Slots or no slots ? that will be the choice on next year?s ballot at the same time Marylanders will also be choosing the next U.S. president.
For the first time in five years of trying to authorize slot machine gambling to help pay for education, the Maryland House and Senate have both agreed to the same legislation, sending one part to the voters and the other to the governor.
By a 31-13 tally, the Senate took final action late Sunday night approving the constitutional amendment for voters to decide on setting up 15,000 slot machines at five specific locations. The senators in a 25-19 vote also sent to the governor legislation spelling out how the slots licenses would be awarded, how they would operate and how the $1.3 billion in net proceeds they would generate by 2013 would be split up.
The Senate agreed to accept all the changes made to Gov. Martin O?Malley?s slots proposal by the House. But the governor got most of what he had proposed four weeks ago, his plan itself a compromise designed to win enough votes for passage.
“We finally settled that most contentious issue of all over the last few years,” O?Malley said before he signed the bills Monday.
Republican senators attempted to amend the slots legislation, but they were repeatedly rejected. Those amendments would have increased local control, restricted campaign contributions from the gaming industry, and set up free-market auctions for the licenses.
“We?re on a train here that?s pulling out of the station,” said Senate Republican Leader David Brinkley, of Frederick County. “We despise that.”
Minority Whip Allan Kittleman, R-Howard-Carroll, said, “I?m not opposed to slot machines in Maryland, but I am opposed to putting the locations in the constitution.”
Sen. Mike Lennett, D-Montgomery, said he planned to vote for both bills to give his constituents a choice. But he said he planned to vote against the slots plan on the 2008 ballot, and would urge his constituents to do the same.
