{"id":22933,"date":"2015-06-26T16:12:11","date_gmt":"2015-06-26T20:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=22933"},"modified":"2015-06-26T16:18:52","modified_gmt":"2015-06-26T20:18:52","slug":"senators-graham-and-rubio-reintroduce-ill-advised-nationwide-online-gaming-ban-legislation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/22933\/senators-graham-and-rubio-reintroduce-ill-advised-nationwide-online-gaming-ban-legislation\/","title":{"rendered":"Senators Graham and Rubio Unwisely Reintroduce Nationwide Online Gaming Ban Legislation"},"content":{"rendered":"

In our federalist system of government, individual states constitute laboratories of democracy and remain free to enact laws as they see fit, absent explicit federal power over a particular area. \u00a0That’s a fundamental value of conservatism and libertarianism, so it was disappointing this week to see that Senators Lindsey Graham (R – South Carolina) and Marco Rubio (R – Florida) were among those reintroducing\u00a0proposed legislation<\/a> that would impose a blanket, nationwide prohibition of online gaming. <\/span><\/p>\n

Such a law would commandeer states’ historical and constitutional right to regulate gaming, never mind that it would mean yet another imposition of federal power into citizens’ entertainment choices and how they spend their own hard-earned dollars.<\/p>\n

Stated simply, individual states across the nation have authorized online poker and various other forms of Internet wagering for citizens within their own borders, with many more considering similar moves. <\/span>Unfortunately, the ill-advised new proposed federal legislation introduced by Senators Graham and Rubio would upend that state of affairs.\u00a0 The so-called Restoration of America\u2019s Wire Act of 2015, which wouldn\u2019t \u201crestore\u201d the Wire Act to its original meaning but rather significantly expand its reach contrary to the Fifth Circuit and Justice Department rulings, aims to impose a de facto<\/em> prohibition on online gaming in all 50 states and thereby increase federal regulatory power.\u00a0 Proponents claim that the new bill would protect children and problem gamers, but the more realistic consequence would be shutting down existing law-abiding companies and driving commerce toward criminal sites and unaccountable overseas entities less interested in restricting minors or problem gamers.<\/span><\/p>\n

The better option is to maintain existing law, which rewards law-abiding domestic companies and ensures greater safety and security.\u00a0 And as noted above, the proposed legislation would grossly violate the concepts of state sovereignty, free-market principles and individual consumer freedom.\u00a0 The last thing we need right now is even more federal regulation of states and legal commerce, particularly within the flourishing Internet sector.<\/p>\n

Conservatives, libertarians and Americans of every other political persuasion should therefore oppose the so-called Restoration of America\u2019s Wire Act, and contact their Senators and Representatives<\/a> to demand the same.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In our federalist system of government, individual states constitute laboratories of democracy and remain free to enact laws as they see fit, absent explicit federal power over a particular area. \u00a0That’s a fundamental value of conservatism and libertarianism, so it was disappointing this week to see that Senators Lindsey Graham (R – South Carolina) and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4623],"class_list":["post-22933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-online-gaming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22933"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22939,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22933\/revisions\/22939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}