Video slot supporters down to last chance to get measure on Nebraska ballot
By The Associated Press
09.13.02
LINCOLN, Neb. — Organizers of an effort to legalize video slot machines in Nebraska are down to a last-gasp effort to get the issue on the Nov. 5 ballot.
Lancaster County District Judge Paul Merritt Jr. refused yesterday to put on hold his earlier ruling that the petition initiative cannot appear on the ballot. He ruled Sept. 9 that it violates a 1998 state constitutional amendment limiting initiatives to one subject.
Attorneys for the initiative's backers, the Committee for Local Control, had asked Merritt to put his ruling off so the measure could get on the ballot while they appealed his decision.
Organizers are now left only with the appeal they filed with the Nebraska Court of Appeals, which has not said whether it will hear the case.
Today is the deadline for Secretary of State John Gale to certify the statewide ballot.
The appeal could end up before the state Supreme Court, which has authority to remove cases from the Court of Appeals docket.
Steve Grasz, an attorney for Gambling with the Good Life, a group that opposes the petition, said he was pleased with Merritt's ruling.
"We are already at work on an appellate brief — regardless of whether it is needed before the election or not," he said.
Petition supporters wanted Merritt to approve a so-called "supersedeas bond," which would require them to post a bond while the issue is appealed.
Such bonds are normally used in civil cases where damages have been awarded. Had Merritt granted the bond, the measure would have been allowed on the ballot while the case worked its way through the appeals process.
"None of the parties have referred the court to any case where a supersedeas bond has been granted under similar circumstances," Merritt said yesterday.
The judge reiterated his earlier statement that the "right of initiative ... must be liberally construed to promote the democratic process."
"But those general tenets are tempered, however, by the requirement that, before the people can amend the constitution through the initiative process, they must ... comply with their own self-imposed limitations," he said.
John Boehm, one of the lawyers for the petition organizers, did not immediately return calls to his office seeking comment.
If a court ordered the initiative to appear on ballots after the absentee ballots were printed, Gale said, it would be "a significant defect" in the election since the question would not be on all ballots statewide.
The initiative's backers had submitted 178,000 petition signatures, far more than the 109,000 needed, to get it on the ballot.
In the Sept. 9 ruling, Merritt said components of the initiative — which include prohibiting the Legislature from authorizing any form of competing gambling and requiring that at least 7% of the net proceeds be used for charitable grants — violated the state's one-subject rule for initiatives.
The requirements have "no natural or necessary connection with each other and/or with the general subject of gambling," Merritt wrote.
Proponents argued that the initiative was one cohesive package that would authorize expanded gaming and specify its regulation and distribution of the money raised.
The initiative would change the state's constitution to allow video slot machines in bars, restaurants, race tracks and keno parlors, and in designated video slot parlors located within 20 miles of the border from any town in a neighboring state that already has video gambling.