An online debate has emerged over the consequences of a recent court ruling that quashed a Southeast D.C. casino proposal.
The U.S. Court of Appeals last week tossed aside gambling promoter Shawn Scott’s ballot initiative, ruling that Congress long ago banned any use of gambling machines in the nation’s capital — that the federal government rules unconditionally over the District. Now some people are arguing the unanimous ruling, which killed any hope for a citywide vote on the matter, was a slap to the future advancement of Home Rule.
“The hazards for D.C. of gambling are far outweighed, it seems to me, by the damage sustained when we cede our moral and political authority to Congress — hoping they will save us from ourselves,” Bill Coe wrote in Monday’s edition of The Mail, a twice-weekly online forum from watchdog DC Watch (www.dcwatch.com).
Dorothy Brizill, a co-founder of DC Watch, was a co-plaintiff in the lawsuit that sought to throw out the slots initiative. Gary Imhoff, Brizill’s husband and manager of The Mail, came to his wife’s defense, arguing federal statutes always trump local law.
“It didn’t curtail D.C.’s powers in any way; it just affirmed that in this respect D.C. citizens have the same rights as all other citizens, no less but also no greater,” Imhoff wrote of the ruling. “If we want to change national law, we have to change it at a national level; we can’t do it in the city council or by a local initiative.”
Coe was joined by contributor Larry Seftor.
“It is one thing when outsiders want to treat District residents like children who can only exercise self determination when it is harmless,” Seftor wrote. “It is quite another when our fellow citizens, in their knowledge of ‘what is best for us,’ pursue a course that limits our rights.”
