Three posts on this stupid speech already. No more. BY CROM, NO MORE!
…So here’s a pretty good question from last month: “Should the U.S. allow gambling on elections?” My personal answer to that would be ‘yes.’ Not least because of the inevitable, entertaining scandals that would result whenever a politician got caught trying to mess with the spread.
Don’t get me wrong: gambling is a bad thing to be addicted to. I urge sufferers to seek help for it.
RT @theJeremyVine: Anti-gambling poster backfires massively after last night’s result: pic.twitter.com/dlEOVKbeNy (via @_youhadonejob)
— tedfrank (@tedfrank) July 14, 2014
But Dad probably cleaned up on betting on Germany like that.
This is a couple of days old, but it’s still a definite problem in Maryland:
Casino owners, labor and other interests spent more than $3.6 million to influence lawmakers during last month’s special session to expand gambling in Maryland — a figure that comes to about $900,000 a day for the four-day session, according to disclosure reports filed Monday.
The biggest spender was a Washington-area labor organization which — with help from the owners of the National Harbor development — poured $2.7 million into television advertising designed to persuade the General Assembly to pass legislation authorizing table games and a new casino in Prince George’s County.
Continue reading #rsrh Heavy lobbying presence on Maryland’s Question 7 (Gambling).
The method is rather… elegant, in a certain sort of way: obnoxious, but elegant. What the Democrats are plotting to do is to finish passing legislation (that would appear in the continuing spending resolution that’s substituting for an actual budget) that would allow the executive branch of the government (in the guise of the Secretary of the Interior) to unilaterally take into trust land offered to them by Native American ‘tribes.’ ‘Tribes’ is in scare quotes because the new legislation makes the determination of tribal status for this purpose the sole province of… the executive branch of the government. Why this matters is because once the government has the land it can give the ‘tribe’ the use of that land back; which means that the ‘tribe’ is free to build a casino there with no interference from state governments.
This is, by the way, not an exaggeration: readers may recall that Senator Barbara Boxer’s family profited mightily earlier this decade from a similar scam involving the Miwok Indians, the Department of the Interior, and a proposed San Francisco-area casino. What this new deal would do is eliminate the need for pesky legislation granting individual recognition of tribal status: instead, groups interested in ignoring local gambling restrictions would simply apply to the Great Wh… err, the President… in Washington for the necessary permissions. And, needless to say: the Democrats are likely to look favorably on the petitions of such fine, loyal donors businessmen.
If this really bugs you, you may want to give your Senator a call at (202) 224-3121 and let him or her know that this provision shouldn’t be in the Senate version of the continuing resolution.
Moe Lane (crosspost)
H/T Instapundit.
2006:
Senator Bi-Partisan in Gambling Debate
Republican Sen. George Voinovich helped persuade Ted Strickland, the Democratic nominee for governor, to oppose any proposal to introduce slot machines that are similiar to casino gambling in Ohio through an issue on the November ballot. Voinovich, who thinks gambling is a powerful addiction and can be destructive to families, has opposed any expansion beyond current law since a casino issue was on the ballot in 1990.
2007:
Gov. Strickland has not only vowed to veto a proposed bill to allow electronic betting on archived races at horsetracks, he has now joined with Attorney General Marc Dann to call for a ban on cash prizes from table-top gaming devices that are appearing in bars and restaurants all over the state. Dann’s support for a ban has developed out of his frustration with his earlier efforts to enforce the existing legal distinction between outlawed games of chance and permissible games of skill.
Columbus — Gov. Ted Strickland on Wednesday slammed the latest plan to bring full-scale casinos to Ohio, saying gambling supporters need to stop selling their proposal as a potential life-saver for the state’s drooping economy.
“Every proposal that has been brought forth I think has been designed to enrich the promoters and give a modest or, even in some cases, a meager share of resources to the state or individual localities,” Strickland told The Plain Dealer on Wednesday.
Gov. Ted Strickland rolled out a surprise plan today that would add electronic slots at the seven Ohio horse racetracks to generate revenue designed to help fill a $3.2 billion budget hole.
Continue reading A Gov. Ted Strickland (D, OH) timeline on gambling.
