EDITORIAL

When the Legislature meets in special session next month to balance the state’s budget, don’t be surprised if more expanded gambling is put on the table by Gov. Charlie Crist as one element to close the approximately $1 billion deficit. Whatever short-term budget-balancing remedy gambling revenues provide, it’s a bad bet for Florida’s future.

Whether it’s a prospective deal with the Seminoles, a slot machines referendum in Miami, expansion of Florida’s lottery, and other pro-gambling measures approved by the Legislature and Crist this spring, the Sunshine State is in the midst of a major gambling expansion that should alarm its citizens — and move us to act against it at every turn.

For months the governor has been negotiating a “compact” with the Seminole Indian Tribe to allow it to put Las Vegas-type slot machines at its casinos, as well as other “Class III” types of gambling — poker, baccarat and blackjack — currently prohibited by the state. In exchange, the tribe would give the state a cut of the loot, with some claims estimating the state’s take at hundreds of millions of dollars per year. The governor has set a deadline of Sept. 30 for completion of negotiations, although a deal could happen before then.

The U.S. Department of the Interior has pushed along the negotiations, encouraging the state to come to an agreement with the Seminoles in light of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act which requires that Indian tribes be permitted the same level of gambling in its sovereign territories allowed elsewhere in the state.

However, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum has issued a formal opinion in response to a request from Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, R-West Miami, that the state is not required to offer the Seminoles anything more than the slot machines approved by only 51 percent in 2004.

To his credit, Speaker Rubio, and several of his colleagues in the House, sent a Sept. 10 letter to Gov. Crist warning that they would oppose any compact that went beyond slot machines, noting that “increased revenue for the state should be of secondary importance in Florida’s negotiations with the [Seminole] Tribe” and the state should only agree to the “bare minimum” required by IGRA. “Instead of maximizing revenue, we want to minimize the inevitable social harm associated with expanded tribal gambling,” Rubio wrote.

The governor blithely claims that while he would rather not have expanded gambling, he’s more opposed to increased taxes — as if there are no other choices. With that kind of reasoning why not legalize prostitution and illicit drugs and tax the activity to pay the state’s bills?

Incredibly, while much of the gambling expansion is due to Florida voters’ narrow approval of Amendment 4 in 2004, which allowed Broward and Miami-Dade to have the slots referendums, there is an important case before the Florida Supreme Court that could upend the expansion.

Before voters went to the polls in 2004, Floridians Against Expanded Gambling (FAEG) filed a lawsuit in September 2004 attempting to have the initiative stricken from the ballot after it found evidence of “massive fraud,” including the use of signatures of dead and “phantom” voters while collecting the necessary petitions to put the matter on the ballot.

Specifically, what kind of fraud is alleged?

Investigating just the petitions gathered in slots-friendly Broward County, FAEG found a whopping 68 percent of supposed petition signers interviewed “stated unequivocally that they did not sign any petition in support of the Slots Initiative,” the lawsuit maintained. Further, one-third of all persons who had petitions filed in their names told FAEG they did not sign such a petition, and 57 percent of the petitions contained names of fictitious persons or forged signatures of actual voters.

Although Circuit Court Judge Nikki Ann Clark refused to act on the lawsuit before the 2004 election, and then ruled after the election that the matter was “cured” by voters’ approval of Amendment 4, Florida’s First District Court of Appeal ruled 2-1 and later the full panel voted 9-3 to send the case back to Clark, ordering that if she finds “significant fraud” the amendment must be invalidated. The gambling titans responded by asking the Florida Supreme Court to step in and answer whether the signatures can be challenged after they’re certified by the secretary of state and voting has begun, and whether the amendment can be invalidated after the vote.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the challenge Sept. 17. I attended the hearing and was struck by the arrogance of the gambling industry’s attorney, Bruce Rogow, who argued that the presence of possible fraud in the petition gathering was irrelevant because voters approved the initiative. “The voice of the people ultimately wins the day,” Rogow told the justices.

If fraud was present, Rogow argued, it was the obligation of the opponents to have more successfully pressed their case before the election. In other words — if you don’t catch my client’s cheating soon enough, too bad for you.

If the gambling industry loses in the courts, the slots in Broward County will have to be shut down, although the case could take years to be fully resolved. By then, Florida will have been fully addicted to the gambling tax revenues.

And that’s what makes this case so frustrating to me. Few elected leaders in Tallahassee — starting with the governor as well as the Legislature — seem to be aware that this case exists and the enormous potential it holds to bring down the slots and other gambling revenue the state is increasingly relying upon. The very fact that the governor is now negotiating with the Seminoles is predicated upon the narrow adoption of the slots amendment — which may very well have gotten on the ballot by fraudulent means.

Meanwhile, the slots are ringing in Broward County — and the evidence of the predictable destruction that follows in the wake of expanded gambling is already being seen.

The Florida Council on Compulsive Gambling reported recently that phone calls to its statewide hotline jumped almost 25 percent in the last year, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported. And it’s no surprise that the three highest counties represented by those callers were from South Florida, with Broward leading the pack, followed by Miami-Dade and Palm Beach. Further, 44 percent of those compulsive gamblers say their first game of choice is slots — up seven percent from last year.

In spite of the obvious social implications of expanded gambling, Miami-Dade County Commissioners are asking citizens again to approve slot machines at its pari-mutuel facilities after a similar referendum failed in 2005. Miami-Dade voters will decide the question in January while voting in the presidential primaries.

And then there’s the Lottery which is taking steps to expand its enterprise — of course, we’re told, to help the children by raising revenues for education. Early this month the Lottery Department received permission to increase the number of retailers that sell lottery tickets by 500, for a total of 13,500. The Lottery is also seeking to bring back 1,000 instant ticket machines closed down by former Gov. Jeb Bush five years ago. Further, Gov. Crist has floated the idea of privatizing the Lottery as a means of raising cash for the state.

In the midst of this gambling expansion, Christians must speak out against this evil — and I use that word quite intentionally. It is truly morally wrong that the state would turn some of its citizens into gambling losers in order to pay its bills. The corrupting influence of gambling must be opposed. The governor and Legislature should look elsewhere to balance the state’s budget and stop gambling with Florida’s future.