John Conyers: “I yield myself 4 minutes. I just want to tell my friend, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), that if he thinks we…”

“I yield myself 4 minutes. I just want to tell my friend, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), that if he thinks we have fixed the Abramoff problem of this House by passing this legislation, I am sure that Jack is somewhere saying, Fooled again. Now, I oppose this bill for the same reasons that the Traditional Values Coalition opposes the bill, namely, that we are not doing the complete job; and if we were, I would be here as an advocate. But this legislation only bans certain forms of online gambling, while expanding legal authorization for certain favored special interests, including betting on the lotteries and interstate horse racing. This latter exception, the one reserved especially for the horse racing industry, is a great concern because in the last few months the horse racing industry has made it clear that they intend to use the carve-out to go after who, children, in order to encourage them to engage in online gambling. This is a big problem for me. But could we not have figured this out without going to the Baltimore Sun or listening to the chief executive officer of the Maryland Jockey Club tell us about the decades-long slump in attendance and wagering at the track and the ability of the Internet to turn that around? In response, Mr. DeFrancis declared, ``Over the 25 years I've been in this industry, not one day has gone by when I haven't heard people complaining that our customer base is getting older and we can't attract young people.…”