From CapitolWire.com:
HARRISBURG (Jan. 11) – In the end, the table games vote came down to lawmakers getting deals, just like past big votes did, no matter who the governor or legislative leaders were.
It doesn’t seem like a bill can be passed suddenly, with little scrutiny of changes, more than 180 days after it was due, but just that happened on this bill.
While some people defended the gambling bill as having been fully vetted by debate, discussion and scrutiny, except for some minor late changes, that was equally true of the major bills passed under Govs. Ed Rendell, Tom Ridge and Mark Schweiker. They also got lots of public discussion, then the actual bill got rushed into passage, with a few cute things tucked away in it.
Also, some of those “minor changes” ain’t so minor. For example, now the state probably can add more casinos in the next few years to deal with its budget problems. Before this bill, that had to wait until 2017. Now lawmakers like can tweak the gambling law without refunding hundreds of millions in fees to casino licensees.
That doesn’t mean House and Senate Republicans will quickly adopt new casinos or expand slots or tables at existing sites. But this bill made that possible mostly because it was passed before even some of its sponsors realized certain provisions were in it.
One of the biggest criticisms of the current gambling bill is that too much of it was written too quickly and jammed into law. On Monday, House Majority Leader Todd Eachus, D-Luzerne, confirmed the deal had been made and votes were expected in the Senate as soon as Tuesday. At that time, he said he couldn’t say too much more because they were still writing the legislation.
On Tuesday evening, the brief Senate debate wasn’t long enough to let anyone read the proposed legislation much past page 30 of an 150-plus-page bill before the Senate voted to pass it.
On Wednesday the House voted to pass the measure, after its members had between 12 and 20 hours to actually read it, and more than 24 hours to digest a fairly thorough summary of it.
In the end, the bill was enacted without many lawmakers appreciating that they were removing the major hurdle to further future expanded gambling in the next three years, or taking note of other gems that await our discovery now that it has been signed into law.
And it was enacted with deal after deal made to shore up votes, with many of those deals not visible within the bill’s text. Most lawmakers won’t say what it is they got, but expect the four members of the Bucks County GOP delegation to show up at Washington’s Crossing Park when the new funding for it is announced.
And don’t be surprised if a hospital or two in Bucks gets a million or so dollars after the House votes to raise the state’s debt ceiling in a few months. It also will be less than shocking if the same Bucks County GOPers who voted for the table games bill see their favored bills get House floor votes now.
Rep. Frank Farry, R-Bucks, a lawyer and volunteer fire company honcho, got his first taste of being a House GOP crossover vote. Only 12 Republicans voted for the measure, while 79 opposed it. Farry and his GOP colleagues combined with 91 Democrats to barely pass the bill.
Farry said both Philadelphia Park Casino and Washington’s Crossing are in neighboring districts, but that he has constituents who work at the casino and volunteer at the park and both are important. He said he voted for the bill because the casino already employs some of his constituents and he hoped this expansion would expand that employment in his district and the region.
Farry also said that until this, he had never been the 102nd or 103rd vote on a major bill that most of his caucus opposed.
He found that it made the governor’s top staff a lot more attentive to him and his district’s needs.
“It’s the first time I have had a chance to meet with some of the governor’s top staff in my first year in office,” Farry said. “So perhaps the opportunity to shore up the ‘yes’ votes on table games helped with that.”
Other lawmakers voting for the bill reported the same kind of attention, and many got commitments for a vote or funding or some other item from either the governor or House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dwight Evans, D-Philadelphia.
Rendell officially denied any such proceedings, then essentially admitted them, as only he can. Asked if he made deals to get table games votes, he said: “No. When legislators in the discussion process asked for specific things, I said, look, I’ve helped you guys in the past. Come back and see me after this is over. But I made no specific commitments at all. I just wouldn’t do that. I’m not a believer in buying votes. But I reminded the legislators that in many ways, I’ve been their best friend when it comes to projects, and that they should come and see me. And to the extent that the project is good and we have money available, I would help them.”
Contrast that Rendell’s reaction to the potential upcoming departure of Rep. Mario Civera, R-Delaware. Once a consistent vote for the Rendell agenda, Civera switched when he became House Republican Appropriations Committee chairman to being an anti-Rendell vote on most things and on almost all of Rendell’s top recent priorities.
Now that Civera is not a vote for Rendell, the governor said of his potential departure: “At this point of his career, it’s not much of a loss.”
What does that tell you about how long Rendell will remember this table games vote?
So you got a bill passed in the Senate pretty much as soon as it was written and published on the legislative Web site, and passed quickly a day later in the House.
And, as one veteran Republican who voted for it said, “We all have needs for our district. The difference between me and some of my Republican colleagues is that mine are going to be met a lot more than theirs are. I was gonna vote for the table games anyway, but the rules are, it’s a close vote, you get something. And all 12 of us did, and I think a lot of the Democrats will too.”
Doesn’t sound so different to me.
