Kyl Blocking Treasury Nominees Because He Doesn’t Like Internet Gambling

By Pat Garafalo
ThinkProgress
January 8, 2010

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) evidently doesn’t like online gambling very much, and in 2006, he helped craft a law banning the processing of online wagers. The law and its corresponding regulations were supposed to go into effect last month, but the Obama administration and the Federal Reserve pushed back the start-date until June.

Kyl doesn’t like the decision and is making his displeasure known by placing holds on pending nominations to the Treasury Department:

Senate Minority Whip Kyl is blocking pending Treasury Department nominees with jurisdiction over tax policy and international finance in response to the Obama administration’s delay of new Internet gambling prohibitions, according to Senate aides…Kyl was among the few arguing against a delay.

Now, I don’t have much of a position on these internet gambling regulations, but suffice to say, a six month delay in implementing them doesn’t seem like the end of the world — and it appears that most of the Senate agrees. But Kyl’s action really does highlight how far conservatives have gone to prevent Obama’s appointed officials from doing their jobs.

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker touched on this in a recent interview with Charlie Rose. “Here we are on Dec. 29, almost a year after the Inauguration, and there is no Under Secretary of the Treasury. That should be an important position. How can we run a government in the middle of a financial crisis without doing the ordinary, garden-variety administrative work of filling the relevant agencies?” he asked. Brad DeLong also noticed the problem, calling the lack of confirmations at Treasury “disgraceful and insane.”

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