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State AG argues against casinos, video poker
Tuesday, February 23, 1999 By Peter J. Shelly, Post-Gazette Harrisburg Correspondent
HARRISBURG - State Attorney General Mike Fisher yesterday told the House Appropriations Committee that riverboat casinos and legalized video poker machines in bars and taverns were bad bets for Pennsylvania.
Fisher said he might support legalizing slot machines at the state's four race tracks.
"That's the only one I might vote 'yes' for," Fisher said in an interview after he testified before the committee on his 1999-2000 budget request.
Fisher, a Republican from Upper St. Clair, spoke most vehemently against legalizing video poker machines in bars, warning of dire social consequences. He said it would create a "new gambling parlor" in every bar in the state.
"I would recommend that we not go down that road," Fisher told committee members.
Fisher also said he would vote "no" on a referendum question on riverboat casinos. He told lawmakers that the slot machine question was the only one of the three proposed ballot questions that "makes any sense at all," noting that gambling already exists at the four race tracks.
In addition to questions about gambling referenda, Fisher fielded queries from lawmakers about how the state should spend proceeds from the national tobacco settlement.
The Senate is expected to consider legislation March 8 that calls for placing three separate gambling questions on the May ballot. The nonbinding questions would gauge voter support for riverboat casinos, slots at race tracks and video poker machines in bars.
Even if one or more questions pass, the Legislature would have to enact legislation before any new gambling could take place.
The House has already passed the measure authorizing the ballot questions, and Gov. Ridge is expected to sign the bill, a spokesman said yesterday. But if the questions are to make the May 18 ballot, the Senate must act in early March.
Fisher's office will have to approve the language that will appear on the ballot. But Fisher said he would not use the approval process to stall and effectively kill the ballot measures.
If the state expands gambling, Fisher told lawmakers, his organized crime section would have a major role in deciding how businesses would be regulated and who would operate the new gambling concerns.
On the tobacco issue, Fisher reiterated that the Legislature should earmark much of the $11.3 billion settlement for health care.
The settlement has yet to win final approval because of various appeals in Pennsylvania and other states.
Fisher also told the panel that he was asking for $903,000 in next year's budget to pay the cost of reviewing complex transactions involving the transfer of nonprofit hospitals and other institutions to for-profit companies.
In 1997, the Charitable Trusts & Organizations Section reviewed 22 "hospital fundamental change transactions," Fisher said. Last year, the section conducted 41 such reviews.
Fisher said his office had discovered that approximately $10 million had been taken from 550 separate endowment funds and used as general operating funds. But he also said that there were "other facets" of the investigations that "disturb me greatly."
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