Pa. House advancing bill on table games

HARRISBURG - The state House yesterday began advancing legislation to allow blackjack, poker, roulette, and other table games at Pennsylvania slots parlors as a way to help fill a massive budget hole.

But the measure would place such a high levy on the new games - more than a third of a casino's take - that, if passed, it appears destined for revisions in the Senate and would emerge as the latest tax-related sticking point in adopting a state budget, now 96 days past due.

The chamber debated the legislation - given the lucky number of Senate Bill 711 - late into the night on a rare Sunday session as representatives began considering dozens of amendments, one after the other.

The bill could receive House approval as early as today.

At 7:45 last night, after five hours of debate and with the start of the Pittsburgh Steelers game against the San Diego Chargers only a half-hour away, Rep. Rick Geist, an Altoona Republican, rose. He asked when the House would break for the evening, noting that many members were hoping to "attend Our Lady of the Steelers services tonight."

Majority Leader Todd Eachus (D., Luzerne) answered that he had planned to work through the game.

"I understand that football is important," he said, "but the budget is more important."

Earlier yesterday, Gov. Rendell met privately with Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R., Delaware) at the governor's mansion in hopes of salvaging a Sept. 18 budget compromise after House Democrats abandoned several key components.

The governor also hosted a 30-minute sit-down last night with House and Senate Democratic leaders.

Rendell emerged from that meeting optimistic. He reported "significant progress," but would not elaborate other than to add: "The issues are narrowing substantially."

Legislative leaders and Rendell still agree on a spending package that counts on tens of millions in new revenue from table games this year to plug a huge budget hole. But they differ greatly on how to tax the new games.

The legislation advanced yesterday calls for a 34 percent tax on revenue from all table games and a $20 million one-time licensing fee for each casino.

Pennsylvania's five-year-old casino industry argues that those amounts would severely curtail the number of table games offered and, therefore, reduce the revenue the state could count on. A tax of 12 percent and a licensing fee of $10 million - paid in two equal amounts - would maximize the state's share and job growth, the industry says.

The GOP-controlled Senate favors a tax in the teens or 20s and a $10 million license fee.

The legislation would allow horse-racing tracks with slots machines, such as PhiladelphiaPark, and the state's larger stand-alone casinos, such as the Foxwoods and SugarHouse operations proposed for the city, to have up to 200 table games each. Smaller resort licensees, such as the planned Valley Forge Convention Center, could have up to 75 tables.

During debate yesterday, the House blocked numerous GOP amendments, including several offered by Rep. Paul Clymer (R., Bucks), the legislature's most ardent gambling foe. He unsuccessfully sought to, among other things, ban ATMs from casinos and allow communities to vote on whether to expand gambling. But the chamber did endorse a Clymer amendment to increase spending on compulsive-gambling programs.

The debate got testy at points.

Rep. Kathy Rapp (R., Warren) complained that members were haggling over the bill on the sabbath.

"It is a sad day for Pennsylvania," she said, "when members of the General Assembly are called to Harrisburg to debate gaming on a Sunday afternoon."

To that, Rep. Christopher Sainato (D., Lawrence) shot back: "When you are elected to the legislature, you are expected to be here every day of the week. . . . Nothing says you have Saturdays and Sundays off."

On Friday, Democrats, who control the House, rewrote several key pages of a budget agreement that their leaders had struck two weeks earlier with Senate Republicans and Rendell.

Specifically, they passed a tax-code bill that would impose new levies on smokeless tobacco, cigars, and natural gas extracted in the state. Those options would replace a proposed tax on small games of chance run as fund-raisers by social clubs with liquor licenses and a sales tax on tickets to stage performances, museums, and zoos.

But the Democrats' proposal needed more revenue, leading them to place the higher tax and licensing fees on table games.

Senate Republicans said the House package negated their agreement and sent negotiations back to square one. Rendell said Saturday that he still backed the original deal and acknowledged that what the House Democrats had done was a setback.

The legislation debated yesterday also would provide some but not all of the changes that supporters said were required to toughen the state's 2004 law authorizing slots.