Senate District 44 Lawmakers Split on Gambling

Senate District 44 legislators agree on much—but the three lawmakers have a range of sometimes-conflicting opinions when it comes to gambling.

Sen. Ron Latz (DFL-District 44), Rep. Steve Simon (DFL-District 44A) and Rep. Ryan Winkler (DFL-District 44B) discussed their thoughts on gambling after a man at a town hall Wednesday suggested that the state was leaving money on the table by not signing off on a casino in downtown Minneapolis’ Block E or a “racino”—a combined racetrack and casino.

Latz said he doesn’t have a philosophical opposition to gambling, noting that church basement bingo was the most dominant form of gambling for many years followed by charitable gaming. While acknowledging that some people have problems with gambling, he said he thinks the benefits outweigh the consequences and that residents are already accustomed to the practice.

“All you have to do is look at the number of seniors that hop on the buses that go down to Mystic Lake every weekend—or weekdays—around here to know how much comfort there is in this community with gambling as a concept,” he said, adding that he backs a Block E casino because it could revitalize the Minneapolis downtown.

On the other end of the spectrum, Winkler said public services should be paid for through taxation—sales taxes, property taxes and income taxes.

“Those are the stable and fair ways to do it. Gambling is not a stable source of revenue,” he said. “I don’t even like the lottery, frankly. If the lottery was coming up for a vote, I’d vote against it. I don’t think the state should be in the gambling business.”

He also argued that new casinos would just take money away from existing tribal coming—which he said isn’t fair to those casinos.

In any case, Latz and Simon both think most types of gambling are politically untenable.

“The fact is—the hard political fact is—that both racino and Block E casino have some real problems, either legal or political,” Simon said.

Electronic pulltabs are the one exception. The existence of paper pulltabs means many would see them as just a modern update to a type of already present gambling, he said.

A wrong time for a stadium

Electronic pulltabs and other type of gambling have made news recently because of their potential to fund a new Vikings stadium.

Latz said he’s not one to rule out such public investments—which is what he considers a project like the Metrodome that is used 300 days a year for a variety of activities. But he spelled out specific criteria the project would have to meet before he’d be able to support it. It would have to:

• Take advantage of existing infrastructure: Latz wants any stadium to be sited where the state has already built up infrastructure. That rules out the Ramsey County’s Arden Hills site, which is expected to need tens of millions infrastructure improvements.
• Minimize the public investment: The state shouldn’t pay for a substantial portion of the project—and it certainly shouldn’t use any general fund money, he said.
• Include a substantial private investment: Latz wants private investment to fund at least 40 to 45 percent of the project, although he’d prefer 50 percent. That investment could come from the Vikings, the Wilfs, the NFL or other private entity, he said.
• Ensure the public gets a return on the investment: Because the team’s value would increase as soon as the state made a stadium investment, Latz thinks the public should reap some of the benefits if the team is sold. He wants any deal to include a provision that would give the state a share in the revenue from any future sale. That share would decline each year until it eventually hit zero.

“So I’m OK with the concept. It depends a lot on the package,” Latz said. “I’m skeptical that I’ll see a package this legislative session that will meet the standards I’ve set forth for it.”

Speaking to a largely St. Louis Park audience, Latz noted the city used public subsidies in local projects such as the West End, Louisiana Court and Excelsior and Grand. The state gave money and loan guarantees to Northwest Airlines to keep its headquarters here, and it would probably do the same if General Mills considered moving, he said.

“We’ve already crossed the philosophical threshold of public investment in private corporate success for the public benefits that come along with it,” Latz said. “I think the question becomes is it a deal that makes sense and is the timing right.”

Those were the most generous comments about the project that the crowd heard from the legislators.

Simon said he’s a stadium skeptic who sees key differences between the Vikings proposals and the Twins stadium. The Twin use Target Field more than the Vikings would use their stadium. The state had the vanishing share that Latz wanted. Target Field was approved in a better economic climate. And it didn’t use any state money.

“Not one dime was diverted from a school or a hospital or a nursing home or any worthy expenditure for the Twins stadium,” Simon said. “What the Legislature did was authorize Hennepin County to raise its sales tax. But there was zero dollars from the state treasury. Not so for the Vikings.”

Winkler said the Vikings are a very profitable business whose value is growing every year. When the state has so many other needs, it shouldn’t be spending its money to help a private company make its assets

“I just simply don’t think it’s a priority for us to do that right now,” Winkler said. “Maybe at some time when finances are much better and a lot of other very important priorities like tuition or early childhood education or paying our kids back $2.1 billion that the state has borrowed, or when we are no longer borrowing money against future tobacco revenues to meet our basic operating expenses, or when we are taking care of people with disabilities, when maybe college professors are able to get a raise. When those things are done, then I think it’s time to have a discussion about whether the Vikings—”

Applause interrupted Winkler before he could finish his sentence.

The legislators said they don’t want the Vikings to leave but downplayed the possibility that that’s a real option for the team right now.

“I don’t think we’re in a position of build a stadium right now or the Vikings are going to leave,” he said. “I think that is a pressure or a sense of urgency that the Vikings have created in order to try to get the maximum amount of public subsidy they can. And I think we should just say, ‘No. You’re stuck here for a while.’”