Four years ago, Chip Brightbill helped to kill a gambling bill by warning that it was unconstitutional.

This year, all he had to do was sit on it.

The Senate majority leader, whose district now includes a chunk of northern Lancaster County, scotched the controversial slots bill by announcing on Thursday that he won’t let it come out of the Rules Committee that he chairs.

That news set off celebrations by anti-gambling forces who have been fighting a holding battle against expansion of legal gambling in the state.

But their celebrations were muted; Brightbill’s action only delays a showdown on allowing slot machines.

Brightbill and Sen. Gib E. Armstrong of the county’s 13th District predicted slots supporters will be back with another bill, probably by October.

Observers blamed partisan clashes and greed on the pro-gambling side for the collapse of their deal.

The demise of the slots bill, which the state House had passed in a marathon July 18-19 debate, also throws into limbo a property tax reform bill the House sent to the Senate – because the tax plan was financed with $1 billion in revenue from slots.

And the Legislature still has to resolve conflicts over basic school funding and cuts in aid to social service agencies and libraries.

House sources, who didn’t want to be named, said the majority GOP caucus is restive about the gambling vote, and much of the dissatisfaction is directed at new Speaker John Perzel.

But for gambling opponents, Brightbill has provided a breather, a chance to analyze the House vote and to plan strategy for the next round.

As Pennsylvania Family Institute President Michael Geer put it, “We live to fight another day.”

More to come

Almost as soon as the slots bill passed the House, in the early-morning hours of July 19, anti-gambling leaders were pointing to Brightbill as their last, best hope.

As majority leader, the Lebanon County Republican controls what bills come up for a vote, and he would be a key player in any conference committee negotiations between the House and Senate.

In 1999, Brightbill helped to send an earlier House-backed gambling bill down to defeat in the Senate by contending that the nonbinding referendum that was part of the deal is unconstitutional under court precedent.

When, on Thursday, the Senate sent the new House bill to Brightbill’s rules committee, its fate was sealed.

“This bill has come to the end,” Brightbill said Thursday.

But gambling hasn’t come to the end.

The Senate had already passed the original version of the current bill by a slender 27-22 margin. But the House, under Perzel, amended it, and even pro-gambling senators were unhappy with the result.

One Senate provision that would have barred campaign contributions from gambling interests was stripped out by the House. That move triggered a protest by Sen. Vince Fumo, D-Philadelphia, who declared the House version “dead on arrival.”

With Senate Democrats backing out, anti-gambling Republicans had a clear field to block the bill.

Insiders said the ban on contributions was an effort to keep Republicans from picking up the gambling money that now generally flows to Democrats, although Senate Republicans also liked the ban.

The House bill increased the number of slots sites from eight in the Senate proposal to 11, including two not at horse racing tracks. The original rationale for permitting slots was to save the state’s racing industry.

And it allowed slots licenses to be transferred from one owner to another without the new owner having to pay the $50 million license fee, something the Senate had required.

Sen. Armstrong, one of the leaders of the anti-gambling campaign, said he expects gambling interests to negotiate a deal with their House and Senate supporters, resolving those differences and coming back with a new bill sometime in the fall.

“They have to start over legislatively,” Brightbill agreed, and when that happens “depends on how quickly they can come together.”

“At least here in the Senate,” Brightbill said, “we have a bipartisan agreement ... that the way the House did it was wrong.”

Unfinished business

The Senate action also stalls property tax reform, which the House had linked to slots revenue.

Under separate House legislation – an amended version of a Senate GOP-passed bill pushing school districts to swap property taxes for higher wage taxes – the state would have matched property tax cuts, an average 5-to-1, with $1 billion from slots.

Without the funding stream, the bill itself is dead, senators said.

But Brightbill held out hope that a deal can be reached soon because the Senate already is on record supporting the tax swap concept.

Some Lancaster County House members, though, think the end of the tax bill could mean new life for their own pet plan, the elimination of property taxes by ending exemptions in the state sales tax and reducing the rate from 6 to 4 percent.

“This only underscores the need for real property tax reform,” said 100th District Rep. Gib C. Armstrong, Sen. Armstrong’s son.

Reps. Roy Baldwin of the 97th District, Tom Creighton of the 37th and Gordon Denlinger of the 99th also back the sales tax shift.

The Senate is scheduled to be back in session Monday. Brightbill said he expects action on education funding – the House last week sent the Senate a bill calling for a 2.8 percent increase in school subsidies – and not much else.

In March, the Legislature passed Gov. Ed Rendell’s “bare-bones” budget, which slashed $1.5 billion in spending. Social services and libraries were among the hardest-hit areas.

House members have indicated willingness to restore some cuts, and Rendell, a Democrat, is said to agree.

But there’s not much constituency for that in the Senate, Brightbill said.

“It’s impossible to restore that spending without raising taxes,” he said. “... I don’t think it will come up.”

Unrest in the House?

On the House Republican side, questions are lingering about the gambling vote. Sources said GOP members who were pressured to support the bill are angry about it, since gambling is a political hot potato.

All the county Republicans voted against the slots bill. Democratic Rep. Mike Sturla of the 96th District voted for it. On tax reform, all the delegation except Creighton voted yes.

Other legislators are wondering why they were told the slots bill was a “done deal” when the Senate wasn’t on board.

“My impression was that this was a fairly tight coalition,” Rep. Denlinger said.

Perzel, the Philadelphia Republican who recently assumed the speakership on the death of legendary Speaker Matt Ryan, may find some of his natives are restless when the House returns, possibly in early August, to finish up budget work.

Meanwhile, the grass-roots coalition fighting gambling expansion is doing a postmortem its latest victory, and mobilizing for the next skirmish.

Geer, the family institute president, who lives in Elizabethtown, and other opponents are reviewing the House votes, including procedural votes before the final passage of slots, to determine why some who voted no on the bill voted to allow amendments that might have helped slots.

He said gambling foes are grateful to Brightbill and Sen. Armstrong, but they know another round is coming.

“The appetite of the gambling industry is insatiable,” he said, “and they will always push for expansion.”

Ironically, it may have been too much expansion in the House bill that killed slots. Geer charged that lobbyists and campaign contributions drove the House legislation.

“There’s been a lot of money spread around,” Sen. Armstrong agreed.

“... They thought they had it made.”

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