House shuffles casino bill

04/27/2005

Pat Doyle, Star Tribune
April 27, 2005

In a rebuke of a strategy for advancing Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s Twin Cities casino proposal, the Minnesota House on Tuesday sent the legislation to a committee suspected of leaning against expanding gambling, bypassing a more friendly panel.

The move creates yet another hurdle for casino backers who have seen an earlier version of their plan stall in a Senate committee and watched Indian support for the latest venture erode.

The House steered the bill proposing that the state operate two casinos at Canterbury Park in partnership with the racetrack and at least one Indian tribe to the House Taxes Committee, led by Rep. Phil Krinkie, R-Shoreview.

Krinkie has opposed state expansion of gambling. The committee has two other Republicans who voted against a racino at Canterbury when it came to the House floor in 2003.

“It sounds to me from the discussions that the likelihood that it would pass in the Tax Committee is not so good,” Krinkie said Tuesday.

The bill’s backers had feared that. So they tried to avoid Krinkie’s panel by defining the measure as one that raises revenue without taxes. That strategy, endorsed by House Speaker Steve Sviggum, R-Kenyon, aimed to send the proposal to the Ways and Means Committee, where it was expected to get a more friendly reception and be guided to the full House.

But Rep. Ann Lenczewski, DFL-Bloomington, who opposed earlier plans for a casino at the Mall of America, surprised casino supporters Tuesday. She moved on the House floor to have the governor’s bill heard in the Taxes Committee and called for a vote. Krinkie supported the motion.

“It kind of caught me off guard,” said Rep. Andy Westerberg, R-Blaine, a supporter of the governor’s proposal. “It came up so fast I didn’t have an opportunity to get up and speak against it.”

The House voted 79 to 53 to send the bill to the Taxes Committee; 14 Republicans voted with the majority.

Sviggum said afterward that he, too, didn’t see the vote coming. “It puts another roadblock in the way of moving [the bill],” he said. “But it is what it is and you have to deal with it.”

He blamed opposition to the bill on “an unholy alliance” of Republicans opposed to using gambling money to fund some spending initiatives and Democrats defending existing tribal casinos from competition.

Pawlenty spokesman Brian McClung said, “We expect to be able to pass this bill out of the Tax Committee.”

Dorman in the middle

Most members of the Taxes Committee voted on the racino when it reached the House floor in 2003, and they were nearly evenly divided. Among those voting yes then was Rep. Dan Dorman, R-Albert Lea, who said if a vote on the latest proposal were held in the committee tomorrow, “I’d vote no.”

He disagrees with the governor on school funding and wants changes before he’ll consider voting for the casino proposal. He also criticized what he saw as an effort “to just rejacket the bill and put the word revenue in it instead of tax” to circumvent the Taxes Committee, saying he believed the strategy alienated some Republicans. But he noted that there were casino supporters voting for and against sending the bill to the Taxes Committee, so the decision doesn’t necessarily indicate how members would vote on the merits of the issue.

The bands’ stands

The bill would authorize two casinos, one owned by the track and another by any participating Indian bands, and envisions the state making $164 million or more a year once the casinos are fully operating. But two of the three bands that joined in Pawlenty’s earlier proposal for a state-tribal metro casino—the Red Lake and Leech Lake Chippewa—have refused to participate in a deal that includes Canterbury.

A group of dissident Leech Lake tribal members was at the Capitol on Tuesday. There, the members said they have gathered more than enough signatures for a referendum that would give reservation residents veto power over any future casino deal with the state.

The third band, the White Earth Chippewa, says it is willing to join a deal that includes the track as well as the state. It issued a statement Tuesday that said the band will “ask that our members, living both on and off the reservation, support and assist us as we navigate uncertain waters of the legislative process during the next few weeks.”