Gov. Martin O?Malley scrambled Thursday to salvage a foundering slot-machine proposal that is a key part of his revenue-raising plan. House leaders determined they had only enough votes to pass his slots referendum, but not enough to pass the bill saying how slots would operate and where their money would go.
O?Malley skipped an address to the state press association in order to shuttle between meetings with Democratic legislators to figure out a solution. The governor avoided talking to reporters; his bodyguards kept them at a distance as he left the meetings.
The House Ways and Means Committee decided to let voters determine next year whether to permit up to 15,000 slots at five locations, but abandoned efforts to pass a detailed bill that had been approved by the Senate.
The money from slots was not a factor in fixing next year?s project$1.5 billion deficit, but half of it ? more than $500 million in three years ? would go into an education trust fund to build schools and university buildings and to aid horse racing.
“We will also be doing a bill at some time,” said committee Chairman Sheila Hixson, D-Montgomery, but that could happen after the 2008 referendum authorizing the expansion of gambling.
Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller was irate. He called the House action “a total fraud on the public.” Polls show Marylanders support slots but not the sales and income tax increases already passed, he said.
Miller has championed slots gambling for years, but opposed the referendum. “I moved to try to meet people halfway,” Miller said. “Either pass both bills or no bills,” and then work on it in the regular session in January, when Republicans might be willing to support it.
“Quit lying and cheating and stealing the public,” he said.
“If the session is a failure, it?s going to fall on the governor,” Miller said. “He?s at risk right now,” but “hopefully, the governor can solve it.”
Miller said that without the slots revenues, “we can?t afford to move forward on health care,” an important new program for the House.
The House committee reversed action taken Wednesday night by a subcommittee to add slots locations to the constitutional amendment that voters would be asked to approve. It removed Harford and Frederick counties from the bill, and restored a site near Ocean City.
“You have to have the votes to get your product out,” said subcommittee chair Frank Turner, D-Howard, and there were not the votes to pass it.
“This is how politics works,” said Del. Craig Rice, D-Montgomery. “It became obvious that the slots bill as amended wasn?t going to get through the House.”
