e-HUM Alert -- Anderson senator trying to pull pull-tabs in through the back door

February 23, 2004

Anderson senator trying to pull pull-tabs in through the back door

INDIANAPOLIS -- Unable to get SB364 (pull-tab gambling) into the Indiana State Senate through committee and onto the floor, one of the senators will attempt to drag the bill into the Senate connected to the Governor's all-day kindergarten, says a North Indiana clergyman.

According to North Indiana United Methodist Conference anti-gambling advocate the Rev. Taylor Burton-Edwards of Anderson, Senator Timothy Lanane (D-Anderson), the author of the pull-tab legislation that was killed in a Senate committee, has found a way to re-introduce pull-tab gambling by an amendment to legislation authorizing additional funding for race tracks from casino revenues. Unlike the separate legislation that was tabled in the Senate last week, this bill is scheduled to reach the Senate floor, and is likely to pass.

Burton-Edwards said despite the efforts of Indiana Coalition Against Legalized Gambling, if it does pass, Governor Kernan may sign it into law since it provides for funding for all-day kindergarten, which the governor has identified as one of his top legislative priorities.

Burton-Edwards said, "the amendment is sneaky. It would remove $17 million from the proposed allocation of $44 million of riverboat revenues to the horse tracks and use this plus an additional $3 million to help fund all-day kindergarten, plus authorize the pull-tabs (700 per location in Anderson, Fairland and Indianapolis). So it would look good to folks who are fiscally conservative and morally neutral on gaming expansion and want to find some way to move forward on all-day kindergarten."

He said Lanane states he believes that the $17 million he would divert from direct aid to the tracks would be more than offset, in the long run, by allowing the tracks (and the Indianapolis satellite) to offer "alternative gaming."

Burton-Edwards encourages church leaders across the state to contact their Indiana State Senators today to urge defeat of this amendment, and, if the amendment is not defeated, then defeat of the entire bill.

"We're stuck here in Anderson/Madison County -- our Senator is leading the charge for expansion," he said.

Contact information about your Indiana State Senator can be found at www.in.gov/legislative/legislators.

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