Bill paves way for Powerball Baldacci veto ‘more than likely’

AUGUSTA – With lawmakers here still scratching their heads over the mixed message sent by voters on state-sanctioned gambling, a legislative committee Thursday passed two bills that would significantly expand the state lottery and allow video slot machines at many fraternal organizations.

“As far as the will of voters, it’s as clear as mud,” state Sen. Ken Gagnon, D-Waterville, said of the Nov. 4 referendums in which voters simultaneously approved a question allowing slot machines at harness racing tracks while shooting down a plan to build a Foxwoods-style casino in southern Maine.

Without the clear mandate from voters, Gagnon’s Legal and Veterans Affairs Committee on Thursday unanimously approved a lottery expansion bill, LD 1536, that could pave the way for Maine to join 23 other states and the District of Columbia in offering Powerball, a lottery that often offers jackpots approaching $100 million.

Maine would become the third New England state – New Hampshire and Rhode Island being the others – to offer the game, which already lures Mainers across the border to New Hampshire, particularly when the jackpots are very high.

By joining Powerball, the state could expect to receive an added $7 million in annual net revenue, according to Gagnon, who cited the need to compensate for declining revenues from the state’s current high stakes game, Tri-State Megabucks. Megabucks is projected to take a $3 million hit, Gagnon said, should the state offer Powerball as an alternative.

“If you can’t beat them, join them,” Gagnon said. “Unless we’re going to abolish the lottery, we need to make the most of it.”

But the governor’s office on Thursday warned that although the state is facing yet another budget shortfall – this time about $113 million for the current fiscal year – a lottery expansion was unlikely to find support in the executive branch.

“Powerball should not be considered a solution in balancing the budget,” said Lee Umphrey, the governor’s spokesman, who also called the prospect of the governor vetoing the legislation “more than likely.”

Like Gov. Angus King before him, Baldacci has made no secret of his aversion to gambling expansion. Leading up to this month’s election, Baldacci opposed both the southern Maine casino and, to a lesser extent at least publicly, a proposal to place slot machines at the state’s two harness racing tracks, including Bangor Raceway in the governor’s hometown.

But faced with the fairly convincing 53 percent vote in favor of the harness racing plan on Nov. 4, Baldacci has shifted his dislike for the bill from outright opposition to overt regulation, favoring the creation of the tentatively named Maine Gambling Regulatory Commission. The yet-to-be-created commission, which would assume regulatory duties from the Maine Harness Racing Commission, presumably would provide a higher level of scrutiny to applicants seeking to run slot parlors at the racetracks.

The governor also is likely to veto a second piece of gambling legislation approved by the committee Thursday, one that would allow certain nonprofit organizations, including local veterans groups, Elks clubs, Lions clubs and the Knights of Columbus, to operate a limited number of video gaming terminals.

Well aware of the veto threat, the committee nevertheless voted 9-2 in favor of an amended version of LD 1354 that increased the state’s share of the revenue from those machines from 25 percent to 35 percent.

The bill’s two opponents on the committee, Sen. Kenneth Lemont, R-Kittery, and Rep. Kevin Glynn, R-South Portland, expressed some discontent with the legislation that Glynn said gave local communities little alternative but to welcome the “minicasinos,” despite the clear anti-gambling stance of the majority of voters in southern Maine.

“I don’t think we should be pushing these down the throats of municipalities,” said Glynn, who suggested that the bill require a local referendum before a nonprofit could install the machines, only five of which would be allowed at each location.

But supporters, who passed the bill without the referendum requirement, maintained that the bill was designed to regulate a practice that already was going on in many fraternal organizations.