Source: www.MyWestTexas.com
Casino gambling dice still rolling in Austin
Bob Campbell
Staff Writer
Midland Reporter-Telegram
05/01/2006
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Ushering in casino gambling to help finance public schools will not be considered during the Texas Legislature's current special session on education reform, but it will be debated when lawmakers convene for their regular biennial session next January, legislators say.
With the city of Stanton in particular wanting a casino or greyhound racing track, the issue remains in play in the Permian Basin with the horse racing track and casino in nearby Hobbs, N.M., attracting a multitude of area citizens.
A Stanton city official and the Austin lobbyist promoting Stanton's interests say legislators will be asked simply to put a proposed "local option" constitutional amendment on the statewide ballot and let cities decide if they want casinos.
"It took Hobbs seven tries to get theirs, so it's going to be a long process," Stanton City Manager Danny Fryar said Thursday. "It's getting more common all the time to hear people here say, 'We went to Hobbs for the weekend.'
"It all filters down to getting some type of gambling license and we're also looking at greyhound racing. You can look at Hobbs and see what it did for their community."
Lobbyist Robert Cox, a Stanton native, said a bill like the one Democratic Sen. Rodney Ellis of Houston introduced last year can be expected at the session's outset. Ellis proposed allowing the creation of up to 24 Las Vegas-style casinos including two in West Texas, five each in Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston, two in San Antonio and two on American Indian reservations.
When asked if casinos would dampen Texas Lottery receipts, Cox said he wouldn't expect them to because the two enterprises would draw different clienteles. "The religious groups oppose gambling on moral or other ethical grounds and they lobby hard and bring out the big guns," Cox said.
"There was a strange coalition last time with the out-of-state state gaming companies jumping on the bandwagon with the religious groups to keep casinos out. But now with the hurricane damages to casinos in Louisiana and Mississippi, Texas is becoming a more attractive destination for those companies invested around the border."
Although he has informally polled his District 82 constituents about casinos, Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick of Midland on Friday indicated he is too involved in the special session to discuss it now. "Expanded gambling has been proposed as a possible source of revenue for funding schools in the past," Craddick said.
"But today we are following Gov. Perry's call for the special session, which is to lower school district property taxes by passing the Sharp proposal."
State Rep. Buddy West of Odessa is opposed to casinos because, he said, the benefits promised from horse and dog tracks that already have been established have not materialized. "It's not something that's viable for the state," he said from Austin.
"It would be for a few people, but not for the state as a whole. The horse and dog tracks are always out there wanting more help to make it go, saying, 'We need this and we need that.' It was all voted in before my time, but none of them have panned out like they said they would."
Sen. Kel Seliger of Amarillo said casino proponents tried to get their 2005 bill passed in the wrong way. "It came in late one night as an amendment to a bill," he said.
"Something like gambling ought to be considered in a hearing process with all the people who want to talk about the clinical, economic and other aspects because there are some deep and abiding objections."
Seliger is unpersuaded organized crime is an associated problem, and he said the easy availability of credit cards causes more personal bankruptcies than gambling in Texas, where tens of thousands of people flock weekly to casinos in Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and New Mexico.
But when asked if it should go to a statewide vote, he said, "If everything goes to a vote of the people, you don't need a Legislature, city council or county commission. You can set the drinking age by local option or the whole set of criminal and civil laws by local option. But I don't know if that's the best way to govern.
"On the other hand, with slot machines at least you have a chance to win something. As a matter of public policy, is casino gambling a good idea? I'm not sure I have the answer." |
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