The Senate Appropriations Committee has sent a House-passed bill on sports wagering to the floor for debate. The bill taxes proceeds from sports wagering at eight percent rather than the 21 percent rate for all other forms of gambling. Committee Chairman Dan Hegeman says there will be a substitute bill offered on the Senate floor that changes some of the provisions of the House bill.
I could have opposed this bill when it was before the committee a couple of weeks ago but decided not to do it because I’ve told this committee and House committees for about three years why the legislation written by the casino industry should be rejected—-because it does nothing or almost nothing for the state’s interests and, in fact undermines them.
The worst thing the bill proposes—so far—is a series of deductions from the taxes the casinos will pay the state. The goal, plainly stated in the bill, is to let casino accountants turn profitable days into unprofitable days and then to carry over any paper losses to the next day’s calculations. And if the accountants can show enough days were losers, then an entire month will have no revenues that can be taxed.
This is what I told the committee—with some editorial modifications because this is a column not testimony.
First: The fiscal note on this bill talks about how much the state will gain, which isn’t much, but it does not talk about how much the state will lose because of the ultra-low tax rate proposed and other factors in the bill. Eight percent of nothing is the same as 21% of nothing, and “nothing” is the goal.
The other two points unfortunately are combined.
This not only is the thirtieth anniversary year of the vote to legalize casino gambling, it also is the thirtieth anniversary of approval of term limits. This legislation represents an unfortunate combination of these two issues.
We have seen the realization of two important things that critics warned would happen if term limits were adopted.
One was that imposition of term limits would eliminate the institutional memory of the General Assembly.
Institutional memory is passed along by the Elders in any society to newcomers. It consists not only of previous experiences in what works and what does not. In the legislature’s case, it was a matter of teaching new members about traditions, practices, rules (written and unwritten), and behaviors that are essential to good governing.
It is a matter of understanding why people are “Ladies” and “Gentlemen” in the House and why the phrase, “Everyone is a Senator” is vital to the operations of the Senate. Both standards are matters of respect and based on the idea that policy is shaped by debate among equals. A debate between two gentlemen, two ladies, or a lady and a gentleman is a debate between equals. It is a matter of parliamentary discipline and political respect regardless of party, geography, color, gender, faith or any other factor.
“Everyone is a senator” is the same. Senators debate Senators. It is not us-versus-them. Senator-to-Senator does not infer that one is superior to the other.
Institutional memory used to teach respect for the understanding that today’s opponent likely will need to be tomorrow’s friend. It was a system that worked for about 175 of Missouri’s 200 years. The sad result of the loss of that memory has been played out in the Senate this year.
The third warning we heard is that after institutional memory is gone, the General Assembly would lose the structure that protects its role as the people’s policy-maker. Without that structure, without that discipline—critics warned—the power to make policy shifts to two elements that are permanent parts of government outside the chambers—the bureaucracy and the lobbyists.
The warning was that while legislators will come and go, both the bureaucracy and the lobbyists are permanent and their power grows. And so it is with this bill.
In the last five years, the gaming industry has given legislators 29 bills on sports wagering with the expectation those bills will be passed. In these five years, not one member of the House and the Senate—I haven’t counted but probably 230 or more people have served in either chamber during that time—not one member of the House or the Senate has independently introduced a bill that puts the General Assembly in charge of this issue.
Not one bill has been written by any member of the Missouri Legislature that legalizes sports wagering on the state’s terms, that asserts the General Assembly’s authority to act on behalf of the people who elected its members.
And so the warnings from 1992 have come sadly true. For five years the Missouri General Assembly has abdicated its authority—on this issue—to those who are not physically Ladies, Gentlemen, or Senators, none of whom have any responsibility for, or obligation to the people who sent you here.
And that is why you are being asked by backers of this bill to tell the people who sent you here that it is okay with you if your veterans continue to see declines in financing for their nursing homes, why it is okay with you if the state’s promise of education funding from casino gambling is broken, why it is okay with you if the cities some of you represent that play host to casinos will continue to lose thousands and millions of dollars every year because the gambling industry tells you not to update outdated laws.
It’s not too late to regain control of the process. Committee or floor substitutes, or committee or floor amendments can do it.
But the industry doesn’t want you to do it. So you have a choice.
When you go home on the evening of May 13th and you have coffee the next morning with some constituents and one asks if you did anything good here this year—what will you say?
—that you stood up for your teachers and your veterans and your home dock cities…..
Or will you say, “I voted to let you bet on a baseball game tonight.”
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Time is running short and pressure to pass what the industry wants in this election year is likely to increase. Now we will learn if the legislature has the spine to act on behalf of the people they meet at home or whether they’ll go with the people they meet in the Capitol halls.
We hope the teachers and the veterans and the college kids looking for state scholarship help, or the city leaders of towns with casinos—and even families of those who become addicted to this industry’s product—ask in these weeks before the election whether their legislator abdicated policy-making power to the people in the halls.