LITTLE ROCK — A committee promoting a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow a private company to own and operate casinos in Arkansas says an anti-casino committee misconstrues the amendment and that the proposal wouldn’t grant an illegal monopoly over casino gambling or bar electronic games of skill already used at two existing Arkansas tracks.
Nancy Todd’s Palace and Entertainment Venues LLC made these arguments in a filing with the secretary of state’s office, responding to the Stop Casinos Now! Committee’s challenge to the legal sufficiency of the amendment Todd submitted.
Chuck Lange of Norfolk, chairman of the Stop Casinos Now! Committee and former director of the Arkansas Sheriffs Association, asked Secretary of State Mark Martin on July 16 to declare Todd’s petition legally insufficient. He contended that its popular name and ballot aren’t fair or complete and the amendment would violate federal law. Todd said in her filing Friday that the ballot title is fair and complete and the proposed amendment doesn’t violate or conflict with existing law.
Last week, the secretary of state’s office said it verified 23,616 signatures of registered voters on Todd’s petition and gave Todd until Aug. 22 to collect the other signatures to meet the required 78,133 for the measure to be placed on the ballot, where voters could adopt it or reject it in the Nov. 6 election.
Todd estimated Monday that roughly half of the other 55,000 or so of the needed signatures of registered voters have been collected since its initial petition was submitted to the secretary of state’s office on July 6.
She said she expects supporters of the amendment to collect enough signatures by Aug. 22 to qualify the proposal for the ballot.
The Stop Casinos Now! Committee’s challenge to Todd’s proposed amendment is the second challenge to the proposal filed with the secretary of state’s office. Nearly two weeks ago, Martin denied a challenge by Elizabeth Williams of Little Rock, who gathered signatures on a petition for Texas businessman Michael Wasserman’s unsuccessful proposed amendment to allow his company to operate casinos in the state.
In his filing, Lange argued that the proposed amendment provides that only Todd can conduct casino gaming in Arkansas and bars the General Assembly and all political subdivisions of the state from regulating Todd’s casino gaming operations.
Voter approval of the proposed amendment “will allow Nancy Todd to gain unregulated 100% control of casino gaming in the state; shut down any business currently conducting wagering on electronic games of skill pursuant to the EGS [Electronic Games of Skill] Act ....; and leave only one ‘competitor’ in the state’s casino gaming market - Nancy Todd,” according to Lange.
But Todd countered that Lange’s group “makes sweeping simplistic allegations” in support of its argument that the amendment would grant Todd an illegal monopoly over casino gambling.
She said the relevant geographic market includes Shreveport, Roland, Okla., and Tunica and Greenville, Miss., as well as Hot Springs and West Memphis, and there are at least 15 places to gamble in this area.
Todd said Oaklawn Park and Southland Park are potential competitors of the four casinos that would be authorized under the proposed amendment and the Stop Casinos Now! Committee is financed by Southland Park’s parent company and has substantially outspent her group.
In his filing, Lange contended that the popular name and ballot title of Todd’s amendment are misleading about the number of casinos that Todd would be allowed to own and operate.
While the proposed amendment provides that having a casino in Crittenden, Franklin, Miller and Pulaski counties “shall be considered an appropriate land use,” Lange maintained that there is nothing in the proposal to restrict Todd to those four counties.
But Todd replied that the amendment authorizes casino operations in only four counties with only one casino operating in each county “regardless of whether the state can enact legislation regulating casino gaming.”
Lange contended in his filing that voters are not informed that the proposed amendment would repeal the Electronic Games of Skill Act.
But Todd said the Electronic Games of Skill Act is not inconsistent or in conflict with the proposed amendment.
“If the amendment’s purpose or intent were to ban the operation of electronic games of skill by dog racing tracks or horseracing tracks in Arkansas, it would expressly state that purpose or intent,” she said. “It does not.”
Nancy Todd’s Poker Palace and Entertainment Venues LLC is one of three committees promoting the proposed constitutional amendment. The two other committees are called Arkansas Counts and Arkansas Development LLC.
The three committees have reported raising $241,765 and spending $217,958. Evergreen Investments of Lebanon, Mo., has provided $195,000, and SKAP Investments of Branson, chipped in $30,000.
The Stop Casinos Now! Committee has reported raising $599,090 and spending $547,262 with all its funds provided by Delaware North Cos. of Buffalo, N.Y., the parent company of Southland Park.
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 07/31/2012