The decision by the West Virginia Family Foundation, a conservative Christian activist group, reverses an earlier position. After June 9 elections yielded mixed results in two counties, President Kevin McCoy said he would wait on the outcome of the other elections before pursuing further court action.

But the board of directors decided over the weekend to file a federal lawsuit within three weeks, he said. The foundation won’t attempt to stop two upcoming elections.

Hancock County will vote June 30 on table games for Mountaineer Racetrack and Gaming Resort in Chester, while Kanawha County weighs them for Tri-State Racetrack & Gaming in Nitro on Aug. 11.

Voters in Ohio County approved table games for Wheeling Island Racetrack and Gaming Center on June 9, making West Virginia the 12th state to have a full-fledged casino with slots and table games.

Voters in Jefferson County, however, rejected table games at the Charles Town Races & Slots. State law prevents its parent, Penn National Gaming Inc., from seeking another referendum for two years.

The lawsuit will be the foundation’s second. In late May, the state Supreme Court of Appeals declined to hear a challenge of the table games law.

That lawsuit argued table games were unconstitutional because they were never envisioned under the lottery system, which was created by constitutional amendment.

“We think the decision the state Supreme Court made was erroneous. It was political, and they put revenue above the rule of law,” McCoy said.

The federal case will repeat some previous arguments and contend that legislators created an artificial control by declaring table games the intellectual property of the state.

Intellectual property ownership is governed by federal, not state law, McCoy argues. “It’s nothing more than trademarks and patents and that kind of thing. It’s a ruse and a fiction,” he said.

Table games were not invented by West Virginia, he said, and therefore cannot be owned and controlled by the state.