Swann could run with slots issue
HARRISBURG -- The strange news broke last week that the state agency in charge of licensing slot-machine gambling parlors was down to its last days or weeks of cash before it shuts its doors and stops paychecks.
Many observers were scratching their heads over the way the administration of Gov. Ed Rendell handled state funding for the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board: What seemingly could have been a routine budget matter evolved into a political blowup.
"The gaming board is going to be a political football in Pennsylvania for some time because underneath the surface of the apparently established law, there still boils a lot of discontent about gambling," said Michael Young, a retired public affairs professor at Penn State's Harrisburg campus who now runs an opinion research firm.
Organized opponents of gambling across the state are still championing legislation to repeal the 2-year-old law that legalized up to 61,000 slot machines at 14 racetracks, resorts and other sites around the state. GOP gubernatorial candidate Lynn Swann stops short of calling for repeal, but brings up slot-machine gambling constantly as an example of bad public policy.
For the past two years, efforts to revise parts of the slots law have repeatedly stalled amid disputes between supporters and opponents of the law.
Even changes that practically every legislator agrees to -- changing a provision in the current law that allows public officials to own up to 1 percent of a gambling interest and broadening the state attorney general's enforcement power over the gambling industry -- get lost in the shuffle.
The success of the gaming board in the coming months could boost Rendell's re-election campaign this fall, political observers say.
For instance, the gaming board plans to license the first slots parlors in late September -- a full six weeks before the Nov. 7 election when voters will decide between Rendell and Swann.
Licensing those parlors -- or even seeing one open its doors -- before the election could be a powerful sign to voters that the gambling-financed property tax cuts promised by Rendell are on their way, analysts say.
Keeping the gaming board free of controversy -- and adequately funded -- will help.
The Rendell administration said it has completed paperwork to transfer $10.4 million to the gaming board to keep it running uninterrupted, possibly until receipts from slot-machine gambling can support the agency.
Without an infusion of money, gaming board chairman Tad Decker has said the agency will close by the end of the month, although a Rendell administration spokeswoman said she saw nothing unusual in the timing of the transfer.
The transfer requires approval by Democratic state Treasurer Bob Casey -- whose spokeswoman said it is unusual for a state agency to be on the brink of running out of money.
Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers -- as well as Swann -- are contending that such a transfer is unconstitutional, without explicit approval from the Legislature.
If an ugly, partisan battle over the funding ensues -- or the gaming board is forced to close -- Swann could have a potent opening to tap into antigambling sentiment, said William J. Green, a former Republican campaign consultant who runs a public relations firm in Pittsburgh.
"It's an opportunity for Swann to exploit," Green said, "and use that as a symbol of the whole complex issue of gaming and why we shouldn't have had it."
