LEXINGTON, KY–A spokesman for an anti-expanded gambling group charged that Gov. Steve Beshear was avoiding making responsible fiscal decisions to the legislature in his new budget by premising it on slots revenue. “The Governor is passing the buck,” said Martin Cothran, spokesman for Say No To Casinos, “and passing the buck is not a good governing strategy.”

“Kentuckians have this strange notion that a governor should govern, not pass the responsibility to make good fiscal decisions to someone else.”

The Governor’s inclusion of slots revenue in his budget will force state lawmakers to either make cuts themselves or to try to cobble together another slots bill that is unlikely to pass. “To put out a budget based on something that is unlikely to happen is the height of fiscal irresponsibility,” said Cothran.

The group said that slots legislation has little chance of passing either the House or the Senate and to assume that gambling revenue will be available is to simply ignore political reality and place the burden of budget cuts on the legislature.

“The leaders of both chambers of the General Assembly have advised the Governor not to do this. He should listen to good advice.”

Contact: Martin Cothran
Phone: (859) 329-1919

LEXINGTON, KY— An anti-slots group pointed out last night that although State Rep. Robin Webb won a special election in the 18th Senate District to fill the vacated seat of Charlie Borders, the total anti-casino vote was higher than the pro-casino vote. “The anti-expanded gambling vote in this race was split,” said Martin Cothran, spokesman for Say No To Casinos, who pointed to the fact that the third candidate in the race, a Democrat who switched party registration at the last minute, was also against slots at tracks.

“If you add up the numbers, the tracks lost,” Cothran said. “The gambling industry picked up the seat, but lost the vote.

“The gambling industry went ‘all-in’ in this race. It dumped in a load of cash. They had a money advantage, an experienced, better-known candidate, a huge voter registration advantage, and split opposition. And then they won by only 282 votes. The champagne was certainly flowing last night, but when the political reality sets in, they’ll need a good hangover remedy.”

The vote total of the two anti-gambling candidates, Dr. Jack Ditty (Republican) and Guy E. Gibbons, Jr. (Independent) was 9355, with Webb’s total only 8684.

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Contact: Martin Cothran
(859) 329-1919

“We should be saddling horses, not taxpayers,” said Martin Cothran, spokesman for Say No To Casinos. Cothran charged that taxpayers were being saddled with over a billion in debt to bail out wealthy horse racing tracks.

“At a time when many Kentucky taxpayers are struggling to pay their mortgages, state lawmakers in the House just voted to saddle taxpayers with the biggest mortgage since 1990 to bail out wealthy horse tracks, some of which pay their top executives millions of dollars in wages and benefits. There is no guarantee that we can pay this back.”

“State lawmakers just foreclosed on common sense,” said Cothran. “Unless the Senate stops this, financial irresponsibility will be Kentucky’s signature industry.”

The comments came after the House approved slots legislation with just 1 vote over the needed 51 votes – 52 to 45.

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Johnny Bell wants badly to help the Glasgow Independent School District replace its 44-year-old high school. So badly he was at least thinking about whether he could best serve his community by voting against expanded gambling or voting for a new Glasgow High School.

But then, he said, House Democratic leadership made it plain in a two-hour plus caucus meeting Tuesday – you either vote for slots at the tracks or you get nothing.

Bell has twice introduced bills to help districts like Glasgow raise more money for buildings – only to be told each time the state budget couldn’t handle it or now isn’t the right time.

“But I found out today we change the rules in midstream, and if a person is not able to vote for the gambling issue, then their school won’t be built,” said an obviously upset Bell after the caucus meeting.

Read more here.

For Immediate Release
June 9, 2009

Contact: Martin Cothran
Phone: 859-329-1919

Governor breaks two promises in one day, says anti-casino group

“We can just call this a political two-fer Tuesday,” said Martin Cothran, spokesman for Say No to Casinos. ”The governor has broken two promises in one day.  The first is his campaign promise that he was going to make sure the voters would get to approve expanded gambling legislation, and the second is the original promise of the Lottery legislation: that in voting for the Lottery, voters were not approving other forms of gambling.”

“Kentuckians are undoubtedly getting tired of broken Lottery promises,” said Cothran, referring to the promise that Lottery money was going to go for education, which it didn’t do for ten years.

Say No to Casinos has argued ever since the legislative session earlier this year that the voters did not approve video slots when they approved the Lottery.  “The only thing voters approved in 1988 was the Lottery.  There was nothing about video lottery slots on the ballot.”

“We can’t make the Governor keep his campaign promises, but he’s got to abide by the Constitution.”

Cothran also pointed out that the Governor’s new bill is making more promises that it can’t possibly keep.  “The Governor is claiming that in an economy in which people have less discretionary income to gamble that they are going to gamble four times as much. I’m no mathemetician, but I know that you can’t get more from less.”

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But wait!  What’s this?  Didn’t Beshear promise in his campaign he was going to make sure this issue made the ballot?

“We have Kentuckians who are losing their jobs, who are being put on furlough by their employers, and who can’t pay their mortgages,” Cothran said. “The solution to that is not fattening the bank account of Churchill Downs. This is a millionaires’ bailout.”

Contact: Martin Cothran
Phone: 859-329-1919

An anti-casino group opposing a bill to place video slot machines at race tracks said today that it doesn’t think another attorney general’s opinion on the issue is necessary to tell people what they already know. “We certainly have confidence in Jack Conway,” said Martin Cothran, spokesman for Say No Casinos, “but it doesn’t take an attorney general’s opinion to tell us that when people voted for the Lottery in 1988, they weren’t voting in favor of slot machines.”

Cothran made the remarks in the wake of reports that former House Speaker Jody Richards (D-Bowling Green) had requested an attorney general’s opinion from Jack Conway’s office today.

“In Kentucky, lawyers don’t amend the Constitution.  Voters amend the Constitution,” he said.

Cothran said that both voters and lawmakers were told in no uncertain terms in 1988 that the Lottery would not include casino-style gambling, and that the idea that the constitutional amendment allows for video slots was a “constitutional fiction” invented by imaginative lawyers.

“We don’t know how Attorney General Conway will rule on this issue,” he said, “but when it comes to Constitution, we prefer non-fiction. We hope he does too.”

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But now we can add another potential casualty to the list: the state Constitution.

Last year, proponents of a casino bill talked of “letting the people decide” on the issue, misportraying Kentucky’s Constitutional ratification process as a ballot referendum, a completely different thing. This allows lawmakers to shirk their Constitutional responsibility to vote for a Constitutional amendment because they think it’s a good idea the voters should ratify, rather than wash their hands in regard to the issue itself, and asking the people to do what the Constitution expects them to do themselves.

This year, the casino industry is back with a new and even more self-serving Constitutional fiction: that the Lottery Amendment of 1988 authorized video slot machines. This, of course, will come as news to the Kentuckians who actually voted for the Lottery, none of whom were told they were voting for other kinds of gambling.

But it wouldn’t be the first time a Lottery promise was broken.

For years after the Lottery was passed, many legislators confessed that one of the most frequent questions their constituents asked them was, “Whatever happened to the Lottery money?” When the Lottery was passed, voters were told the money would go to education. Only ten years–and many constituent phone calls–later did the General Assembly attempt to keep the promise.

And, wouldn’t you know it, the backers of the new plan are promising the same thing: the money is going to go for education–and a few other things.

After not doing what they said they were going to do with the Lottery money, they are now going to do what they said they were not going to do with the law itself: use it to justify other forms of gambling.

When asked in 1999 to determine the Constitutional status of placing video slot machines at Kentucky’s racetracks, then Attorney General (now Congressman) Ben Chandler said, “… the Attorney General concludes that courts will not interpret the Constitution to authorize the General Assembly to permit the Kentucky Lottery Corporation to operate video lottery terminals.”

And for good reason.

In fact, every opinion rendered by a Kentucky attorney general on this or a related issue has found the same thing–except one. And that one was written by the sponsor of the video slots legisation: Speaker of the House Greg Stumbo.

In the pamphlet issued by the Legislative Research Commission to Kentucky voters in 1988, it said the state would be adopting a “modern day” state lottery. A modern day state lottery consisted of instant and online games, not video slot machines.

The question of whether the Lottery amendment would include other forms of gambling such as “electronic devices and slot machines” actually came up in the floor debate over the bill when Rep. Louis Johnson introduced an amendment to explicitly prohibit them. But Lottery amendment sponsor Bill Donnermeyer assured Johnson that the Lottery amendment “does not provide for slot machines or anything like that.”

That’s what the voters were told and that’s what the lawmakers who passed the amendment were told. In fact, courts in states where the same bait and switch has been attempted have consistently ruled such laws unconstitutional, including courts in South Dakota, South Carolina, Ohio, Florida, West Virginia, Kansas, and California.

This doesn’t bode well for a piece of legislation that will surely be challenged in court should it pass the General Assembly in a special session.

It is instructive to note that the Lottery Corporation has already tried once to exceed the bounds of the Lottery Amendment. In 1989, it attempted to implement a “Kentucky Sports Lotto.” But the Lottery Corporation backed off when a legal suit was filed arguing that it was unconstitutional.

It is also instructive to note who brought the suit: the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association.

So are lawmakers going to do with the law itself what they did with the Lottery money? Break their promises? If they do, then they can simply change their now abandoned slogan from last year, “Let the people decide,” to an entirely new one:

“Let the people be hoodwinked.”

House Speaker Pro Tem Larry Clark, D-Okolona, told WHAS-11 that he wants the House to vote on video lottery terminals at race tracks and put the onus on the Senate to decide whether “to kill a $4 billion industry in the Commonwealth.”

Clark said he and Speaker Greg Stumbo are meeting with Gov. Steve Beshear on Thursday to discuss the issue.

Clark mentioned June 15-30 for a possible special session.

The question is, will House members want to risk their own political reputations by voting for a bill that stands almost no chance of passage in the State Senate.