Measure gets second chance

Wednesday, June 29, 2005 | 9:11 a.m.

TOPEKA, Kan. -- Expanded gambling got a second chance when the Senate Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday endorsed a reworked version of a plan rejected by senators last week.

The 11-2 vote sends the measure the full chamber with lawmakers in their seventh day of a special session prompted by a Kansas Supreme Court order for them to come up with $143 million more for education by Friday.

But Senate President Steve Morris said he wasn't sure reworking the bill could ensure passage.

"That may get a couple more votes, but I don't know if it would be enough to get it passed," said Morris, R-Hugoton.

Like the proposal -- dubbed "Little Casino" -- that failed last Friday in the Senate on a 17-22 vote, the latest plans calls for a maximum of 5,500 slot machines divided among pari-mutuel dog and races tracks at Kansas City, Wichita, Frontenac, Anthony and Eureka.

And like the defeated plan, the new version calls for one casino in Wyandotte County and another in southeast Kansas. But Sen. Jim Barone, D-Frontenac, said it has one major change designed to appease opponents of widespread gambling in Kansas.

It would ban any additional casinos in the state for five years.