Frank Assures Progress On Bill 

Gambling News - June 24, 2009 - Written by Renee

One of the major impediments for Barney Frank’s anti UIGEA bill, introduced in early May, was expected to be the more important issues before Congress that would prevent it from addressing the bill any time soon. There is already a huge amount of recession recovery legislation before the Financial Services Committee. The committee has to discuss these issues before it can move on to the anti UIGEA bill. 

However Frank is certain that the bill will pass through the committee and be before the full House of Representatives this year. How he will manage that he is not saying. All he is saying is “We’ll get it done.” Frank is the Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

Meanwhile Frank is continuing work on getting support for the Internet gambling bill. Already he has got thirty-four Congressmen to sign on as co-sponsors including some from the Republican Party. One of the factors that are helping Frank is the recent seizure of funds related to online poker accounts by federal officials. This has created an outrage against the opponents of online gambling. This was the first time that online players had been directly and adversely affected by an action of the authorities. Till now the authorities had acted only against the directors and owners of online gambling and related operations. 

Commenting on the incident Frank said, “It was a terrible idea.” Another member of the House of Representatives also was vocal in her protest. Shelley Berkley said that this move by the Department of Justice showed the inappropriate excess in exercise of government power.