Senators to Selig in 2001: We'll re-consider anti-trust exemption. MLB increases its lobbyist payroll.

11/14/01: "On the heels of what has been called the greatest World Series in recent memory, Major League Baseball owners last week voted to eliminate two teams from the league next season, blaming a mix of economic woes and lack of fan support.

• But as the league prepares to announce which of its 30 teams will face the ax,

• politics could prove to be a major deterrent, especially if Congress has anything to say about it.

At least a dozen members of Congress--including Michigan Rep. John Conyers, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee--have threatened to introduce legislation that

• would revoke Major League Baseball's unique antitrust exemption, which allows owners to control movement of teams from one city to the next. Minnesota Sens. Paul Wellstone (D) and Mark Dayton (D) already have sponsored such a bill, hoping to use it as leverage to protect their hometown team, the Minnesota Twins, from contraction.

Meanwhile, several members of Virginia's congressional delegation have jumped on the bandwagon, too-but for entirely different reasons. Late last month, Virginia Sens. George Allen (R) and John Warner (R) and Reps. Frank Wolf (R), Tom Davis (R) and Jim Moran (D)

• hinted in a letter to baseball commissioner Bud Selig that they, too, would take a second look at the league's antitrust exemption should he not support Northern Virginia's bid for a major league franchise.

Last week, Davis, who heads the National Republican Congressional Committee (the House GOP's chief fund-raising arm), told reporters that he would do what it takes to keep the Minnesota Twins from folding--so that the team ultimately could be moved to Virginia.

• Of course, none of these threats are new. For years, Congress has debated legislation that would roll back the 1922 law that shields Major League Baseball from most antitrust rules, and for years,
• the league has blocked such bills.

The only exception: a 1998 law signed by President Clinton that removed the league's antitrust exemption on labor disputes with players.

• Since then, Major League Baseball has upped its lobbyist payroll in Washington to more than $1 million annually, according to disclosure reports filed with the Senate.

• That's more than double what the other professional sports leagues--the National Basketball Association, the National Football League and the National Hockey League--spend annually inside the Beltway, combined."...

From CommonDreams.org, Center for Responsive Politics, 11/14/01

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