Racetrack Slot Machines a Gamble for Ohio Governor

Ohio's Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland and members of the Republican-controlled state Senate have reached a deal on the two-year state budget that would allow gambling at Ohio's seven horse racetracks to help fill a $3.2 billion revenue hole -- an idea that Strickland, an ordained Methodist minister, had previously opposed.



The budget, which was sent to the governor Monday for his signature, was supposed to be finished June 30. The dueling parties, operating on a second interim budget that was approved Friday, took two extra weeks to hash out the details of Strickland's proposal to allow the gambling and required the governor's controversial use of an executive order in tandem with House and Senate legislative changes that avoided a public referendum on the measure.

Strickland, looking toward his 2010 reelection campaign, said tax increases must be "avoided at all costs." In addition to major cuts, he instead chose the path of moral compromise described by my colleague Wesley Vaughn. The slots proposal estimates a $933-million increase in revenue over the two years from the seven racetracks.

However, Strickland's changed stance on gambling, as well as his political maneuvering on behalf of the proposal, may not win him much favor among voters, either. Strickland previously criticized gambling proposals, and specifically opposed gambling as a way to mend the state's budget problems. He is now being criticized by some Methodist clergy.

The choice was difficult, Strickland said, but one he believes is necessary, and Ohioans seem to agree with him. In a poll conducted by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, 65 percent of Ohioans support the Strickland plan. It doesn't hurt that the plan promises new jobs along with increased revenue for a state with close to 11 percent unemployment. Yet an overwhelming 84 percent say that voters, not legislators, should make the ultimate decision, since, in the past 20 years, gambling proposals put to Ohio voters have been rejected on four separate occasions.

Senate President Bill Harris and his colleagues have identified a number of problems with Strickland's gambling proposal, including the shaky reliability of gambling revenue. The West Virginia lottery recently announced that revenue was down dramatically at all four of the state's racetracks. Lawsuits, already promised by gambling-opposition groups, would delay the slots installment even further. Under Strickland's original plan, slots would be purchased or leased by the state -- not the track owner. Pennsylvania track owners pay $15,000 apiece for their slots, and Republicans want to know if Strickland included those numbers in the $933 million he plans to make on them.

Harris and the Senate Republicans originally supported putting the issue on a ballot. Strickland claimed that would take too much time, and that the state would miss out on the revenue it could start bringing in within weeks of the proposed 15,250 slots being installed. Harris countered by encouraging Strickland to use his authority to implement the proposal through an executive order, but Strickland insisted that the measure required legislative support. Strickland might have been forced to take sole ownership of the proposal on tenuous legislative (and legal) footing, but the Senate dealmaking provides important bipartisan support. Ohio Republicans can still claim that they caved on their democratic calls for a public ballot only in the face of a governor who was stubbornly driving Ohio toward a budgetless stalemate by supporting a controversial plan he had initially opposed. Opponents of Strickland's plan also helped ensure that it could be completely superseded in November by a separate ballot measure on casino gambling.

It might be an especially bad time for Jello Ted to be flipping his stance on issues and avoiding public ballots, as a Quinnipiac University poll released last week shows Strickland's approval rating sinking to 46 percent. The poll shows that Strickland is essentially tied in a head-to-head match up with Republican gubernatorial hopeful John Kasich, with Strickland taking 41 percent to Kasich's 40 percent. In May, Kasich trailed Strickland by 12 percentage points. A separate poll conducted in June demonstrated nearly the same results.

Kasich, a former Ohio congressman and Fox News host, and Rob Portman, also a former congressman and Bush appointee running for an open Senate seat, are two familiar faces that could serve as the first signs of a national GOP resurgence, CNN's John King reports. Time will tell whether Strickland's roll of the dice in the face of a budget crisis will be seen as a turning point.

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