A Maryland House of Delegates committee broke a two-year logjam yesterday by voting to pass a slot machine gambling bill, bringing the initiative championed by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) closer to passage than it has ever been.
The House Ways and Means Committee voted 13 to 5 last night to legalize the machines, which have been outlawed in Maryland for all but charity purposes since 1968. House leaders predicted that the full chamber would begin debate today and would vote by week's end.
While House and Senate versions of the bill both devote gambling profits to an array of educational and other needs, the two chambers have crafted vastly different approaches to a gambling expansion that could raise $700 million a year for the state. Even if the House version passes, slots advocates said a final compromise bill will emerge only after intense negotiation.
"Everybody understands there's still a lot more work to do, but this a very positive development," Ehrlich said. "The big news today is a vehicle is moving in the House."
He said the past two years had taught him that getting the legislation passed is "far more complicated than I ever thought it would be."
Ehrlich's top aides have described efforts to satisfy the dizzying array of interest groups vying for a stake in a Maryland slots enterprise, and the long line of groups hoping for a cut of the state's earnings, as a three-dimensional chess match. There was evidence of that complicated undertaking yesterday as the House committee juggled amendments aimed at fine-tuning the bill.
Committee members, for instance, eliminated a proposal to permit slots in Cambridge, where Potomac developer William Rickman owns property, but added an allowance for 1,000 machines at the Rocky Gap Lodge, a state-owned resort that eventually could be sold.
They added language to the bill enhancing the likelihood that slots would go at a Laurel Park racetrack owned by Magna Entertainment Corp., but narrowly rejected a proposal to put slots at Ocean Downs, which is also owned by Rickman. And they voted down a proposal by Del. Jon S. Cardin (D-Baltimore County) to limit to $125 million a year the earnings of the moguls or corporations who gain title to a Maryland slots license.
Slots opponents said their battle to fend off a gambling expansion simply couldn't compete with all the moneyed interests pushing for it.
"They have too many lobbyists and too much money," said Del. Peter Franchot (D-Montgomery). "So far, they've just been too strong. But they'll still have to walk over us on the floor."
Backers of the bill anticipated that the upcoming floor battle will be bruising and that the vote will be extremely tight. "It's going to be very, very close," Del. Sheila E. Hixson (D-Montgomery), chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said last night. "I honestly have no idea which way it will go."
Hixson said a key to the outcome will be the ability of the governor to marshal Republican support on the House floor. She estimated that he would need at least 35 of the 43 Republicans. Budget director Chip DiPaula Jr., one of Ehrlich's lead lobbyists on slots, predicted that Republicans could persuade no more than 30 members to support the House bill.
If a bill passes the House, Ehrlich said he envisions "many, many hours of talks" to craft compromise legislation with the Senate.
He declined to say much about what a compromise would look like, but he did allow that one possibility is a bill that keeps slots out of Pimlico race track in Baltimore, the home of the Preakness, and out of Prince George's County.
