Maybe if we had dipped voters' fingers in purple ink, we might have generated a real consensus behind such
a drastic turn in public policy.
But voters were a scarce commodity. So scarce that fewer than 106,000 residents -- in a county of 1.8 million
-- were able to plunge Broward County into a murky unknown..
The yes vote in Broward on Tuesday, a day when barely 18 per cent of the county's registered voters
bothered to show up, will allow slot machines at four parimutuel sites. Beyond that, the implications range
from mysterious to downright scary..
Our Legislature, of course, has yet to decide how many slots will be allowed, when they can operate and how
much of the take can be extracted by the state. Or how to divvy up all that booty..
But when voters in Miami-Dade County voted no to slots on Tuesday, Broward suddenly found itself without
its main ally as local officials beg lawmakers to allow them to keep a disproportionate chunk of their slot
revenue at home..
''My big concern is that the anti-gambling people could really nail it to Broward County,'' former Florida
Attorney General Bob Butterworth said Wednesday..
PROFIT SHARING.
Butterworth, whose résumé includes terms as a Broward judge, prosecutor and sheriff, worried that
anti-gambling legislators, in a punitive mood, could very well fashion legislation that reduces Broward to just
another of 67 counties clamoring for their cut of gambling money.
.
''The surprise is going to be X number of millions going out of the county and only thousands coming back in,''
said Butterworth, now dean of the St. Thomas University School of Law. ``I'm afraid that my home county
could look very foolish.''.
''It may be a cruel day for Broward,'' said Rep. Dan Gelber of Miami Beach..
The House minority leader described Broward as ''really out there now,'' as in really out there alone, a blue
county in a red state, at the mercy of a Legislature dominated by folks whose anti-gambling constituencies
already view South Florida as Sodom and Gomorrah. Except that Sodom voted no to slots. Gomorrah is left
alone to face the holy wrath..
Gelber said that the real question looming before the legislative majority is whether to saddle the tracks and
jai-alai fronton with such brutal operating restrictions that it would be hardly worth the hassle of slots. Or to
soak up its slots revenue to dole out to the other 66 non-slot counties. What the hell, it's all coming out of
Gomorrah, anyway..
He also predicted that this odd alliance between the parimutuels and teachers' unions will soon degenerate
into conflicting interests. The teachers want more slot money for education. The parimutuel industry wants
more slot money for itself. And its lobbyists will soon be mud wrestling in the Capitol hallways..
INDIAN BONANZA?.
The other great unknown coming out of Tuesday election involves Florida's Indian casinos. Joe Kelly,
co-editor of the Gaming Law Review, suggested Wednesday that the Seminoles and Miccosukee tribes have
a ''very strong'' federal case that they, too, should allowed to introduce Vegas-style slot machines at their
gambling halls..
So Miami, despite Tuesday's no vote, may still be saddled with Class III slot machines. (Along with Tampa
and Brighton and Immokalee and Hollywood and Coconut Creek.).
The Indians must first ask Gov. Jeb Bush to negotiate a Class III deal with the state. Bush would be
required, under the federal Indian Gaming Act, to negotiate in good faith..
But if Jeb stonewalls, the future gets even murkier. The issue could wind through the federal courts for years
before bouncing to the Secretary of Interior..
''The law is very gray,'' said Kelly, a SUNY College of Buffalo law professor..
''It could get really messy,'' Kelly said. I think what he meant to say was ``even messier.''.