By Jon Seidel, Post-Tribune
jseidel@post-trib.com
Democrats at the Statehouse took a gamble this year on land-based casinos. Instead of filing bills in both chambers, they tried to push a bill first through the Republican-led Senate. It's an election year, after all, and Republicans can't use land-based casinos to beat up on Democrats if the Republicans vote for it first.
It didn't work. Republican Sen. Ron Alting of Lafayette filed a bill to let riverboat casinos move inland. He even gave Majestic Star Casino owner Don Barden a deal to avoid the $50 million fee to come ashore.
On Tuesday, all of that was torn up in a Senate committee. Suddenly, no bill moving through the Statehouse included land-based gaming language. And Rep. Charlie Brown, D-Gary, said he was regretful.
"I should have followed my first mind and gone ahead and filed that bill," Brown said.
But that doesn't mean he's giving up. Neither is Sen. Earline Rogers, also D-Gary. Their hometown needs an infusion of new property tax dollars. Even if it takes a few years build a new casino in Gary, Mayor Rudy Clay hopes the simple passage of a land-based casino bill would be enough of a boon to draw new businesses.
"People will know a land-based casino is going to be built there," Clay said.
Alting's casino bill is still moving through the Senate. It's set for second reading today, and that means there's an opportunity for more amendments. As it's written now, it includes various new provisions for Indiana casinos.
It would reduce some admissions taxes at racinos and alter local tax distributions in Orange County. It also would let a riverboat owner convert the boat into a permanently moored vessel without navigation equipment.
When land-based casinos were stripped from the bill last week, Rogers was defiant, saying "I am not going to wimp out at stage one of this process." However, as of Thursday, Rogers said she wasn't planning any second-reading amendments.
The "Start in the Senate" strategy has become "Take it to the House."
"I'm trying to get them to send the bill to me," Brown said.
In the House, the bill would likely land in the ways and means committee, chaired by Rep. Bill Crawford, D-Indianapolis, described by Rogers and Brown as a "friend." If Crawford gives it a hearing in his committee, land-based casino language could find its way back into the bill.
If different versions of this bill pass in both chambers, the details would be sorted out in a conference committee. Despite what happened last week, Rogers still believes this could be the year for land-based casinos.
Competition from Ohio is coming, she points out. The state needs new revenue, and a summer study commission said it could find it in a land-based casino. Specifically, it could find $11 million at Interstates 65 and 94.
And even though the amendment to remove land-based gaming from Alting's bill passed easily, a notable dissenter was Sen. Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, and chairman of the Senate's appropriations committee, which heard the bill.
"I personally think we're making a mistake," Kenley said when the amendment was introduced.
If that's what Kenley thinks, a few other senators might soon feel the same way.