During state Rep. Greg Stumbo’s time as attorney general, his office issued an opinion saying the General Assembly could authorize expanded gambling, including casinos, in Kentucky without a constitutional amendment. Now back in the House, Stumbo Wednesday released a draft of legislation that would authorize video lottery terminals at racetracks. Taxes generated from the machines would be earmarked for a variety of purposes including but not limited to education, enhanced purses at the tracks and to offset repeal of the state’s share of the personal property tax on motor vehicles and motorboats.
A few comments:
First, Stumbo should drop the VLT bull and rewrite the proposed bill to call these gambling devices by their real name: slot machines.
Second, lay person that I am, I agree with the legal reasoning of the opinion on expanded gambling issued while Stumbo was attorney general. But whether the opinion was legally correct doesn’t mean diddly. With more than 80 percent of Kentucky voters wanting the right to vote on a constitutional amendment on expanded gambling, lawmakers would be committing political suicide if they authorized slots prior to passage of such an amendment.
Third, Stumbo knows this. He knows his proposal may generate some discussion but isn’t going to pass. But he also knows that, by grabbing a few headlines just days before this Saturday’s 128th Fancy Farm Picnic, he will garner more attention there, where he and his potential rival House Speaker Jody Richards are expected to be pressing the flesh even if they’re not on the speaking program. Remember, it was on the eve of the 2005 picnic that prosecutors in his office gave the ”corrupt politic machine” filing to Franklin Circuit Court in the BlackBerry Jam investigation of hiring practices in former Gov. Ernie Fletcher’s administration.
So, Stumbo knows one other thing as well. He knows timing.
Larry Dale Keeling, a columnist for the Lexington Herald-Leader, has spent most of his 35-plus years in journalism reporting on or writing editorials and columns about Kentucky’s politics and political issues. He now brings his experience and expertise on those topics to the KyKurmudgeon blog.
How long ago was it ldk when the people voted to repeal the state motor vehicle tax? Why wasn’t it done I wonder. Nice of you to put the term corrupt political machine in a post about Greg Stumbo, the “gentleman” from Floyd.
What was it Stumbo said about poor people and slot machines? Boptrot Part Two coming up.
STUMBO AND HIS POLITICAL CAREER.
LDK, you make a good point on this subject and I tend to agree with much of what you have posted.
HOWEVER, In rides the WHITE KNIGHT on a Thoroughbred Horse. This is nothing more than a ploy to gain exposure for Representative Stumbo before he seizes the chair from Jody Richards.
I can understand some demand to re-structure the house leadership. Speaker Jody Richards has not been very affective and always leans to the conservative position, even if the facts regarding the issue prove- the stand to be out of step with the real facts of how certain issue will impact our state.
The Peabody incentive is the best example I can think of for now. Even tho Richards was advised, in writing, of the dangers of Fossil Fuel and its conversion to Oil.
Richards knew of the environmental impact but did not consider the impact it would have on the citizens who reside in around a syn fuel conversion plant.
And look who steps up with the money to assist in the experiment . . . None other than Peabody and Conoco Energy.
Richards was not able to bring the Gambling Amendment to the floor. Why? And that stung the sitting Governor and Brer Jones pretty hard.
Since additional revenue for Kentucky is tied to the sitting Governors plan of twelve blood sucking, Casinos in Kentucky, it could be this action may have been the DEATH NAIL for Richards reign in the HOUSE
Stumbo sees the Speakers vulnerability and is about to seize the moment.
Stumps play on VIDEO GAMES is nothing more than pandering to the HORSE TRACKS.
And, with Stumbos’s statement that he does not want a CASINO in his home county is just another example of DOUBLE STANDARDS to accomplish a political goal.
Jim Anderson Stivers
Frankfort, KY.
Voters passed a constitutional amendment allowing the legislature to repeal the state portion of the personal property tax on motor vehicles and motorboats in 1998. Guess lawmakers have spent the last 10 years in slo-mo.
ldk