Budget work starts NEXT week; gambling legislation update
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Feb 7, 2007 Posted by Bill Luckett
First, a correction from yesterday's blog. Lawmakers are scheduled to begin their work on the supplemental budget bill next week, not this week. I was misinformed. This is a good exemple of the constant state of flux that governs the legislative session. What ever the plan may have been five days ago is not necessarily the plan today, and things may be entirely different again tomorrow. But as of right now, the tentative plan is for the budget bill to hit the House and Senate floors on Monday.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, one day after killing the state lottery bill, the House took a more relaxed position on another gambling measure, Senate File 23, which would re-open the door to holding poker tournaments in bars, among other things. A Wyoming attorney general's opinion from a few years ago declared that such tournaments and other gambling activities - a friendly game of dice or cards with financial stakes - violated state law, because the businesses that hosted them made a profit. The profit didn't come directly from the gambling itself, but if the patrons who played the games bought the food or drinks from the establishment, technically, the business was making a profit off the gamblers. SF 23 would declare such activity to be legal. It is up for second reading in the House today.