Kasper says he's not taking donations for
Internet poker measure
(December 03,
2005)
By DALE WETZEL
A lawmaker who is exploring North Dakota
licensing of Internet poker sites said he isn't accepting contributions
for a ballot initiative campaign, because he hasn't decided whether he
will lead one.
"I do not plan on taking any money from
anyone," said Rep. Jim Kasper, R-Fargo. "I don't even know if I'm going
to go forward."
Roy Cooke, a columnist for CardPlayer, a
poker magazine, recently asked readers to contribute to a Kasper
initiative campaign to authorize North Dakota's attorney general to
license and regulate Internet poker.
Cooke's column, published last week,
listed Kasper's e-mail address and suggested that poker enthusiasts
should volunteer to work on his initiative campaign.
Kasper said he had gotten one e-mail
offering a contribution, and said he replied that he wouldn't be
accepting money until he had established an initiative committee and was
ready to campaign.
"Anybody who e-mails me or calls me and
has money, I said, 'Tell your friends to e-mail me and keep your money
until I make a decision on what we're going to do, because I have made
no decision.'"
North Dakota law requires an initiative
promoter to register a fund-raising committee. Secretary of State Al
Jaeger said Kasper, if he goes ahead with an Internet poker campaign,
wouldn't be required to register until his initiative committee is
formed, and his ballot measure is ready for circulation.
During the 2005 Legislature, Kasper
sponsored a new state law and constitutional amendment to allow North
Dakota's attorney general to license and regulate Internet poker sites,
which are presently based outside the United States. Both proposals were
approved in the state House, and defeated in the Senate.
No state now licenses Internet poker
companies, in part because the U.S. Justice Department insists that
Internet gambling is illegal.
Kasper says that claim has been disproved
by a federal appeals court, and believes state regulation of Internet
poker would draw its top companies to North Dakota, bringing millions of
dollars' worth of licensing revenue and other fees.
In recent months, Kasper has been talking
up the possibility of an initiative with gambling industry officials,
and asking if they would be willing to help finance a North Dakota
campaign.
He has discussed the idea at conventions
in Montreal and Las Vegas, and is attending a poker industry exposition
in Costa Rica this weekend to talk about online poker regulation.
Cooke's column says Kasper also plans to
attend an Internet poker conference in Nassau, Bahamas, on Thursday and
Friday, although Kasper could not be reached to confirm that.
In presentations and e-mails, Kasper has
said he wants to put an Internet poker initiative on the North Dakota
ballot in November 2006. At his appearance in Costa Rica, Kasper said,
he would "be working to gather support to move the initiative forward,"
according to an e-mail he sent to industry officials.
At a Las Vegas conference in September,
Kasper told an audience he "plans to put the question of the legality of
online poker to the people of North Dakota in a referendum-type format,"
wrote Keith Freeman, who runs the Poker-Strategy.org Web site and
attended Kasper's talk.
Kasper "is confident the people of the
state will choose poker," Freeman wrote in a posting on his site.
The Bahamas conference is being organized
by the River City Group of St. Charles, Mo., whose president, Sue
Schneider, helped to lobby for Kasper's Internet poker measures in the
Legislature.
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