Tennessee moves to block casinos

Tom Sharp

Tuesday, June 5, 2001 | 11:09 a.m.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The state House voted 54-39 Monday for a bill to preclude casino gambling in Tennessee, a move opponents said would tie the General Assembly's hands should voters approve a state lottery next year.

The resolution to amend the state constitution and allow a state-run lottery will be on the general election ballot in November 2002. The resolution calls for the Legislature to enact the specifics of what kind of games the lottery will offer only after the resolution passes, which presumably would be in the 2003 legislative session.

Rep. Mark Maddox, D-Dresden, said his bill was an effort to make it clear that casino gambling would be prohibited in Tennessee even should the lottery resolution pass.

"American Indian tribes have used the fact that lotteries are legal in some states to set up casinos on Indian lands," Maddox said. "It was not clear to me in the resolution that casinos would still be prohibited."

There currently are no Indian tribal lands in Tennessee, although some tribes could attempt to establish such reservations in the future. If so, the reservation would be controlled by federal law and Tennessee could not regulate any gambling operations approved for those lands.

Opponents of Maddox's bill noted that the lottery resolution declares Tennessee's intent to establish a lottery "of the type" seen in Georgia and some other states. They said passing the anti-casino-gambling bill would eliminate some of the games used in Georgia from consideration, namely keno and possibly some others.

"All you're going to have (as a lottery) if you pass this bill is a glorified raffle ticket that will raise no money," said Rep. Ulysses Jones, D-Memphis. "We don't need to promulgate (lottery) rules now. It took 10 years to get us to this point. Now we're going to roll the clock back."

The House amended the bill to remove Shelby County from its provisions after Rep. Kathryn Bowers, D-Memphis, argued the bill might prevent Memphis from ever having horse racing, which voters there approved in the 1980s. No track has ever been opened and the State Racing Commission went out of existence two years ago because it had nothing to regulate; but if the commission was resurrected the approval of horse racing by Shelby County voters still would be valid.

Supporters of the anti-casino-gambling bill objected to removing Shelby County, saying it would make the entire bill unconstitutional since some things would be legal in one part of the state that were illegal in others.

The House also adopted an amendment having to do with a specific type of business in which cards are sold that can be redeemed for prizes. A Tennessee man holds a patent on those type of machines and they were exempted from the bill's application.

The Senate, however, stripped both those amendments from its version of the bill later on Monday and then sent it back to the Judiciary Committee. Sen. Randy McNally said he hopes to move the bill through the committee today and back before the full Senate on Wednesday.

It seems likely a conference committee will have to be appointed to work out the differences between the House and Senate bills.