Casinos edge toward ballot despite appeal

LINCOLN -- State officials said today that they planned to quickly send casino gambling petitions to the counties for signature verification, with a place on the November ballot as the possible next stop.

Secretary of State John Gale announced plans to proceed with verifying signatures on the proposed constitutional amendment after a judge ruled Thursday that the measure could go before voters.

Lancaster County District Judge Karen Flowers ruled that the casino proposal doesn't violate the Nebraska Constitution's ban on resubmitting the same measure within three years.

Her order was put on hold hours later, however, when Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning filed an appeal with the Nebraska Court of Appeals.

Gale said he would go ahead with signature verification "to protect the petition process."

The proposed constitutional amendment needs 113,721 valid signatures from registered voters to qualify for the ballot. The casino group said it turned in 160,000 signatures.

Less than a month remains before the Sept. 15 deadline by which Gale must certify election ballots. No matter how the attorney general's appeal turns out, the petition proposal could not appear on the ballot if time runs out before that deadline.

The petition calls for up to three casinos in Nebraska, with one to be located in each of the state's three congressional districts.

Flowers ruled that the casino petition differed from proposals on the 2004 ballot. Therefore, she said, it did not violate the Nebraska Constitution's ban on submitting petition measures with the same "essential substance" within three years.

Voters in 2004 defeated a constitutional amendment that would have opened the door for casino gambling and a proposed state law that would have allowed two casinos in Omaha and 4,900 slot and video poker machines across the state.

Voters did approve a law setting out how casinos should be taxed.

Flowers concluded that the casino measures from the two election years were different. The 2004 proposal was to allow video poker and slot machines as well as casinos, she said, while this year's proposed constitutional amendment would only allow casinos.

However, Flowers said this year's companion petition runs afoul of the resubmission ban and cannot appear on the ballot. That second proposal would spell out how tax proceeds from the casinos should be used.

She said it deals with the same issue -- division of tax proceeds -- as the law approved by voters in 2004.

Her split decision was cheered by casino backers and met with dismay by gambling opponents.

"We're very sad that that judge could not see what we think is blatantly obvious," said Pat Loontjer, executive director of the anti-casino group Gambling With the Good Life.

Loontjer said the 2004 proposals and this year's casino petition are the same in that both would open Nebraska to expanded gambling. She said she hopes for a better outcome when the issue reaches the Nebraska Supreme Court.

Greg Lemon, chairman of the pro-casino Committee for Better Schools and More Jobs in Nebraska, said he was very pleased by the decision.

Lemon said he didn't know what his group would do about the ruling on the second measure. He said the group remains committed to seeing casino proceeds benefit schools, as that petition proposed.

"This opens the door to a lot of different possibilities and permutations," Lemon said. "It will take a while to sort it out."