Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, will announce a bipartisan...

has not yet secured a House Commerce Committee hearing on the bill but is “hopeful and optimistic that Chairman [Fred] Upton [R-Mich.] will extend me that courtesy.” Barton said his staff has been in contact with staff from the offices of Nevada Sens. Harry Reid (D) and Dean Heller (R), but he has not yet had a phone call or meeting with the senators. “I hope to do that in the very near future,” he said. The recently introduced online poker bill “is a state’s rights bill,” Barton said. Under the bill, states are automatically included in the federal system, but, if they choose to opt out, “the governor of the state simply sends a letter to the Secretary of Commerce,” making it a “very easy opt-out bill.” Barton said his bill addresses “a lot” of the issues American Indian tribes -- which operate their own gambling entities -- have had in the past. “With that many Indian tribes, you're never going to get 100 percent” on board with the bill, he said. Barton’s bill would allow tribal entities to operate online even if their state has opted out of the federal system and would allow tribal entities to retain their sovereignty, “but their rules and regulations have to be concurrent with the states’,” he said. “They're very sensitive, as they should be, about the sovereignty issue.” Barton has “developed a trusting relationship” with the tribes so that they “are very open and at least know we're listening to them,” he said.