Staff Blog
The Fix is In, Part Two: How the table games amendment was rammed through the House, and opponents stifled.
(Apologies: this reporter clicked "Publish" instead of "Preview" and subjected early post readers to horrendous spelling mistakes).
(In Part One: The Great Santoni, Gaming Oversight Chairman Dante Santoni concocts a super-amendment to destroy all other amendments and rewrites the table games bill to include all sorts of earmarks and casino-friendly provisions).
By Monday night, House legislators saw that the fix was in: the dozens of amendments to the table games bill drafted by House members – each of which would, in theory, require a reading and open debate before the public on the House floor – had been obliterated by the omnibus Santoni amendment. It was to be an all or nothing vote.
Part Two: The Gag.
The debate carried on for six hours, as Rep. Santoni stood for interrogation by oppositional Republicans and a few furious Democrats, who accused him of leaving them out of the process.
Rep. Mike O'Brien (D-Philadelphia), for example,a member of the gaming Oversight Committee, who represents part of Fishtown, asked why, when he called on Friday to make inquiries on the massive bill that had suddenly appeared, Committee staff was unable to help him.
"This process reeks," O'Brien said. "Tonight, I will correct the error of my vote in Gaming Oversight, and I will vote 'no.'"
Rep. Mike Turzai (R-Allegheny) spoke at length and passionately against the bill, reading from a long list of bizarre and suspicious earmarks, and criticizing the bill's failure to adopt Attorney General recommendations that law enforcement authority be taken away from the gaming Control Board.
Rep. Paul Clymer (R-Bucks) condemned the bill as a giveaway to the casinos, citing the low license fees ($16.5 million versus a $50-$60 million recommended figure Clymer had obtained from an investment specialist) and the low tax rates (14% versus the 55% tax on slot revenues).
Clymer referenced a group of consultants from the Innovation Group – a company with strong ties to the gaming industry – who had met with House leaders and recommended those very figures.
"It's exactly what they said at that meeting that we're finding in this Amendment," he cried. "You can see the voice and face of the casinos' influence in this legislation."
But Clymer's heaviest condemnation was on moral grounds, calling provision for allowing credit to gamblers "horrendous."
"What are we doing to our fellow man?" he asked. "I hope Governor Rendell, if this bill gets to him, will veto it on that issue alone."
Finally, around 8:00 P.M. the amendment was put to a vote. It passed: 97-95. Click here to see how each member voted.
The amendment had passed, but the night wasn't over – not quite.
A number of Representatives had managed to get new amendments on the agenda.
Representative Keller (D-Philadelphia), who had voted for Santoni's amendment, nonetheless offered a new amendment to remove the language in Santoni's bill allowing Foxwoods Casino to extend its license. The motion failed.
Representative Clymer, not going down without a fight, had several amendments. One would require that quarterly statements be sent to gamblers, letting them see on paper how much they had spent at a given casino. It failed.
Another amendment banned free alcohol in casinos; three more amendments tried to raise the licensing fee for table games from $16.5 million to between $25 and $75 million.
"Whether you agree or disagree with gambling, we can try to get the most out of it for the state," Clymer later told me. "If we did $50 million we'd get in approximately $600 million" - which is an increase of $400 million dollar and that would fix the governor's $200 million deficit."
Such a measure, one would think, would be amenable to everyone in the House – unless, of course, House members' loyalties were to the casinos themselves, and not the state coffers.
And, in fact, these amendments were not voted upon. Instead, any House members trying to further amend the bill were silenced – by a single old man: the 88-year-old Representative Frank Oliver (D-Philadelphia) who offered the obscure "motion to move the previous question."
I don't know what it means, but I've learned what it does: it ends debate, on the spot. The motion carried. Neither Clymer's amendments nor anyone else's would be given even the dignity of a public hearing, much less be voted upon.
The gag had worked.
Listen below to some of the testimony in Monday's debate on the House floor.
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| Rep Paul Clymer |
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| Rep Mike Turzai |
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this is outrageous. not sure how many people are in bed with the casinos, but i hope someone is snooping under the covers.
[...] They do not say how or by whose hand the clause that would favor Wojdak’s client got into the bill - but one points out that the casino is located in Berks county, just across the river from Reading – an area represented by Rep. Dante Santoni, the same Santoni who masterminded the bill and led it through the House. [...]