Smith Alling Lane’s Noah Reandeau awards congressional “champions”

In May, Noah Reandeau of Smith Alling Lane traveled to Washington DC to give out awards to the congressional “champions” who played a key role in defeating H.R. 1065, which would have created a new federal agency to regulate the sport of boxing.

“No sport is regulated by a federal agency,” said Noah.  “Rather than spending millions of dollars to expand the federal government’s reach into the regulation of professional athletics, Congress wisely chose to allow state boxing commissions to continue to regulate boxing.”

Some congressmen have argued that state boxing commissions lack uniform standards and regulation and that a federal United States Boxing Commission needs to be established to oversee the sport.  However, Noah believes that this uniformity can be accomplished without additional costs to taxpayers.  On behalf of the World Boxing Association and the International Boxing Federation, Noah is working with state boxing commissions to establish minimum health and safety requirements.

“We’re going to states and asking them to adopt the Association of Boxing Commissions’ minimum standards,” said Noah.  “If they need authority from their state legislature, we’ve even said that we would talk with their legislators and explain the importance of the regulations.”

So far this year, 37 state boxing commissions have considered amendments to their regulations and legislators in 13 states have introduced bills to improve standards for professional boxing in their state.

“They’re making a difference,” said Noah.  “We’ll do anything that we can to help them.”

Receiving awards were House Majority Leader John Boehner and Congressmen James Sensenbrenner, Alcee Hastings, Lee Terry and Mike Rogers.

© 2004 Smith Alling Lane, P.S.