BOISE — Gov. Dirk Kempthorne's initiative to resolve years of debate over the legality of electronic gambling machines in reservation casinos was killed on Monday by the state Senate.
Critics called the effort to legalize the machines a thinly veiled attempt to skirt the constitutional ban on slot machines. The governor's allies also lost key votes because the bill, which capped the machines on northern Idaho reservations at their present level plus 15 percent over 10 years, allowed the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes in eastern Idaho to increase their machine total from barely 400 to 2,300.
On a 19-16 vote, the Senate sided with Republican Floor Leader James Risch of Boise, who warned that approving the compacts would sell Idaho "into the harlotry of casino gambling."
Kempthorne, who invested a significant amount of political capital in the issue, rejected suggestions by his critics that he failed to cut a good enough deal for the state or impose sufficient limits on the spread of the machines, which now total around 3,500 statewide.
"The irony is there are no limits again on any tribe," the governor said just moments after the Senate vote.
"We put in limits, and now no tribe will have limits," he said. "So much for the idea that this was a pro-gaming bill."
The issue, he said, will now be settled by the federal courts, predicting that it will be a decade before there is any definitive answer. That will be 10 years, he warned, that existing reservation gambling operations will grow unrestricted.
None of those restrictions exists in the current compacts with the tribes.
Until the recent policy change, the state maintained that the machines were slot machines banned by the constitution. The tribes claimed they were only electronic versions of the state Lottery and therefore legal under federal law.
The Shoshone-Bannocks, which signed a compact last year leaving the issue of the electronic machines to the courts, were brought into the deal by amendment last week. But it was not enough to sway previous supporters like Republican Stan Hawkins of Ucon.
"Containment in lieu of a court case is acceptable," Hawkins said, "but this bill doesn't contain anything in eastern Idaho."
Risch, who was passed over by Kempthorne in January for appointment to lieutenant governor to replace Congressman Butch Otter, emphasized that the state's record in court against the tribes on gambling is perfect at four wins in four cases. And he predicted the state will win again in the latest round of legal wrangling.
Others, the staunchest anti-gamblers among them, were not so certain the state would ever end the casino operation.
"It is going to continue to exist," Judiciary Chairman Denton Darrington of Declo said. "The question is is it going to exist fenced in."