Yes to slots, but no to a slots referendum. That?s the position that most of the 34 Republican delegates have voted to take, House GOP leaders announced Thursday.
They are refusing to support Gov. Martin O?Malley?s proposal for 15,000 slots at five locations that includes putting the issue on the ballot. Instead, they support their own slots plan based on a market-oriented bidding process that will generate more than $600 million immediately, they say.
“Legislators are sent to the capital to make tough decisions,” said House GOP leader Anthony O?Donnell. “We should not punt to the citizens of Maryland.”
House Speaker Michael Busch, a long-time slots opponent who has said he can now support a referendum, was puzzled that the Republican say, “it?s inappropriate to give their citizens a vote on this.”
He noted that a recent poll showed 84 percent of Marylanders supported a referendum on slots machine gambling. “They have to go back to their constituents” and explain why they won?t let them vote on this, Busch said.
But O?Donnell said the slots bill they propose could be petitioned to referendum.
Slots “shouldn?t be part of a special session,” said Minority Whip Christopher Shank, adding it does not solve the $1.5 billion deficit and its revenue goes to create new spending.
“What?s the hurry for something that brings in no money now?” O?Donnell asked.
O?Malley has said that “all the pieces fit together,” and the slots plan is part of his “comprehensive solution” to the state fiscal problems.
The GOP also opposed the governor?s plan because it leaves local jurisdictions with no say in the locations and puts those sites, chosen by O?Malley, “a radical departure,” Shank complained. A referendum a year from now in the 2008 presidential election will be a distraction, and “outside forces will come into the state and make it a battleground,” O?Donnell said.
“I don?t think anyone should be counting on any Republican votes in the House” for slots, O?Donnell said. Without some Republicans, four out of five Democrats would have to support a slot referendum for it to passthe House.
