From: FGA
President Phil Ruotolo
The legislative session is almost halfway over,
and we’re seeing some movement with legislation that would affect the
pari-mutuel industry.
You may recall that your lobbying team – along
with lobbyists from the jai alai and standard-bred horse industries -- met
nearly two weeks ago with Sen. Jones, chairman of the Senate Regulated
Industries Committee. As a group, we asked him to add our “equity” language
into his bill about slot machine licensing.
He said he was interested in our equity language
and asked that we submit it to his staff.
Our language would have blocked annual renewal of
a license if the permit-holder did not have a purse-sharing agreement in place
with the kennel operators and established mandatory arbitration if an agreement
was not reached.
A day before the bill was heard, Sen. Jones
explained to the FGA lobbying team that he didn't want his bill to become too
controversial, and he would remain neutral on our language.
He expressed his disappointment that the
standard-bred horse association is suing Pompano
Park. The association’s lawsuit
claims that there has been no reasonable agreement reached to share slot
machine revenues for purses.
Without
strong support from the chairman, it is more difficult to secure the support of
the other committee members. Despite the combined team effort of lobbyists from
the three pari-mutuels working to find an amendment sponsor, none of the
members of the Senate Regulated Industries committee would file it. In fact, Sen. Geller’s own amendment to Sen.
Jones’ bill was withdrawn by the Senator himself.
Sen. Jones’ bill was taken up during Tuesday’s
meeting, which was attended by FGA president Phil Ruotolo and Cal Holland. Cal
and Alisa Snow testified, expressing the need for mandatory arbitration and
fair and equal treatment of greyhound kennel operators. While we knew we had no
chance to get an amendment that morning, our goal was to put the FGA on record
as being opposed to the legislation because it lacked our language. We were not
trying to kill it.
VLT legislation
There will be other opportunities in the next
five weeks for your lobbying team to secure equity language, particularly if
the Legislature takes up bills that would allow VLTs.
New budget estimates show that VLTs would
generate anywhere from a low of $980 million to a whopping $1.8 billion a year.
We believe these numbers are compelling enough that lawmakers will consider
bills that will allow VLTs in Florida.
Meanwhile, Kansas
lawmakers this week approved slot machines at casinos there. Greyhound and
horses would get a 7 percent share of gross revenue in Kansas.
We hope to use this as a basis for discussion here in Florida.
Cardroom
bill
The same Senate committee also
took up a bill by Sen. Fasano that would allow
cardrooms to operate additional days without live racing.
We chose not to amend that bill
at this time, given the committee’s stand on Jones’ bill. There will be a
better opportunity to do this in the near future, and we will keep you informed
of this development. Phil Ruotolo took the opportunity to further testify about
the lack of equity for the greyhound industry when this bill was presented.
House activity
In the House this week: Representative Carlos Lopez-Cantera Chairman of the Business Regulation Committee conducted
a work shop on House Joint Resolution (HJR) 471 Local Option Gaining by Representative Julio Robaina
R-Miami. This format allowed extensive time for the members of
the Committee to hear a detailed presentation on the impact of the proposed HJR
and they were able to ask thorough questions.
Some of you will remember this is the way the Florida
Legislature used to work - with a full and open discussion of pending
legislation. Chairman Lopez-Cantera deserves a great deal of credit
for conducting this meeting in this manner. Hopefully it will be an example for
other committee Chairs to follow.
Rep. Robaina explained that the
intent of the bill was to permit local communities to vote on allowing full casino
style gambling in hotels of 250 rooms or more and at pari-mutuel facilities.
Besides a detailed explanation of the HJR by Representative Robaina, the Committee also heard from
David Schwartz PhD. Director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Dr. Schwartz reported on the
economic advantages of casino gambling. He also reported on the results in
Atlantic City and on the Mississippi Coast.
This was the last week for committee meetings in the House.
Only Councils will be meeting for the rest of the Session. The House
Councils will meet on Wednesday and Thursday.
The Florida Legislative Session is for 60 days or 9
weeks so we have passed the half way point! It is like the 9 innings of a
baseball game. One inning/week you’re up the next you’re
down. But none of it matters until the end game/Session. You just
have to be on the field every inning and play hard. The only score
that counts is the one at the end of the game/Session.
As we enter this very delicate
time of the year a lot of what goes on will not be able to be put into these
reports. If you have any questions please feel free to email me at jackcory@paconsultants.com or jackcory@nextel.blackberry.net or call me directly on my cell at 850-566-9175.
Thank you to all those people who did their grass
roots visits before the Legislative Session. Thanks to your efforts,
we are in pretty good shape at this time....but it is not the 9th inning
yet!
Report given by FGA Lobbying Team: Jack Cory, Lena Juarez and Alisa Snow
