D.C. Vote On Slots Ruled Out By Judges
Only Congress Has Power of Approval, Appeals Panel Says

By Henri E. Cauvin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 23, 2006

The D.C. Court of Appeals yesterday blocked a bid to bring slot machines to the District, saying only Congress can authorize such gambling in Washington.

Unanimously reversing a ruling by a D.C. Superior Court judge, a three-judge panel of the District's highest court said Congress long ago banned the use of "gambling devices" in the District. The court said that prohibition precluded a referendum on slots that had been sought by entrepreneur Shawn A. Scott.

In May, the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics approved the proposed legislation as a legitimate subject of a referendum. Scott had hired workers to canvass the city for signatures in support of a gambling referendum that would have appeared on the ballot this month.

But community activists Dorothy Brizill, Thelma Jones and Anthony Muhammad challenged the board decision, contending that the gambling initiative was unlawful on a number of counts.

They argued that the Johnson Act of 1951, a law on gambling and interstate commerce, effectively prohibited gambling halls in the District. The activists also argued that the proposed gambling initiative would impermissibly require the appropriation of government funds and would improperly encroach on the authority of the mayor.

In June, Superior Court Judge Judith E. Retchin rejected the complaint by Brizill, Jones and Muhammad. They appealed, and the case was argued on Sept. 21 before three appellate judges: John R. Fisher, Noel A. Kramer and Theodore R. Newman.

The nine-page opinion, written by Fisher, said the referendum initiative "would exceed the legislative powers granted to the District and its citizens by the Home Rule Act."

Only when an act of Congress is specifically and exclusively aimed at the District can the D.C. Council or D.C. voters move to roll back such a law, the judges said. The Johnson Act was far broader in its scope, and that made the proposed referendum untenable.

Neither "the council nor the voters through initiative may amend or repeal this Congressional prohibition on using and possessing gambling devices within the District of Columbia."

Slots opponents feared that gambling halls would only worsen the city's social problems.

The promoters had proposed that the first hall would be in Anacostia, at the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. SE and Good Hope Rd. SE, in the poorest of the city's eight wards.

Muhammad said the ruling yesterday was a sign to slots proponents that they should cut their losses and leave the District alone.

"It's really a victory not just for our ward, but for the whole city," said Muhammad, a Ward 8 advisory neighborhood commissioner.

Kenneth J. McGhie, the general counsel for the board of elections, and Jeffrey D. Robinson, a lawyer representing the gambling supporters, did not respond to messages left at their offices.