Maryland governor sets strategy for slots

Tom Stuckey

Monday, Jan. 6, 2003 | 9:40 a.m.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- Gov.-elect Robert Ehrlich hopes to avoid a referendum on his plan to authorize slot machines at race tracks, taking the issue out of the hands of voters and allowing the Legislature to make the final decision, an aide said.

"We are committed to keeping this off a referendum," Paul Schurick, Ehrlich's chief spokesman, said last week.

The administration will introduce legislation designating slot machine revenues for specific purposes in the budget. That would prevent gambling opponents from collecting signatures to put the bill on the ballot at the 2004 general election, Schurick said.

Most bills passed by the Legislature can be petitioned to referendum, but that is not true of legislation that appropriates money or raises significant state revenues, Assistant Attorney General Robert Zarnoch said.

The incoming Republican governor will also oppose requiring local government approval of slot machines at race tracks in Baltimore, Anne Arundel and Prince George's counties and a proposed track in Allegany County, Schurick said.

Local ordinances authorizing slot machines could be petitioned to referendum, according to the state attorney general's office.

"That could take years," Schurick said.

Barbara Knickelbein, a spokeswoman for the antigambling group, NOCasiNO Maryland, said it "would be an outrage" if Ehrlich tries to avoid a referendum.

"We're going to block it any way we can," Knickelbein said.

Ehrlich is counting on as much as $400 million from slot machines to help close an expected revenue shortfall of $1.3 billion and balance the fiscal 2004 budget he will present to the Legislature Jan. 17. He also said during his campaign that Maryland's racing industry needs the additional money that would be produced by slot machines.

While Ehrlich has not proposed a specific piece of legislation, Zarnoch said such a bill probably will qualify for the exemption.

"It will be a revenue raiser of big proportions. That's all you need to get yourself exempted" from the referendum, Zarnoch said.

Schurick said the goal is to avoid any delay in getting slot machines revenues into the state treasury.

"The lawyers will figure out the right language," the spokesman said.

With tracks in Delaware and West Virginia raking in cash from slot machines, pressure has been building in the General Assembly to put slots at Maryland tracks as well. But gambling proponents were stymied in recent years by the implacable opposition of Gov. Parris Glendening, who pledged to veto any legislation that reached his desk.

Some gambling proponents, hoping to improve chances that a bill could make it through the Legislature, have proposed leaving the final decisions on slot machines to local officials where the tracks are located.

Schurick said Ehrlich "would look to the local delegates and senators for their direction" instead of turning the matter over to county officials.

House Minority Leader Alfred Redmer, R-Baltimore County, said the General Assembly should make the decision based on guidance from legislators whose districts would be affected.

"That's the process we've used in this state for a couple of hundred years, to let local delegations make those kinds of decisions," Redmer said. "That's why we're here."

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, D-Prince George's, said slot machines are a statewide issue and the slow growth of revenues "is a statewide problem."

"We are state legislators. We are elected to make decisions," Miller said.

Senate Minority Leader Lowell Stoltzfus, R-Somerset, said he does not know if it would be harder to get a bill passed if it isn't subject to a voter referendum or veto by local government officials.

"It depends on how the local officials react," he said.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Howard P. Rawlings, D-Baltimore, said he believes some local government approval should be required. Rawlings, a supporter of slot machines, said he is preparing legislation that would allow local participation but that would include some kind of time limits to guard against the slots bill being delayed by a local voter referendum.