Gambling law put to test before state Supreme Court

To legalize slot machines in Pennsylvania, lawmakers created a "centaur" of a law with a "body of a horse, head of a slot machine," said Jim West, who represents Pennsylvanians Against Gambling Expansion. Pennsylvania's gambling legislation was two decades in the making before lawmakers pushed the bill through the General Assembly last summer. Over 18 months, legislators transformed a one-page statute that would have allowed state police to fingerprint people seeking horse-racing licenses into a 145-page law that created investigative agencies, a gambling control board and funding streams for huge projects _ in short, an entire gambling industry, opponents said. "What we have here is logrolling," West said. "They had a bill that they needed to get through. 'OK, can we get a vote through volunteer fire departments? If we put the airport in, can we get a vote? If we put the convention center in, can we get a vote?' $500 million _ this is a self-funded log roll. It's a saw mill." Attorneys for the state government defended the process, saying many proposed statutes start small and grow significantly as debate wears on. They compared legislation to the expanding beam of a flashlight. "Petitioners are inviting the court to rule that any bill that has substantially changed from its introduction to its final text is somehow constitutionally suspect," said C. Clark Hodgson, Jr., an attorney for the state House. "And yet the legislative process is about change, and about changes and about amendments and about compromise." Attorneys for the state also warned that the courts should not become involved in the process of lawmaking. "The court must decide whether to allow debate, not impede consensus and to allow them to achieve those stated goals as opposed to trying to manage the legislative process," Hodgson said. At stake is 61,000 slot machines at seven racetracks, two resorts and five still-to-be-selected facilities and $1 billion in tax cuts for property owners promised by Gov. Ed Rendell during his 2002 election campaign. Gambling opponents and government watchdogs say the flurry of pulling and shoving that preceded the bill's passage violated the state constitution. They have listed eight complaints against the legislation, but the Supreme Court has asked lawyers to focus on just two Wednesday. Attorneys presented arguments over constitutional provisions that say a bill cannot be amended to change its original purpose and the requirement that legislation address a single subject. Justice Max Baer asked West if he thought the state's gambling legislation should be broken into a multitude of laws, each covering separate issues involving appropriations, zoning and liquor laws. When West said yes, Baer asked whether it would not still be logrolling. The courts have been hesitant to overturn legislation on procedural grounds, which is what gambling opponents are asking the court to do. An attorney for the state said Pennsylvania courts have not done so since at least 1874, as far back as he had researched.