Committee resolves differences in charity gambling bills
NASHVILLE (AP) — Lawmakers are expected to send Gov. Phil Bredesen compromise legislation Monday that would allow Tennessee charities to hold gambling fund-raisers this year.
On Thursday, a committee of Senate and House members worked out differences between the two chambers on the bill that would allow eligible charities to have a limited number of raffles, duck races and other such events.
The committee report will be sent to the chambers for a vote Monday. Sponsors are hopeful the bill will be approved and the governor can sign it into law later in the week.
“This is clearly a piece of consensus legislation if there ever was one,” said Sen. Jim Kyle, D-Memphis. “It isn’t exactly what I wanted when I started. It isn’t exactly what anybody wanted when they got into it. On the other hand, I think it’s a solid document and a solid beginning.”
The charity fund-raising games were allowed by the constitutional amendment voters adopted in November 2002, which also opened the way for the state lottery.
Lawmakers have been trying to make sure the bill won’t invite corruption like that experienced with charitable bingo, which resulted in an investigation known as Rocky Top, indictments of various officials and the suicide of the secretary of state in the 1980s.
Bredesen said Thursday he was pleased the compromise bill includes “virtually all of the things that I wanted to see as protections in place so we didn’t repeat the Rocky Top scandal.”
It provides authorization for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to look into potential criminal offenses and the operations of the secretary of state’s office, which would be responsible for assessing civil penalties.
The constitutional amendment itself prohibits bingo and casino games.
The bill requires charities to apply by April 20 to have fund-raisers this year and gives the secretary of state’s office until May 4 to determine which ones are eligible. Then lawmakers must vote by a two-thirds majority to approve a list of eligible charities.
“This is really a giant leap as far as coming to a compromise,” said John D. Lee, president and chief executive of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Knoxville, who wore a lapel pin and tie featuring yellow rubber ducks at the committee meeting.
They symbolize the duck races he hopes to resume in August that raised about $150,000 a year until a state attorney general’s opinion that they were unconstitutional lotteries put a stop to them in 1997.
A major compromise on the bill will allow St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis to raffle off houses in the state’s three grand divisions on the same day. That’s a way around the constitutional amendment, which says charities can hold only one gambling fund-raiser per year.
Committee members also compromised on how many events could be held at a particular location, opting for two per month.The Senate had permitted two per week while the House had limited it to one per month.
The bill also requires that at least 25 percent of the gross proceeds of an event go to the sponsoring charity.
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On the Net:
See Senate bill 3212/House bill 3250 at http://www.legislature.state.tn.us/