Schadenfreude is no basis for sound public policy. But we can’t help savoring the slots debacle ensnaring our leaders in Annapolis. Their fall was obvious from the beginning for those watching from outside the capital.
Our legislators never really cared about slots. They cared about having power to direct the money they hoped slots would bring. That made them take their eye off crafting a bill that would allow them to thrive. In its place they created a constitutional amendment that elevated causes — education, the horse racing industry, minority business development and lowering property taxes in Baltimore City — and selected for success politically motivated locations at the expense of sound business judgment.
Recommended Stories
As they found out last week, you can set the conditions, but you can’t make people accept them. The state garnered only six bids for five potential locations, only one of which proposes the maximum allowed number of slot machines and two of which didn’t include the mandatory licensing fee.
This example of failed government planning should serve each of us, including our representatives in Congress, as a reminder of government’s limitations, especially at a time when our new president is being hailed as redeemer in chief, and government the solution to the financial crisis.
But it should not be a reason to throw out the process and start over. That would throw out the rule of law along with bad policy, as developer David Cordish has said. He stands to lose billions if his plan for building an entertainment mecca at Arundel Mills mall is discarded by the state, so his son Jonathan Cordish’s arguments about the “sanctity” of the bidding process ring hollow. But that does not mean they are wrong. Maryland’s business reputation is bad already. To arbitrarily reset the slots rules now would mark us as the Venezuela of the Mid-Atlantic, whose dictators rewrite the laws to suit their whims.
Besides, the state stands to lose millions if it starts the bidding process over again — as Cordish said he is ready to go. Let the company that played by the rules get started. In this environment, that is the best the state can hope for.
All gloating aside, maybe, just maybe, our legislators will learn from this failure that the more they try to interfere with the market, the less they will reap from it.
