Vote no on Issue 6

Vote no on Issue 6

Once again, voters are being asked to place in the Ohio Constitution a guarantee of a casino license for a specific group of investors.

And once again the voters of Ohio should vote no, in this case on state Issue 6, which has come to be known as the My Ohio plan.

There are general and specific reasons behind our position.

Generally, this newspaper has opposed attempts to legalize gambling in the state. This region, more than most, has seen the scourge of illegal gambling and of public corruption. Legal gambling, with enormous amounts of money at stake, provides an atmosphere in which public corruption can too easily take root.

Also, we remain convinced that regardless of the additional tax revenue promised by casino operators, the social costs of gambling are, in the end, higher. Casino gambling is the biggest redistribution of wealth scheme ever invented; it takes from the poor and gives to the rich.

Muddying the constitution

Specifically, this proposal should be rejected because, as noted, speculators have put together a constitutional amendment that would give them — to the exclusion of anyone else — first bite at the legalized gambling apple. The casino could be built only on the land they control, land in central Ohio. Such a franchise has no place in a state’s bedrock legal document, its constitution.

There are those who say that no one would go to the expense of placing a constitutional amendment legalizing gambling on the ballot unless they are guaranteed to be the beneficiary. Why not? Aren’t they gambling men?

There are other reasons to be wary of this amendment, including, especially, a provision that if any other casino operation is ever licensed in Ohio, the tax paid by this casino would be linked to that paid by subsequent casinos. That sounds fair enough, except that if a native-American casino were built in Ohio, all bets would be off. Tying this casinos’s taxes to those of an Indian casino could drastically reduce those millions of dollars that Issue 6’s backers are promising to every Ohio county.

Issue 6 should be rejected by any voter who is truly concerned about the future of his or her Ohio.