Stop the Slots Referendum

I've posted about this before, but now that we are almost to the election, I need to say this again.

Martin O'Malley, who opposed slots under Ehrlich, but favors him now that he is the governor, is pushing for the slots referendum. I am not against having slots in Maryland. However, I have been to Atlantic City and if this is what slots brings, no thank you. Leave that trash in New Jersey. Sounds like a contradiction, but I think I may have fallen into the old, "well if it's done correctly, then it may work" philosophy.

Rather than voting on the slots issue themselves and looking like total hypocrites, the Maryland Democrats voted to have a referendum. Referendums are questions that are put on the ballot for the voters to decide when politicians don't want to get in trouble for attaching their name to a law. Imagine if someone like Maryland Delegate Kumar Barve, who was arrested for drunk driving, but managed to have it expunged from his record (meaning it didn't really happen), voted in favor of slots and his constituents didn't like it. They would vote him out of office.

The problem with this referendum is that it puts the slots bill in the MARYLAND CONSTITUTION! This isn't like passing a law that says that the speed limit can't be above 65 mph. This is like the Big Time Law. It's nearly irrevocable. If voters pass this referendum, and it turns out to be horrible, then will have to convince their unresponsive politicians to put it back on referendum to have it removed from the Constitution.

In the newsletter that I subscribe to from State Comptroller Peter Franchot, he says:

This slots referendum doesn't just legalize slots - it writes gambling into our state Constitution. And, it is very specific. Not only are we enshrining slot machine gambling into the Constitution with Question 2 - we're going to make it nearly impossible to change the law. Once it's in our Constitution - we have to pass another Constitutional amendment to protect Maryland families.

This law does not belong in our Constitution. It needs to be passed by our legislatures in the General Assembly. There is a difference.

Additionally, O'Malley is airing misleading advertisements about what the slots will do. He says that it will generate $600 million for schools. I read that this may be over-inflated by as much as 150%. That's a HUGE over-inflation.

Additionally, as Blair Lee has pointed out, the slots referendum says that much of the money will go to schools. However, there is no "back-door" provision in the law. This means that O'Malley can divert the current funding sources to education and use that for something else, like mirrors in his office to see his pretty smile. Therefore, the slots will not mean additional funding for education, it would be THE funding source for education.

And everyone's assuming that this will bring in a lot of money. If Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, and West Virginia already have slots, are we really bringing that much more money into the state? How much gambling money is there to spend? No one should expect new gambling money to be pumped into the system. We're just going to spread existing gambling money around.

Furthermore, if the slots referendum passes, this money will start pouring in immediately, right? Or do you suppose the state will have to order the machines, sign contracts with gambling companies, and build facilities first? Does this mean that the slots could be several years away from fruition? But O'Malley said that in these tough economic times, slots are needed now. perhaps they have already been brokering dark alley deals and everything's is ready to go. Wouldn't that be nice? Politicians doing things behind our backs. That's never happened before.

Anyone who's over 25 knows that tough economic times usually do not last several years. O'Malley is just looking for a phantom boost to our economy. he's pretending that he's "making the tough decisions to invest in our future." He's so full of crap. He's making scape-goat decisions to help lengthen his political career. Martin O'Malley is so vain that he probably thinks Carly Simon's song is about him. Hey, Martin O'Malley, have you been to Nova Scotia lately?

If Marylanders were smarter than we are, we'd reject the slots referendum and start working on removing this bone-head from office. We want a governor that's interested in Maryland, not a governor that's interested in Martin O'Malley.