The House Committee on Financial Services met today for a hearing titled "Legislative Proposals to Implement the Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission."
The committee's chairman, Rep. Michael Oxley, R-Ohio, stated beforehand that he planned to attach H.R. 2143, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Funding Prohibition Act, to any 9/11 bill, but online gambling legislation received very little attention at the hearing.
The potential amendment to prohibit online gambling might have gone unmentioned in the hearing had it not been for Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who brought up the anti-gambling bill to demonstrate a point that lawmakers should avoid.
"Why is there a big thing on Internet gambling in this anti-terrorism bill?" Frank asked. "There is a lot of language on Internet gambling in this bill. Why is that in the anti-terrorist bill?"
He later added, "I stress that because I do want to guard against what has been an unfortunate tendency here to misuse the legislative process. . . . There is a tendency on the part of the leadership of the house to take things that are overwhelmingly popular and package them with things that are much less popular, much more controversial, not directly relevant, and put them all in one bill, figuring that they will be able to intimidate people into voting for things they would not vote for because they would otherwise be criticized for not voting for the strongly supported pieces.
"And also they come up in ways--when they come up to the floor--that aren't amendable. Late in the session we'll have a chance to vote on amendments here in committee, but when this bill comes to the floor it is probably not going to be easily amendable, and I can understand that this late in the session, but I do hope we will keep out of this bill things that are so controversial of this sort.
"Internet gambling, I just use that as an example."
The 9/11 bill is scheduled for markup on Sept 29.