. His record indicates some creative and independent thinking, especially including his work advocating debt relief for third-world nations. So why does he so virulently oppose online gambling?

For a man who has a law degree from the University of Alabama, has shown the ethical background to unveil corruption in the Community Development Financial Institute investigation, and the empathy and farsightedness to grant poor countries relief from debt and to refuse to deal with genocidal leaders in Sudan, Bachus has some very illogical and hysterical opinions about Internet casinos.

Bachus led a last-minute drive to defeat Barney Frank's HR 6767, which failed to make it out of the Financial Services Committee by one vote, the 32-32 tie not enough to advance the bill. During his empassioned speech against online gambling regulation, Bachus seriously misquoted a study, asserting that teenagers who had gambled on the Internet were likely to attempt suicide; but the author of the study said there was such evidence, and that his research was not even in that area.

So, we must assume that, for a provably intelligent man to inadvertently spout gibberish, he must be being fed bad information by allies. Such a source is Focus on the Family, James Dobson's religious group that is good at platitudes, not so much at facts.

Alabama's sixth district reached its present form in a federal reshaping of Congressional Districts designed to give blacks a majority in at least one District. In reconfiguring the Seventh District to reach this goal, the unforeseen side effect was to create a Sixth District composed of wealthy white neighborhoods outside Birmingham and Tuscaloosa. This is Bachus' territory, a staunch Republican base.

But do Republicans want to ban online gambling? Certainly Dobson's people do, disregarding the incontrovertible facts that their goals of protecting children, consumers, and problem gamblers are all better served by regulation than bans.

However, many Republicans support individual rights and freedoms as a primary tenet of the Party. Perhaps the largely Republican population that votes Spencer Bachus back to Congress every two years needs to let their representative know that Republicans play poker, and censorship is not a Republican ideal, fringe party elements to the contrary.

Let Bachus know that an Internet casino ban is not true Republican politics. Contact him at : https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml to e-mail, or phone or write: