In another two months, Marylanders get to pull the lever for, or against, slots. That’s if opponents and judges give voters any leverage at all.
A coalition of anti-slot groups backed by Democratic State Comptroller Peter Franchot is doing everything it can to stop the vote. The group’s latest complaint is the language of the ballot initiative that would OK slot machines.
As written, the ballot measure says slots are “for the purpose of raising revenue for education of children in public schools, pre-kindergarten through grade 12, public school construction and improvements, and construction of capital projects at community colleges and higher education institutions.”
That’s not the whole story. About half the money goes to education. A third would go to the operators because it’s not cheap to run any business. Some of the remainder would support horse racing in the state. Secretary of State John McDonough had his hands tied on how the amendment was worded. Strictly speaking, the wording is accurate. Other legislation sets aside some of the money, and that, he pointed out, isn’t part of the amendment.
Opponents have offered up alternate wording that would include those other expenditures. In theory, it’s a valid objection. This is an amendment to the state constitution, after all. It should be accurate to keep politicians from moving around the money at a later date.
But that’s hard to do. In effect, it asks McDonough to consider the impact of legislation that isn’t in the amendment itself and that could get tricky. Ideally, the General Assembly would have made a clear-cut amendment including how the money would be spent. But that would have tied their hands, and they clearly don’t want any restrictions.
The complaints about the wording would be more valid if they came from groups that didn’t want to shut down slots entirely. The list of criticisms from anti-slot organizations is longer than the proposed amendment. They claim slots won’t deliver the promised revenue, will cause gambling addiction and “derail the state economy.” They complain that one location would be near the National Security Agency and dangerous because it is near “our nation’s most sensitive intelligence site.”
Yes, some slots opponents have valid concerns about the social or even moral impact of legalized gambling. Appropriately, that horse has left the barn. Americans bet more than $7 billion on the Super Bowl and nearly $3 billion in NCAA tourney office pools.
And unless those same gamblers are going to ship their winnings to Maryland, then the state needs to keep some gambling revenue within our borders.
That means Marylanders need to vote for slots this November, not whenever opponents see fit. It’s not an ideal amendment, but it’s a gamble worth taking.
