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Politics

Gaming Negotiations Fall Apart, Pronounced 'Dead'

May 2, 2017 - 4:45pm
Jose Felix Diaz and Bill Galvano
Jose Felix Diaz and Bill Galvano

There will be no gaming deal in the 2017 Legislature. No slot machines for the eight Florida counties that voted for them, no change in pari-mutuel activities, no new Seminole compact. 

Sen. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, and Rep. Jose Felix Diaz, R-Miami, chairman and vice chairman respectively of the Florida Legislature Conference Committee on Gaming, released the following notice Tuesday:

"We have reached a point where we do not believe that a gaming bill with a new compact with the Seminole Tribe of Florida can be achieved before the Legislature's scheduled adjournment," Galvano and Diaz wrote. "Therefore, we regretfully request that President Negron and Speaker Corcoran dissolve the Conference on Gaming."

"We are nowhere," Diaz told reporters after the announcement.

Galvano confirmed it: "It's dead."

Failure "to bring this plane in for a landing" does not affect the budget still being negotiated. Not a dollar of the $83 billion state spending package was reliant on a signed compact.

But, said Diaz, "the Senate wanted it to pass a gaming deal with the budget or not at all" and the chambers were too far apart to do that.

In the House, "the big divide was the referendum counties," he explained, meaning the Senate wanted the eight counties with pari-mutuels that had voted for slots to have them; and House members still had reservations about gambling expansion.

Said Diaz, "The fear is, you have counties that are very small that are not very populated and they are voting and that affects their neighboring counties. With something as important in a state that has a history of allowing everybody to vote for expansion of slots, I think the House has consistently said that if you really do want gaming in these counties, maybe every voter in the state should agree."

Senate President Joe Negron, meanwhile, argues that citizens who voted for gaming in Brevard, Duval, Gadsden, Lee, Hamilton, Palm Beach, St. Lucie and Washington counties "are the same people who sent us here and I feel strongly that a gaming bill has to respect their decision to allow more gaming opportunity." 

The proposed renewal agreement with the Seminole Tribe of Florida to continue granting exclusive rights to blackjack would have given Florida $3 billion over seven years.

Look for lawsuits, lobbyists predict: What is at risk now is gambling expansion by judicial fiat.

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

Comments

As always, Galvano and Diaz both suck!

AMEN !.... "judicial fiat"?!?!?!?...OH NO,..it's left to those pesky Judges again?????? Why the hell do we need Legislators, or even Laws, when intrusive Judges are more and more "deciding our fate" all across this State and Country...(and you dear Citizen don't even have to be charged with a crime),... just "put your fate (and that of your family)" into the hands of pettifogging lawyers and Lobbys packed with even more lawyers and failed, or "termed out" pettifogging, politicians (usually ALSO "lawyers without portfolio" who couldn't even "make it" as "empty suit" politicians)-{This is, after all, where "Judges" are "formed" and "created"}. TAKE BACK YOUR COUNTRY AMERICA !.... VOTE THESE FAKERS O-U-T ! ! ! [and don't EXTEND ANY Judge on ANY ballot unless you know his every idiosyncratic flaw and foible ! ! !] ENOUGH IS ENOUGH !!!!!!! DRAIN THE SWAMP ! ! !

Once again the will of the people is violated and ignored. Lobbyists funded by "special interest" groups (Disney, Seminoles, etc ) working hard to keep tourist $$$ out of new casinos. The Seminole monopoly of "almost a real casino" continues unincumbered with competition. Vote out thecless, ineffective legislators.

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