Published: August 06, 2007 11:39 pm   

Group won’t appeal table games law to U.S. Supreme Court

Mannix Porterfield
Register-Herald Reporter

Faced with certain defeat if they tried to pursue it, the West Virginia Family Foundation has abandoned its effort to haul the Legislature into federal court over the new casino gambling law.

Ray Lambert, the group’s president, said the decision was reached after extensive consultation within the past month with Lewisburg attorney Barry Bruce and his staff.

“Our attorneys have advised us we should not go forth with a federal lawsuit,” Lambert said Monday.

Already, the conservative Christian organization suffered a major legal setback when the West Virginia Supreme Court, by a 3-2 decision, refused to hear its case against the 2007 law.

Under that act, one that divided the Legislature the past three years, counties with horse-and-dog track counties may offer casino-style gambling, provided it is approved by voters in each county.

Jefferson County voters rejected the idea, but Ohio and Hancock counties subsequently approved table games, leaving one last election — this Saturday — in populous and seemingly divided Kanawha County.

“They believe now that we would not be successful in federal court,” Lambert said, acting on Bruce’s advice.

Bruce had filed the extensive lawsuit in state court against the gambling legislation.

“Further research shows that federal courts seldom step into state issues, even on voters’ rights or when state finances are involved.”

What’s more, Lambert said, exhaustive research left the Family Foundation with little encouragement.

“We found that the laws we hoped we could use were not in place,” the Beckley resident said.

Admittedly, the setback in the state Supreme Court and the apparent futility of pursuing the matter at the federal level have left the group extremely displeased.

“We hate to lose, especially in a politically charged case like this that we believe will have negative impacts, for families in particular,” he said.

The Family Foundation put up a rigorous lobbying effort last winter in hopes of killing the measure, using witnesses at a public hearing in the House chamber to testify about the dark side of casino-style gambling.

Some told of domestic squabbles prompted when the paycheck was squandered on gambling, and others told of family members turning to serious crimes, such as robbery, to make up lost income.

“We cannot gamble ourselves into prosperity,” Lambert said. “No individual in the state can either.”

Lambert said the state court delivered “a great injustice” by refusing to give the foundation a hearing before the five justices.

“And that was the death knell for our efforts to overturn the act,” he said. Lambert said it is possible to have a bill offered in the 2008 legislative session seeking to void the act, but doubts this would get anywhere.

“With the present makeup of our Legislature, in my opinion, it would be a waste of time,” he said. “More conservatives need to be elected if our state has any hopes of coming out of the financial pit that we find ourselves in. Our liberal Legislature and governor have hung another millstone around the necks of West Virginians, who already are having a hard time making ends meet.”

Lambert characterized casino gambling as “a regressive tax that hits a segment of our society, which is ill-equipped to gamble in the first place.”

The foundation leader predicted a plague of ill effects — bankruptcies, suicides, divorces, broken homes, child abuse and neglect — all “fostered by gambling addiction.”

Unable to file the federal suit, the foundation is accelerating its efforts to defeat the issue in Kanawha County, using its Web site, www.wvfamily.org, to make computer printouts to pass out at the polls this weekend.

“We think it will be a close vote,” Lambert predicted.