Thursday, June 23, 2005 | 9:21 a.m.
HARRISBURG, Pa. -- Pennsylvania's highest court unanimously upheld the state's slot-machine gambling law Wednesday, rejecting a constitutional challenge that threatened to stop the creation of a multibillion-dollar gambling industry and a major property-tax relief initiative.
The state Supreme Court struck down a handful of provisions within the law, including one that would have exempted casinos from local zoning ordinances. But the justices said the parliamentary process the Legislature used in enacting the law nearly a year ago passes constitutional muster.
The law legalized as many as 61,000 slot machines at 14 locations around the state.
A spokeswoman for Gov. Ed Rendell hailed the unanimous decision as "great news."
"We were confident from the beginning that the act would stand," said the spokeswoman, Kate Philips. "It's affirmation of our hard work drafting a solid bill."
In a lawsuit challenging the law last December, a group of gambling foes and good-government advocates said lawmakers exceeded their authority by transforming a one-page statute that would have allowed state police to fingerprint people seeking horse-racing licenses into a 145-page law that effectively created an entire gambling industry.
A companion law established a program through which an estimated $1 billion a year in slots revenue would be funneled into property-tax reductions for 3 million homeowners across the state.
The Supreme Court asked opponents to focus on two issues -- that the state constitution says a bill cannot be amended to change its original purpose and that legislation must address a single subject.
The justices said they were convinced those requirements were met.
"Keeping in mind the trepidation with which the judiciary interferes with the process by which the General Assembly enacts the laws," Chief Justice Ralph J. Cappy wrote in the 51-page opinion, "we conclude that as a matter of law, there was a single unifying subject to which most of the provisions of the act are germane, the regulation of gambling."
Among the provisions that were struck down was language giving the state Gaming Control Board power to override local zoning ordinances in deciding where casinos will be located.
"The General Assembly has failed to provide adequate standards and guidelines required to delegate, constitutionally, the power and authority to execute or administer that provision of the Act to the Board," Cappy wrote.
The justices also struck down provisions authorizing transfers of money from the State Gaming Fund to the Volunteer Fire Company Grant Program and to counties, townships and schools receiving payments from the Forest Reserves Municipal Financial Relief Law.
The decision also restores a state law that keeps race tracks from serving alcoholic beverages for free or reduced prices.
House Speaker John Perzel was pleased but not surprised by the ruling, a spokeswoman said.
"This is the decision that he thought would happen," said the spokeswoman, Beth Williams.
Jim West, who represented Pennsylvanians Against Gambling Expansion Fund, said his client has not determined its next step but noted that the court agreed with the petitioners in the provisions that were struck down.
"We were looking at them as something that tainted the whole process," he said. The justices "were looking at them as something that could just be excised from them, put aside and separated from the rest of the bill."
Justice Sandra Schultz Newman, whose financial disclosure statement shows has an investment in a company that owns and races standardbred horses, did not participate in the case or join in Wednesday's ruling.
A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader David J. Brightbill, who opposed the slots bill, said the decision largely avoided a clash between the legislative and judicial branches.
"The institution was one of the defendants here and ... we think that, for the sake, of the institution, it is good that the court had a unanimous decision," said the spokesman, Erik Arneson.
The slots legislation emerged after more than two decades of unsuccessful efforts to cut property taxes and expand legalized gambling. Negotiators spent 18 months tweaking the deal and lining up the votes to pass it.
State lawmakers legalized slot machines in July and created the gaming board to issue 14 gambling licenses.
Of the 14 licenses, the board must award seven to racetracks, five to standalone sites, and two limited licenses to resorts. Of the standalone sites, two are slated for Philadelphia and one for Pittsburgh, leaving sites around the rest of the state to compete for the other two.
The board has struggled to stick to a schedule that will allow it to begin accepting applications for slots parlors in the fall.
The property-tax relief program known as Act 72 faces challenges of its own.
In order for homeowners to receive average tax cuts of $330, their school boards had to accept certain conditions, including limitations on power to increase future property taxes. Barely 100 of the state's 501 school boards signed up by the May 30 deadline.
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