TALLAHASSEE - One week after lawmakers left Tallahassee without passing a bill dictating how slot machines can be installed in Broward County parimutuels, Gov. Jeb Bush has hired two legal heavyweights for advice.
Major Harding, a former chief justice of the Florida Supreme Court, and former Attorney General Richard Doran have been retained as outside counsel.
They will advise the governor on Amendment 4, a November statewide ballot measure that allowed slot machines at existing parimutuels in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, as long as local voters agreed.
Broward voters approved the plan in a March election, triggering a requirement that the Legislature pass implementing language, which it failed to do before adjourning May 6.
Governor's spokesman Russell Schweiss said he couldn't determine Friday whether the pair might also advise the governor on negotiations with the Miccosukee and Seminole Indian tribes, talks that are required under federal law now that the state Constitution permits slot machines.
Harding, a justice from 1991 to 2002, was in the majority in a 4-3 vote that kept parimutuels from placing a slot machines measure on the statewide ballot in 2000. Doran, a longtime deputy attorney general, was involved in multiple cases that then-Attorney General Bob Butterworth brought against Indian casinos and gambling ships. He succeeded Butterworth for two months in 2002 when Butterworth resigned early to run for the state Senate.