New Hampshire state Senator Lou D’Allesandro is not a man who gives up easily. For twenty years he has attempted to pass a casino bill in the Granite State. One time he came within one vote in the House of passing it.
This year it failed on a vote in the Senate of 11-10.
During the debate that led up to last week’s vote the senator declared that if he lost he wouldn’t be bringing it back again next year.
In New Hampshire gaming isn’t really a partisan issue. You find lawmakers from both parties on both sides of it. D’Allesandro is a Democrat but one of the most passionate supporters of his bill this year was Senator Harold French, a Republican.
Before the vote French said, “We have a problem facing us. For twenty years we’ve had the opportunity to pass this great bill, twenty years I’ve been going to Foxwoods, all the way to Connecticut, to lose my money. … We really do have an opportunity here to pass this. I believe that the good senator is not bluffing when he’s holding his cards and saying this will be the last time he will put it in.”
Supporters of the bill say the state has lost about $1 billion in tax revenues over those two decades. The bill would have authorized two licenses that developers would pay $40 million apiece for. One analyst projected that the state would collect up to $150 million a year in taxes.
An opponent of the bill, Senator Martha Fuller Clark, said the casinos would cannibalize existing recreational opportunities in the state and harm the state’s tourism appeal.
Clark said, “As individuals, we only have so much time and so many resources to take advantage of that time. This would suck so much revenue out of other elements of our economy.”
The New Hampshire Lottery Commission had estimated that it would lose about $6 million a year if the casinos were authorized.
The bill was not killed in the vote, but was tabled and might be revived later in the current session.
