The
Poker Players Alliance, the national organization that represents the
concerns of poker players everywhere, is about to go local.

Sometime
this week, the PPA will send out letters to all its members letting
them know that it’s looking for regional representatives who are
willing to take the fight for poker legality into the nooks and
crannies of the country.

The PPA is asking people who are
interested in local politics and who have the ability to speak to the
local media and would be able to organize visits to offices of area
Congress members, and possibly trips to Capitol Hill in D.C., to
volunteer to fight for poker. 

Michael Bolcerek, the president of
the PPA, says many of its members have already shown themselves to be
motivated and interested in getting involved. The PPA constantly
receives emails from members asking what they can do to help
and Bolcerek says this is a way to do it.

Politics are run at a
local level, and politicians who don’t listen to their constituents
usually are shown the door, as in the case of Rep. Jim Leach of Iowa.
Leach lost his seat in November after serving in the House of
Representatives for nearly 30 years, and it was speculated that his
leadership role in drafting portions of the UIGE Act and also speaking
out against online gambling had something to do with it.

The PPA
wanted to verify that this was the case, so it conducted a poll in
Leach’s voting district. The pool showed that Leach’s role in banning
online gambling could’ve been the deciding factor that determined the
race.

The PPA phoned more than 1,000 households and asked them
if Leach’s position concerning the UIGE Act “strongly influenced” their
decision to either vote for or against Leach.

Of those polled, 15
percent said they were “strongly influenced” to vote against Leach
because of his role, while 10 percent said his role to ban online
gambling influenced them to vote for him.

Leach found himself
in a very tight race with Democrat Dave Loebsack, who wound up beating
Leach by only 3 percentage points. Leach lost the race despite
being one of the most liberal Republicans when he was in office. He
even voted against the 2002 Iraq War Resolution and favored abortion
rights, and his moderate stance helped him stay in office for three
decades. Because of these facts, Bolcerek believes that the Republican
discontent that swept many of them out of office across the country had
little to do with Leach’s defeat.  

The 5 percentage points from
those who were “strongly influenced” by Leach’s stance on online
gambling could’ve decided this election. This victory by the “Velvet
Revolution” (a label local media in Iowa and beyond created to describe
those who took offense at the UIGE Act and voted accordingly) was
reported in newspapers across the country, including the Washington
Post last week, and the PPA was mentioned in all of them.

“It
wasn’t surprising. Our members have been very vocal and have certainly
evaluated how people voted on H.R. 4411,” Bolcerek said. “We felt they
were taking it to the polls and this showed evidence that they did.”

Bolcerek
hopes plenty of interested people will step forward everywhere prepared
to help fight for the rights of poker players. The race between Leach
and Loebsack showed that poker players (or any determined group) could
influence politics by being well organized, passionate, and vocal,
goals that the PPA’s new local representative program has a chance to
achieve.

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Author Contact Info: Bob Pajich