Business and Labor Titans Take Up a Common Cause: Support for Slots

The effort to legalize slots in Maryland got a boost from business and labor heavyweights last week: the Maryland Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO.

Support for the November ballot question was expected from the 850-member business group and the union. But the chamber's board of directors voted formally to endorse the referendum and the coalition organizing to get it passed, and Friday, Fred Maso n, president of the Maryland and District chapter of the AFL-CIO, said that up to 15,000 slots parlors could create thousands of new jobs.

The Maryland Association of Counties and the state teachers association have also endorsed the referendum.

Chamber spokesman Will Burns said the group has made no decisions on whether it will financially back the pro-slots campaign. But at a minimum, the chamber will be active in the grass-roots campaign to pass slots "and let people know what the alternatives are," he said.

"If the referendum fails, we expect more budget cuts, higher taxes or a combination of both," Burns said.

Mason said in a statement that Maryland is losing revenue to neighboring states with slots and that gambling money would help secure education needs.

The union endorsement was quickly denounced by Marylanders United to Stop Slots, whose chairman, Charles Graha m, said expanded gambling would make a slumping economy worse by luring struggling families to play and lose.

-- Lisa Rein

Holiday Season Arrives for Republican Party

The Maryland Republicans' season of Lincoln and Reagan days dinners is in full swing, featuring an array of past (and perhaps future) party standard-bearers -- as well as a few celebrities.

Ellen R. Sauerbrey, the Maryland GOP candidate for governor in 1994 and 1998, gets top billing May 18 at the Annual Lincoln Day Dinner in Howard County.