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This coming Tuesday the latest effort to pass some form of legislation that would legalize and regulate online poker will begin its journey through the houses of Congress, which more often than not end in roadblocks and dead-ends.

Earlier this year Representative Joe Barton (R-TX) introduced HR 2366, which seeks to legalize and regulate online poker. Unlike previous attempts the bill will attempt to make a clear distinction between poker and other forms of gambling like slot machines and roulette –which would still remain under UIGEA sway.

Barton is a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee which will first take up the matter of the Barton Bill in a sub-committee on Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade. Until Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives (which gives them committee chairmanships and it’s the chair who decides what will be discussed) all pro-online gambling legislation had originated in the House Financial Services Committee, which was chaired by Barney Frank (D-MA) an outspoken advocate of legalizing and regulating the online gaming industry.

Now that the House Financial Services Committee is chaired by the anti-gaming Spencer Bacchus (R-AL) it was necessary to find a new online poker advocate in another committee that could take up the online poker cause –which the PPA found in Rep. Barton. When asked about the upcoming hearings Barton told the Hill newspaper: “It’s a first step to showing why the current law is a lose/lose for everyone – the public, the taxpayer, the banking industry, and the people who want to play poker openly and honestly on the Internet. I look forward to an open exchange of ideas.”