Harry Reid got to keep his job. Yeah, I know. I was as surprised as you were. In an election where Republicans had a historic sweep of Congress – the most one-sided midterm election in 70 years – you had to assume that Harry Reid would be unemployed in January. I mean, he had to be.

This is a guy who is so senile that he often votes against his own bills. That includes the healthcare reform bill, which he considers his crowning achievement. Reid voted against it initially and had to have a colleague remind him that since it is his bill, he probably meant to vote yes. This is a man who said that the entire world would be in a depression if not for him! It’s also a man with an approval rating in the 30s! For Reid to win, that would mean that lots of people who hate Harry Reid would have to vote for him.

Apparently, that’s what happened. It helps that, in a clear violation of federal law, labor unions in Nevada required their members to vote in the election and provide proof to their employer that they had voted. And in case you’re wondering, yes, they were also encouraged to vote for Reid. It also helps that electronic voting machines in Nevada had Reid’s name automatically checked by default. The technicians for those machines are members of SEIU, the largest labor union in the nation, but I’m sure that’s a coincidence.

Fair or not, fraud or not, the sad truth is that Harry Reid gets to keep his job as Senator for the state of Nevada. It is not yet determined whether he will remain the Senate Majority Leader, because a few not-yet-decided races could give the Senate to the Republicans. If the Democrats retain control of the Senate, though, what does that mean for online gambling?

It’s not good. Harry Reid is in the pocket of the Vegas casinos, many of which oppose online gambling. For that reason, Reid has said many times that he didn’t support any of the online gambling bills currently in Congress. He considers them a threat to Vegas casinos and has said that he would not support any legislation that was a threat to them. Since he is the Senate Majority Leader, that carries a lot more weight than if he was just another Senator. If he maintains that position and the Democrats maintain control of the Senate, they are unlikely to push hard for legislation opposed by their leader.

Also, as Leader, one of his jobs (along with the Majority Whip) is to organize his party and unify them on bills. There’s a good chance he would use his persuasion to make sure not enough people vote on a repeal of UIGEA, if such a bill were to come to a vote. In short, Reid keeping his job is bad for the country in a whole lot of ways, one of those ways being that any anti-UIGEA legislation is likely to die in the Senate.

Tags: Harry Reid, UIGEA, Vegas casinos

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