Budget Shortfall Renews Push for Slots

Republicans lost six seats in last year's elections, and some GOP delegates supported the 2005 slots bill out of loyalty to Ehrlich, despite having qualms about gambling.

House Minority Leader Anthony J. O'Donnell (Calvert) said the Republican caucus has not yet taken a position on the slots issue going forward. But his view, he said, is that the state should capture money Marylanders are spending to gamble in neighboring states.

"We have hundreds of millions leaving the state right now," O'Donnell said. "We should endeavor to keep that money in the state to solve our fiscal problems. That's certainly a better idea than the massive tax increases being contemplated by those on the left."

Slots proponents are banking on the size of the state's looming budget shortfall -- nearly $1.5 billion -- to persuade wavering Democrats to embrace the idea as part of a fiscal fix.

"You've never had the overlay of the state being in a full-scale fiscal meltdown," said Gerard Evans, a lobbyist for the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association. "After debating this issue for six years, I would hope we could reach a consensus fairly quickly."

Evans said the industry is not as concerned with the location of the machines as it is with ensuring an adequate cut of the revenue to enhance purses.

"The bottom line is the racing industry needs $100 million a year to stay competitive with Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Delaware, New York and New Jersey," he said. "All of those states either directly or indirectly are supplemented by slots."

Sen. Ulysses Currie (D-Prince George's), chairman of the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee, which has jurisdiction over slots bills, said he thinks the size of the state's budget shortfall "will bring members on board who heretofore would not support slots." Even so, Currie said, "I think it still is going to be an uphill climb," given the dynamic in the House.

Hoping to make that climb as steep as possible, leaders of StopSlots talked at last week's organizational meeting about raising money and replicating other efforts from past years. Those included spreading the word through churches, particularly in black congregations in jurisdictions where slots venues might be placed, about social ills associated with slots. The group's leaders also said they would court Republican allies more aggressively than before.

One wild card in coming months is O'Malley.

Spokesman Steve Kearney said it is unclear whether the governor will introduce a slots bill of his own or work to build consensus among House and Senate leaders.

But, Kearney said, the governor is willing to compromise, as all players involved should be. That could mean accepting a plan that brings in more revenue to the state than O'Malley has suggested or accepting locations other than tracks, Kearney said.

"I think this is a good test for the governor," said Sen. James Brochin (D-Baltimore County), who predicted that a slots bill will pass in the coming year. "Being governor is about leadership. It wasn't enough that Ehrlich had the idea. This is O'Malley's test to get it done."