All Aboard the Gambling Gravy Train

It wasn't their intention, but Florida Supreme Court justices' Gretna decision sure started the engine on the Legislature's 2018 gravy train. 

When the high court affirmed Thursday that the Legislature, not the voters, have the authority to decide whether pari-mutuels can add lucrative games ... 

All of a sudden it's Happy Hour for Senate President Joe Negron, House Speaker Richard Corcoran, Senate Appropriations Chair Jack Latvala, House Government Accountability Chair Matt Caldwell, not to mention the  next president and speaker waiting on deck -- in fact, any legislative leader chasing cash for a higher-office run in 2018.

“With current law upheld, the Legislature now has every opportunity to shape gaming policy for our state in a manner that respects both the authority of local referendums and the ongoing relationship with the Seminole Tribe, without the underlying concern that a court ruling could suddenly upend productive negotiations,” Negron said.

Negron reminds me of the little green Lending Tree puppet in boxers teaching his buddy how it's done: "... and the banks come crawling to me."

Gambling bills don't "die of their own weight," as former Senate President Andy Gardiner said last year. They die because government corporatism and cronyism -- lobbyists and legislators themselves -- want them to. We saw it bigtime in 2016.

Gaming interests are the gravy train. Period. Gambling bills die so legislators and lobbyists can resurrect them, inviting the roar of special-interest campaign donations for their political committees in an election year. 

At the end of the session, when lawmakers fail to enact anything, the gravy train turns from a train into a cruise to nowhere.

Remember what happened last time?

For 14 months, from November 2014 through January 2016, casino interests plowed more than $3.2 million into political parties and the campaign war chests of leading Florida legislators, starting with Negron but including dozens of others. All in the hope they would get bills passed to expand gambling in Florida.

Stakes were high. Thirty-one gaming entities lavished cash on Florida legislators, most of them committee leaders or members of committees charged with deciding their fate. Find out more about who they were by clicking here. 

You'll find Negron was the biggest gaming profiteer among legislators in 2016. He was the money king. His leadership committees picked up more than $150,000.

Thirty-one suitcases of cash scrambling for your attention? Think of it. The drama was intentional. Negron & Co. made out like bandits.  But not a single gambling bill. None. Zilch.

Sen. Tom Lee had a vivid metaphor to describe the situation. “Every time you put a gaming bill up in the Florida Legislature," he said, "it’s like throwing a side of beef into a shark tank.”

I know Bill Galvano, next Senate president and long the Legislature's point man on gaming, said the Supreme Court's confirmation of legislative authority "removes a significant obstacle in our negotiations with the Seminole Tribe," but even respecting him as I do, I still maintain, if lawmakers had really wanted a new Seminole compact, they could have had it by now.  

And the only reason they needed decoupling was to keep more individual gaming interests on the hook. In the long run, no gambling legislation is likely to pass that benefits only a handful of gambling facilities.

In fairness to Florida lawmakers, they're not the only ones who behave in this manner. Look virtually anywhere you like -- at Pennsylvania, Alabama, Georgia, Kansas -- they all find a way to keep the gravy train chugging, then derail it -- never destroy it but never allow it to reach its destination. Government has a schizophrenic relationship with gambling. It prohibits it, except where it allows it.

We're about to witness an opportunity for what you may hear Speaker Corcoran call a "transformational" gaming policy.

Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423. Twitter: @NancyLBSmith