Requiem The gambling bill has died a terrible death and we all are hanging out at the funeral. Mea culpa. I am one of the murderers. Some are commending me for voting against Senate Bill 489, and some are mad at me. Below is the requiem. I and my constituents, in the majority, favor the right to gamble. What I do not support is a law that allows gambling while specifically making it illegal to release any background information on license applicants, eliminates any background checks for some by giving reciprocity on gambling licenses, has NO oversight rules in place prior to opening expanded gambling and provides two licenses to specific companies by law with no open proposal process. |
I wanted my constituents to have the choice whether to gamble or not. The state can use the revenues. I hated to vote against gambling. My constituents sent me to Concord to do their will, including spending the hours to actually understand potential laws and to make sure that those laws will truly comply with their wishes. SB489 did not. It had many flaws. Yes, I read the 47 pages of the bill and 8-10 pages of the final amendment. Admittedly, lobbyists promised me they would change those things if I voted for the bill as is. I'm not that green. I did vote for SB490 to allow additional machines at existing gambling sites. It was defeated also, however.
|
|
Contact: ken.s+sunacom.com (replace "+" with "@") |