The U.S. Supreme Court threw open a door last week for a brand-new industry in Maine – and every other state – by overturning the federal law that confined sports betting to the state of Nevada.
Now any state can legalize it, and many are already in the process of doing so: New Jersey, the plaintiff in the successful lawsuit, hopes to allow sports betting within a few weeks. Sadly, Maine is not in that position: we’re well behind the eight ball on moving forward with any kind of law to allow sports betting. Indeed, Maine isn’t even at the pool table as far as this issue goes.
If you’ve followed the saga in the Legislature as they tried to pass laws to implement voter referendums on everything from legalizing marijuana to ranked-choice voting, that should come as no surprise. These days in Augusta, every single issue seems to become enmeshed in gridlock. That’s a result not just of a stubborn minority party in the House, or of the governor’s recalcitrance, but of leadership in both chambers in the majority that are unable to overcome those obstacles.
This follows a pattern that we’ve seen with this particular issue as well in this state. Again and again, legislators have failed to enact comprehensive legislation governing the establishment of casino gaming. Maine has only two licensed casinos, one in Oxford and one in Bangor, and both were ushered in by referendums, not by the Legislature.
In case you’ve forgotten, the casino in Bangor was only able to open after voters approved the referendum allowing slot machines at certain race tracks. Then, voters narrowly approved the casino in Oxford, and since then … nothing.
After the York County casino referendum fortunately failed, it would have been nice to see the Legislature come together to establish a process to issue permits for future casinos. Passing those laws and having a process in place would have been the best way to keep a future sketchy casino mogul from attempting to take advantage of Maine again, but Augusta has been too preoccupied with bickering of late to accomplish anything so useful. Given that, it’s hardly a shock that our leadership couldn’t be forward-thinking enough to anticipate the U.S. Supreme Court ruling and pass legislation or at least put rules in place to govern sports betting.
It will likely be up to the next governor and the next Legislature to enact legislation governing sports betting in Maine. Of course, there’s one simple option on the table: Don’t allow it. Given the narrowness of the victories and defeats for the various referendums on casinos, there’s likely to be a large contingent of Mainers advocating for that option. They’ve long opposed gambling, and are unlikely to get on board for any expansion to it, no matter what possible benefits it may bring to the state. The open question will be how vocal and effective an argument that becomes, and whether there is a sharp partisan divide on the issue.
One would expect that socially conservative Republicans would oppose legalized betting, and that’s probably mostly still the case. There are a wide variety of Republicans who are likely to keep an open mind, though, from the more libertarian-minded ones to traditional moderate Republicans. This has been most recently evident in the debate over legalized marijuana, which attracted quite a bit of Republican support.
It would be easy to presume that the Democrats would generally support legalizing sports betting, and that might be true for the most part. There is a strong tradition amongst Maine Democrats of social conservatism as well, however, especially in rural areas, and they may well be hesitant to embrace the concept. Of late, those Democrats are probably feeling abandoned by the party’s overall movement to the left, and this may well be another issue that leaves them alienated from their own party.
Regardless of the precise partisan breakdown on the issue, the Legislature should move forward with legislation to legalize and regulate sports betting as quickly as possible next session.
We can implement a reasonable system to govern the sports betting in Maine, creating a consistent licensing process that allows for the industry to flourish and create taxable revenue. We shouldn’t make it too difficult to be a bookie, but they shouldn’t be popping up on every street corner, either.
Hopefully our future leaders can find common ground on this issue before it’s entirely taken over by special-interest-fueled citizen initiatives once again.
Jim Fossel, a conservative activist from Gardiner, worked for Sen. Susan Collins. He can be contacted at:
Twitter: jimfossel
Send questions/comments to the editors.
