The effort to expand gambling in Kentucky to include casino games at racetracks and stand-alone casinos seems poised to suffer defeat for the seventh consecutive year. Speaking on the House floor last week to the Louisville Courier-Journal, Speaker Greg Stumbo, sponsor of the latest bill to amend the state’s constitution to expand gambling, called the measures in the House all but dead.
Stumbo told the newspaper that he won’t bring either his own measure or the other one, filed by House Speaker Pro Tem Larry Clark, to a vote unless the Senate, which has consistently defeated such legislation, passes a similar bill first.
“The House ain’t gonna start it,” Stumbo said. “Why do it if the Senate’s not going to act? And history tells us that they can’t pass it. I can say beyond a doubt, that I will pledge that if the Senate were to send us a gaming amendment down here, that we would pass it in some form or fashion. So if they can pass it and they want to move it forward, send it up here. I don’t think the votes are anywhere close to being down there and the Senate needs to fess up and say they can’t pass it.”
Proponents of expanded gambling in the Senate, where one bill has been filed to amend the state constitution to allow casino games, have said they won’t move their bill unless the House acts first.
Stumbo says the standoff means the issue is dead for this session, in all likelihood.
