AT A STROKE, the Prince George’s County Council has decided to allow the 85 percent of Maryland voters who are not county residents to determine whether slot-machine gambling should be allowed inside the county. That’s the sad, politically cowardly but probable outcome of the council’s vote Tuesday, urging the state legislature to authorize a referendum next fall on putting thousands of slots at Rosecroft Raceway.
The council was sharply divided. Four of its nine members wanted to ban gambling in Prince George’s outright. They argued, correctly, that slots would further smear the county’s scandal-tarred reputation; cultivate gambling addiction, crime and other social ills; and exercise a pernicious influence on the economically stressed neighborhoods around the racetrack, which already suffer from some of the highest foreclosure rates in the state.
The other five council members, seeking political cover, punted the issue to Annapolis, asking state lawmakers to put the issue to referendum on next fall’s ballot. They made the bizarre, flatly unworkable request that the referendum give primacy to the wishes of Prince George’s voters — the other 85 percent of the state be damned. That idea will never pass constitutional muster.
The council majority caved to intense pressure, mainly from state Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, Maryland’s leading slots champion. Mr. Miller, whose district includes a small slice of Prince George’s, got his way by using the blunt instrument of political blackmail. If you ban slots, he told the council, you can cross a new, $600 million hospital — the fondest hope of many Prince George’s residents — off your Christmas list. Approve them, Mr. Miller suggested, and funding will magically materialize.
Slots are a bad idea for most places, and a terrible one for Prince George’s. The last county executive, out of office less than a year, is on his way to federal prison for corruption; so is his wife, a former County Council member. A state senator from the county was just acquitted on corruption charges, and a state delegate stands accused of felony theft for stealing campaign funds to pay for her wedding. If ever a place were in need of rebranding to shed its patina of sleaze, it is Prince George’s. It’s hard to see how a huge, new slots parlor — and the inevitable, garish marketing that would attend it — would achieve that goal.
All is not lost — yet. In theory, the state legislature could refuse to put the slots-at-Rosecroft question on the ballot. In theory, state voters could reject the proposal. But the gaming industry’s deep pockets make a fair fight unlikely. And why should voters not from Prince George’s care if the county gets slots — and all the unpleasantness that comes with them?
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