Gambling petitions fall short but casino promoters turn to the courts
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The endless push for more gambling in Florida looked on the verge of folding but casino boosters are still game for playing out one more hand in the courts.
You may have run into parking lot petition-gatherers who were pushing not one but two different campaigns to get expanded gambling onto the ballot in 2024. I know I have.
Every year the Florida Legislature makes getting an amendment on the ballot by petition harder to accomplish but gaming interests have been undeterred. Although well-funded, both campaigns failed to get enough signatures in by the Feb. 1 deadline.
A legalized sports-betting constitutional amendment pushed by DraftKings and FanDuel tried mightily but got only a little more than halfway toward the 891,589-signature goal. The effort called itself Florida Education Champions because revenues would be pledged for education. You know, just as the Florida Lottery money is. (Pause here for bitter laughter.)
Yes, once the lottery was in place, the Florida Legislature took money out of the education budget and used lottery money to make up the difference. In short, educators have for years seen the Florida Lottery as an unkept promise. The sports-betting people evidently assumed Floridians have short memories. They do, but not as short as amendment supporters hoped.
Meanwhile, to confuse the sports betting issue further, a federal district judge struck down the state's gaming pact with the Seminole Tribe last November. U.S. Department of the Interior filed notice last month that it would appeal the ruling. For now, the Tribe halted its new online sports betting service.
Casino backers seek more time
The other gambling amendment petition was aimed at setting up a casino in North Florida, probably Jacksonville. Florida Voters in Charge was heavily bankrolled by Las Vegas Sands Corp. And it managed to collect 757,036 signatures. A lot, but still well short of the goal.
Knowing it would not make it to the finish line, the group filed suit charging that supervisors of elections around the state illegally threw out signatures and slow-walked the signature verification process to its Feb. 1 deadline. The group asked the court to suspend the deadline not only until more signatures could be verified but until voters whose signatures have been rejected could have a chance to bring their signatures into compliance
"Supervisors of elections around the state have not fulfilled their duty to promptly verify signatures as they were submitted, and instead permitted a backlog of signatures to amass," the complaint complains.
Election secretaries around the state, meanwhile, have expressed surprise at having to reject an unusual number of these petitions. While not naming Florida Voters in Charge, the Florida State Attorney's Office said in a December letter that "over the past several weeks, we have received information from six county supervisor of elections offices — Duval, Gulf, Pinellas, Marion, Brevard, and Bradford — about fraudulent constitutional initiative petitions received in their offices." The office referred the complaints to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for investigation.
Not enough moving parts yet? OK, the court hearing the case last week approved adding The Seminole Tribe of Florida to the suit as an intervener. The Tribe says that should the amendment go forward and gain voter approval it would break the Tribe's existing deal with the state.
Should the court allow the petition to slip through in overtime, the amendment would still need to be approved by a supermajority of Florida voters. The same Florida voters who in 2018 passed the No Casinos Amendment with a 71% yes vote.
Has voter opinion really done that dramatic an about-face in only four years? That seems unlikely but this is the Florida electorate we're talking about, so it's not impossible.
Mark Lane is a News-Journal columnist. His email is mark.lane@news-jrnl.com
