Pennsylvania slots drive spills into Maryland

Gretchen Parker

Friday, June 25, 2004 | 11:06 a.m.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- Gov. Robert Ehrlich publicly stepped up pressure on leading Maryland lawmakers Thursday to approve expanded gambling, a day after Pennsylvania legislators tentatively agreed to legalize slot machines in their state.

"The question is not whether Marylanders will play slots. The question is where they will play and who will benefit," the Republican governor said in a statement.

"While the House remains idle, Marylanders spend $309 million annually in Delaware and West Virginia in support of their slots programs," Ehrlich added, referring to a Maryland House of Delegates committee vote to kill slots proposals on the last day of the 2004 session.

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, a slots supporter, said expanded gambling now acts as "a vacuum cleaner on three sides" of Maryland, sucking away revenue that could go into local coffers.

Miller met briefly Thursday afternoon with House Speaker Michael Busch, a fellow Democrat who has engineered slots' failure in two consecutive legislative sessions. Both described the meeting as "cordial," but it failed to yield an agreement.

Afterward, Miller renewed his call for a special legislative session in August for lawmakers to vote on a slots proposal.

Busch resisted that suggestion. He supports a referendum on the November ballot to allow voters to voice their support or opposition for slots. Ehrlich has not supported the idea of the referendum, although he has not ruled it out.

Without a referendum hanging in the balance, lawmakers have no need to return to Annapolis before January, when the 2005 session starts, Busch said.

"What is the urgency of coming back and doing this this summer?" he said.

Legislation that would open up Pennsylvania to gambling could be introduced next week in that state's Senate. The agreement calls for up to 3,000 slot machines at each of up to 12 sites -- as many as eight casinos at horseracing tracks and up to four at off-track sites.