[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 39 (Thursday, March 11, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H1250-H1252]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              GAMBLING EFFORT DIES IN PENNSYLVANIA SENATE

  (Mr. WOLF asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. WOLF. Madam Speaker, I want to bring to the attention of the 
Members of the House today the following Philadelphia Inquirer headline 
where it says gambling efforts die in Pennsylvania Senate. This Monday, 
the Pennsylvania State Senate rejected a resolution by the vote of 28 
to 21 calling for

[[Page H1251]]

three statewide gambling referendums. Gambling was rejected despite the 
gambling lobby's political campaign contribution of $606,000. This is a 
very large amount of money for a State with no gambling except for 
horse racing and State lotteries.
  Madam Speaker, people got involved at the grass roots level. The 
people learned the truth about how gambling is bad for families and 
communities, especially the poor and the Nation's youth. Also, the 
newspapers had the courage to speak out about how gambling brings 
crime, and corruption, and cannibalizes local businesses and breaks up 
families.
  What took place in Pennsylvania should give great hope to any 
community that if it wants to eradicate and remove gambling or keep it 
out, it can do it. I congratulate the Pennsylvania State Senate for its 
actions on Monday.

             [From the Philadelphia Inquirer, Mar. 8, 1999]

                         Gambling Contributions


   gambling interests have donated generously to Ridge, legislative 
                                leaders

       Harrisburg.--Gov. Tom Ridge and legislative leaders have 
     accepted at least $606,000 in contributions from gambling 
     interests and their lobbyists in recent years, according to a 
     report published Monday.
       Ridge received about $240,000 from gambling interests, 
     including lobbyists, since he began raising money for his 
     1995 campaign. Legislative leaders and their committees took 
     in $366,100, according to the analysis by The Philadelphia 
     Inquirer.
       Lawmakers and lobbyists rejected the notion of any link 
     between campaign money and legislative action. Further, they 
     said the gambling interests have been relatively restrained 
     in their giving, compared with what has taken place in other 
     states.
       ``I don't think the industry really felt that (large 
     contributions) was the approach they wanted to take,'' said 
     Obra S. Kernodle 3d, a lawyer-lobbyist who is a principal in 
     a Philadelphia company that wants to build a riverboat 
     casino.
       ``I can't see a relationship between the contributions and 
     a vote on any issue--especially this issue,'' said Senate 
     Minority Leader Robert J. Mellow, D-Lackawanna.
       Anti-gambling activists say the contributions are unseemly 
     and that the money at least helped push gambling to the top 
     of the 1999 legislative agenda.
       Gambling legislation ``is being passed on a cash and carry 
     basis,'' said Tom Grey, a national antigambling activist who 
     has been involved in efforts to defeat the referendum bill. 
     ``Legalized gambling gives (lawmakers) the cash, and they 
     carry the bill.''
       ``Special interests, through campaign contributions and 
     hiring every lobbyist in town, are driving the system with 
     the pedal to the metal,'' said Barry Kauffmann, executive 
     director of Pennsylvania Common Cause. ``It's an increasingly 
     troubling part of the way the process is being run.''
       The referendum bill, which the House approved last month, 
     would let voters state their opinions about three potential 
     expansions of legalized gambling: riverboat casinos, video 
     poker in bars and slot machines at four horse tracks. 
     Lawmakers then must shape legislation to legalize any new 
     games.
       Ridge has said he would sign the bill, but also says he 
     will demand that any actual expansion of gambling would have 
     to be approved, project by project, in subsequent local 
     referendums.
       It is impossible to determine how much gambling interest 
     spend on lobbying, because current disclosure laws provide no 
     meaningful information. A tough new disclosure law takes 
     effect in June.
       Among the campaign-finance reports examined by The Inquirer 
     were those listing contributions during the two election 
     cycles to Ridge, the Republican and Democratic leaders in 
     both houses, House and Senate campaign committees controlled 
     by the leaders, and funds maintained by the Republican and 
     Democratic state committees.
       Most of the gaming-related contributions to Harrisburg 
     leaders in recent years, about $438,000, came from the horse-
     racing industry and its lobbyist, records show.
       And most of that came from four lobbying firms with horse-
     racing clients--Pugliese Associates, Greenlee Associates, 
     S.R. Wojdak & Associates and the law firm of Buchanan 
     Ingersoll--that contributed a total of $311,000 to the 
     governor and top lawmakers, records show.
       Riverboat-gaming advocates gave about $85,000; casino 
     companies donated a total of $58,000; and video-poker 
     interests gave about $25,000, The Inquirer reported.
                                  ____


                Swift Vote Dooms Bid for Ballot Question

            (By Glen Justice, Ken Dilanian and Rena Singer)

       Harrisburg--With virtually no debate, the Pennsylvania 
     Senate yesterday killed the effort to expand legalized 
     gambling in the state and left little room for the issue to 
     be resurrected anytime soon.
       The Senate voted, 28-21, to declare as unconstitutional the 
     bill passed last month by the House that would have 
     authorized a public vote on the gaming issue. By doing so, 
     the Senate essentially eliminated any chance of legalizing 
     gambling while Gov. Ridge is in office. Ridge, whose term 
     ends in January 2003, has insisted on a referendum before he 
     would consider signing any gambling bill.
       ``If gambling isn't dead, it is in a pretty deep coma, and 
     I don't see it coming out,'' Senate President Pro Tempore 
     Robert Jubelirer (R., Blair) said after the vote.
       The governor echoed that view, saying it was ``time to move 
     on'' to other issues. And one longtime supporter of legalized 
     gaming, Sen. Robert Tomlinson (R., Bucks), conceded ``it's 
     going to be a long time'' before any new forms of gambling 
     come to the state.
       The end came swiftly to the proposal to ask voters in the 
     May 18 primary whether they approved of riverboat gambling, 
     slot machines at horse-racing tracks, and video poker in 
     taverns. The House had debated for 10 hours over two days 
     last month before approving the proposal to place the 
     nonbinding questions on the ballot.
       But the Senate wasted little time in dispatching the issue. 
     As soon as the issue came to the floor, a gaming opponent, 
     Sen. David Brightbill (R., Lebanon), invoked a parliamentary 
     maneuver by asking the Senate to consider the bill's legality 
     under the state constitution. One senator rose briefly to 
     oppose the move, and then the roll-call vote was taken.
       Within minutes, the issue that had commanded the 
     legislature's attention since January was over.
       The vote was a blow to the horseracing industry, which has 
     been losing customers to Delaware and West Virginia, where 
     slots are legal. Another loser was the tavern industry, which 
     saw the video-poker proposal as a way to boost what it says 
     are sagging sales. Mayor Rendell saw riverboat gambling as a 
     way to raise money for Philadelphia's schools.
       ``There is nothing on the horizon that will provide our 
     kids with adequate funding for education,'' Rendell said 
     yesterday, with resignation and a touch of bitterness in his 
     voice. ``I'd like to ask the senators who voted this way: 
     Where is funding for our kids going to come from? I'm just 
     perplexed.''
       But opponents, including church groups and community 
     activists, hailed the vote. They had warned that an expansion 
     of gambling would lead to a plague of social ills.
       Several lawmakers said yesterday that the Senate's move to 
     declare the proposal unconstitutional was a quick way to kill 
     a bill that did not have the votes. The vote has no legally 
     binding effect. That would be for the courts to decade.
       ``It's definitely a signal there weren't sufficient votes 
     for all three forms of gambling to get on the ballot,'' said 
     Senate Majority Leader F. Joseph Loeper (R., Delaware), 
     adding that the vote was ``a litmus test for where the rest 
     of the issue would have gone.''
       Proponents--and even some critics--had been saying the 
     votes were there to send the bill to the governor's desk. But 
     they spoke too soon. Most senators who had been undecided as 
     late as last week ended up voting against gambling yesterday.
       The margins going into yesterday's vote were seen as too 
     close to call.
       The day opened with a strong showing by more than 100 pro-
     gambling demonstrators, most from the state's racetracks, who 
     jammed the capitol's hallways carrying signs.
       But gambling backers saw a bad omen early in the day when 
     Rendell, long a supporter of riverboat gambling, pulled out 
     of a scheduled news conference so he could keep lobbying for 
     the bill.
       Interviews with 47 of 50 senators or their aides two weeks 
     ago showed senators were nearly tied on the issue, with nine 
     undecided, three unreachable, and one who declined comment. 
     Of that group, 10 voted to call the referendum 
     unconstitutional; two voted against that finding; and one, 
     Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams (D., Phila.), did not vote. 
     Williams said he was upstairs in the office portion of the 
     buildings during the vote and did not make it to the floor in 
     time. He said he would have voted against gambling.
       Some last-minute decision-makers said they receive 
     considerable constituent input against gambling. Sen. James 
     Gerlach (R., Chester) said he was shown a poll paid for by 
     gambling opponents indicating that 65 percent of his district 
     was against riverboat casinos, 65 percent against video 
     poker, and 55 against slot machines at horse-racing tracks.
       Gerlach said he voted that the bill was constitutional 
     because he supports referendums, but added that he would have 
     voted to defeat gambling.
       ``This became the quickest and least painful way to bring 
     closure to the issue,'' said Stephen C. MacNett, counsel to 
     the Senate Republicans.
       Sen. Vincent Fumo (D., Phila.), who has supported riverboat 
     gambling in the past but had worked to defeat the current 
     bill, called it ``a polite way of letting it go away.''
       Fumo's usually ally, Rendell, expressed frustration.
       He noted that gambling is allowed in West Virginia, 
     Delaware, New Jersey, Connecticut and New York. ``I mean, 
     we're like ostriches--we stick our heads in the sand,'' he 
     said.
       The vote caused friction between the two powerful men.
       Rendell called Fumo's stance ``a shame, because he did it 
     for a purely political reason. He's always been a supporter 
     of our [riverboat] legislation.''
       Rendell said he meant that Fumo was worried about ``what 
     gambling would do on the ballot in May to the turnout,'' 
     presumably to Fumo's choice for mayor, Democrat Marty 
     Weinberg.

[[Page H1252]]

       Fumo rejected that assertion, saying he did not believe a 
     referendum would have hurt Weinberg. He said he opposed it 
     because he thought it would lose, killing chances for 
     gambling forever.
       ``I don't know why he went on such a fool's errand,'' Fumo 
     said of Rendell. He added that he was miffed at the mayor for 
     calling Democratic senators.
       I've delivered for him when nobody else would,'' Fumo said. 
     ``This just makes it harder the next time I have to do 
     something for him.''
       Gaming advocates had fought for years to advance the issue 
     and had pushed especially hard in recent months, hoping the 
     May ballot was a window of opportunity.
       Tavern owners statewide held rallies and visited lawmakers 
     to push poker. The horse-racing industry continued its effort 
     in the hope of bolstering its competitive position with slot-
     machine revenue. And riverboat companies such as President 
     Casinos Inc., Ameristar Casinos Inc., and Epic Horizon LP 
     added their lobbying clout.
       Gaming interests and their lobbyists made political 
     contributions totaling more than $606,000 to Gov. Ridge and a 
     handful of legislative leaders in the last two election 
     cycles. In recent years, though gambling bills have met with 
     varying degrees of success, none has been signed and 
     advocates were hopeful that 1999 might be the year.
       But Pennsylvania's antigambling lobbyists, a diverse group 
     of religious and community interests, worked hard after the 
     House passed the bill to have the upper chamber defeat it.
       Michael Geer, president of Pennsylvanians Against Gambling 
     Expansion, said the grassroots work done by activists in his 
     camp had an effect.
       ``The reason it happened is [senators] heard the voice of 
     the people in the state,'' he said.
       But gambling supporters said the defeat had more to do with 
     the way the bill was structured.
       ``It's difficult with three issues intertwined in the 
     bill,'' said Bob Green, president of Bucks County's 
     Philadelphia Park racetrack. ``If it was just ours, it 
     probably wouldn't have been a problem.''
       Calling the vote ``setback,'' some supporters said they 
     would be back.
       ``We can't just go away,'' Green said.


                       History of Gambling Bills

       Efforts to legalize gambling in Pennsylvania have, for the 
     most part, been unsuccessful. In 1972, Pennsylvania became 
     the fourth state to authorize a government-sponsored lottery. 
     Since then, things have not gone well for legalized-gambling 
     proponents. Here's a look at the recent history:
       1983: The state's worsening financial condition prompts a 
     flurry of gambling bills, including one proposal to legalize 
     slot machines in the Poconos to fund education statewide. 
     Half a dozen bills that would legalize gambling await a vote 
     by the legislature throughout the next year but go nowhere.
       1985: Philadelphia City Council approves a resolution 
     requesting the state legislature to allow the city to 
     legalize video-poker machines. The legislature doesn't.
       1988: Gov. Robert P. Casey signs a bill allowing nonprofit 
     organizations to raise funds through small games of chance, 
     such as ``punchboards.'' He vetoes a bill to authorize 
     offtrack-betting facilities, but the legislature overrides 
     his veto and the bill becomes law.
       1989: The State Horse Racing Commission approves the first 
     application for an offtrack-betting outlet, in Reading.
       1990: Casey vetoes a bill that would have legalized 
     gambling on video-poker machines in bars, restaurants and 
     clubs.
       1991: The House rejects a riverboat-gambling bill, which 
     Casey had promised to veto.
       1994: Gov.-elect Ridge promises to veto any bill that would 
     legalize riverboat gambling without first submitting the 
     issue to voters in a nonbinding statewide referendum. 
     Proponents push without success to win passage of a bill that 
     would authorize a referendum.
       1997: The Senate passes a bill that would allow slot 
     machines at horse-racing tracks, but it fails to gain House 
     approval.
       Feb. 10, 1999: The House passes a bill that would authorize 
     nonbinding statewide referendums on slots, riverboats and 
     video poker on the May 18 primary ballot.
       March 8, 1999: The Senate votes to declare the House bill 
     unconstitutional, killing the effort to place the referendums 
     on the primary ballot.

                          ____________________