Florida gambling deal ignores voters. It’s another monument to Legislature’s arrogance | Editorial

They didn’t even have the grace to be ashamed.

Florida lawmakers authorized a 30-year deal with the Seminole Tribe of Florida Wednesday to allow sports betting in the state — while admitting openly that they’re trying to get around a constitutional amendment that gave voters the right to decide on any casino gambling expansion in the state.

That constitutional amendment passed back in 2018 with a remarkable 71.47 percent of the vote. On Wednesday, the Florida Legislature took that vote and essentially threw it in the trashcan.

While they were at it, lawmakers also approved a Gaming Control Commission, despite concerns rightfully raised by some legislators that the panel will be nothing more than a job for retired legislators — at $136,000 a year — and a patronage system to hire friends and relatives.

There are still some ways that Wednesday’s decision — an act of legislative disdain if we ever saw one — can be reversed. There will be lawsuits: The anti-gambling organization No Casinos has said it would challenge the agreement; Miami billionaire Norman Braman has said he would back efforts to defend Amendment 3 in court, and he’s aligned with developer Armando Codina, a major donor to Republican candidates and causes. Those are powerful voices on the right side of this issue.

Federal regulators also must approve the agreement to make sure the Tribe’s guarantee of $500 million in revenue sharing a year with the state is legal and fair to the Tribe. Under the deal, the Tribe’s Hard Rock casinos in Broward and Hillsborough counties will get the addition of roulette and craps and can build three new casinos at its existing property near Hollywood in Broward County.

If the sports-betting part of the deal doesn’t survive federal scrutiny, under the agreement, the Tribe would get to keep roulette and craps and still have to pay the state a certain amount in revenue sharing.

But the most egregious thing wrong with this deal, negotiated by Gov. DeSantis, is that it is designed to get around the Florida Constitution. It relies on the idea that sports betting — which is most definitely an expansion of gambling — doesn’t need statewide voter approval if it’s done on tribal property, and since all sports bets will be run through servers on tribal lands, that’s not breaking the law.

The legislation was fast-tracked, too, with some Democrats complaining they were locked out of the process despite the legal issues with the deal.

Lawmakers did drop one especially bad provision: They agreed to remove references in the legislation to online casino games that could turn cellphones into mobile slot machines. But they left in language that could open the door later on to casino licenses being moved to the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach and the Trump golf resort in Doral. Miami Beach has strongly opposed any casino there.

So the gambling legislation will no doubt head to court now, like so many other objectionable laws passed by this Legislature — laws that add barriers to mail-in voting, citizen ballot initiatives and protesting, for example.

Maybe lawmakers shrug all that off. After all, it’s not their money being spent to defend these bad laws. It’s ours.

But voters, ignored by their legislators and their governor, have one more form of recourse.

Mark your calendar: Election Day is Nov. 8, 2022.

This story was originally published May 20, 2021 at 5:49 AM.