Legislation allowing charity raffles questioned
NASHVILLE (AP) — Fears of how “third-party operators” would run charity events has the governor’s office attempting to slow the progress of legislation authorizing and regulating the games.
Gov. Phil Bredesen’s staff asked the House on Wednesday to delay its rapid effort to pass a bill setting up the charity-game approval process. The administration wants to review how best to regulate operators who would run the charity events for a fee. One option the administration is expected to consider is whether it would be better to ban third-party operators.
The bill has been quickly moving through the House and Senate so charities could begin holding events this year. The Legislature has to approve the list of applicants before the charity games can begin. If the Legislature does not act before it adjourns within the next few months, the games will not be able to start until next year.
Among those expected to apply are the Girls and Boys Clubs of Knoxville, which held charity duck races for years before they were declared illegal in 1997. Another major charity the Legislature is hoping to accommodate is St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis.
But repeated questions about whether the pending legislation would ensure the money goes to the intended charity prompted the administration to request time to look into it.
“We want to thoroughly review it,” Bredesen spokeswoman Lydia Lenker said. “The administration is as concerned as anybody else is with this legislation. After we look at it, we’ll make a decision whether we think it should be changed.”
Lenker refused to elaborate on the nature of those concerns, but several lawmakers and other state officials told The Associated Press the governor’s staff wanted to consider whether only the charities themselves should be allowed to run an event, as opposed to contract operators. The bill currently allows operators to take up to 40 percent of the gross proceeds.
The bills’ sponsors — Sen. Jim Kyle, D-Memphis, and Rep. Harry Tindell, D-Knoxville — met members of Bredesen’s administration Wednesday.
“They have concerns about third-party fund-raisers and what that does to the charitable environment,” Kyle said. “That’s a legitimate concern.”
Bredesen’s staff plans to present Kyle with a list of its proposed changes by Monday, when the full Senate is scheduled to begin debate on the bill, Kyle said.
The House agreed to hold its version of the bill in Finance Committee until the administration’s review is complete. Tindell says the bill could be before the full House late next week.
The administration’s worries are similar to concerns expressed by Secretary of State Riley Darnell, whose office will be charged with overseeing the charity games. Those games were authorized by the constitutional amendment approved by voters in November 2002 removing a prohibition against lotteries in Tennessee, the same vote that paved the way for the state-sponsored lottery.
Charity games can include lottery-type events, raffles and cake walks but cannot be bingo or casino-type games.
Darnell, who also attended the Wednesday meeting between the lawmakers and the governor’s staff, told a Senate committee earlier in the week the fund-raisers could be “easily controlled by criminals” because the bill doesn’t mandate criminal history checks of those conducting them.
Looming over the issue of regulating the charity games is the gambling scandal that rocked the state in the 1980s, when lax oversight allowed small-stakes bingo games to move from church basements and men’s lodges into gambling halls offering big payouts.
Professional bingo parlor operators raked in thousands of dollars a day but gave only a small share to the nonprofit groups. Some professional gamblers took over the charters of inactive nonprofit organizations and kept all the proceeds.
During a federal investigation code-named “Rocky Top,” Secretary of State Gentry Crowell and a lawmaker committed suicide. House Democratic leader Tommy Burnett was convicted and imprisoned.
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