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Slot Foes Quibble Over Referendum Language

The battle over the wording of a Maryland state addressing slot machine gambling is heating up, and inflaming people on either side of the issue. Opponents of this type of gambling formed a coalition in Anne Arundel County to demand that a County Court official bar state elections officials from officially certifying the wording of the bill’s description as it is set to appear on the November ballot. The plaintiffs are demanding that the Maryland Secretary of State amend the ballot language to include a full and complete description of how the state is intending to spend slot revenues.

Slot machine gambling was authorized by a special session of the Legislature that met last year, and enraged critics who are foes of gambling. Along with one-point-four billion dollars in tax increases, the slot measure was designed to bring more money into the state, considering the struggling state of the budget. Now, these same slot machine opponents are nitpicking the initiative’s ballot description of how state officials would spend the money brought in by this type of gambling. The current language was written by Secretary of State John McDonough, who critics claim is biased because he put in almost twenty years as a lobbyist for a Price George County horse racing establishment.

If the referendum is approved by voters, percentages of the state’s slot machine proceeds would go towards horse racing purses and the operators of the machines, along with the school and community improvements that are already mentioned in the ballot language. The slot foes want to see references made to the horse racing and slot-operator profits, with the argument that voters deserve to know this information.

Back to September 2008 Archive.