MONROE, La. – A controversial effort to put a casino in Slidell continued to stall before the Louisiana Senate on Monday, threatening the measure’s ultimate chances of passage.
“Time is not on my side with this bill. Time is on your side,” state Sen. Sharon Hewitt told a group of casino opponents who faced off with her in the hallway after learning that her Senate Bill 213 would not be heard as scheduled by the Senate Finance Committee.
“This is a difficult decision for many people,” added Hewitt, R-Slidell. “I’m not sure we had the votes to pass it.”
Her measure would permit St. Tammany Parish voters to decide in October whether to reverse a 1996 parish-wide anti-gambling vote and allow the proposed casino in Slidell on Lake Pontchartrain. The bill also would add the site off Interstate 10 at Exit 261 to the list of locations where a casino could be established.
Hewitt’s bill barely cleared the first step in the legislative process, the Senate Judiciary B Committee, but has been held up in the Finance Committee. Hewitt said she needs the vote of Sen. Mike Fesi, R-Houma, who has been absent for the second Monday in a row.
Fesi said in a text Monday that he tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday.
Hewitt told the ministers and other religious-based conservatives opposed to the casino that she had hoped SB213 would have advanced to the Senate floor by now, during the fourth week of the eight-week session. “We’re behind in the process with this bill,” Hewitt said.
To become law, SB213 still needs approval by the Finance Committee, the full Senate, the House and the signature of Gov. John Bel Edwards.
With Hewitt’s bill now stalled, attention will now shift to a similar measure, House Bill 497, by state Rep. Mary DuBuisson, R-Slidell. The House Committee on the Administration of Justice is scheduled to hear it Tuesday, along with other bills.
Brent Stevens, the founder and chairman of P2E, is behind the effort to open the casino in Slidell. He has hired an extraordinary 19 lobbyists to win legislative approval.
One of them is Katherine Smith, whose husband, state Sen. Gary Smith, D-Norco, cast the tie-breaking vote to advance Hewitt’s SB213 out of committee two weeks ago.
Katherine Smith also represented Stevens and P2E when they tried in 2018 to win authorization to open a casino in rural Tangipahoa Parish. The Legislature refused to approve the parish election needed there.
Stevens owns the DiamondJacks casino in Bossier City, which he kept closed last year after state officials allowed casinos to reopen as they began to ease COVID restrictions. Stevens, who laid off all of DiamondJacks’ employees, is proposing to spend up to $250 million to open a new casino in Slidell.
The Legislature is directly involved in the future of P2E’s license because gambling in Louisiana is tightly regulated.
Stevens’ company has the “privilege” to one of the 15 casino licenses that were authorized under the 1991 legislation that legalized riverboat gambling in Louisiana. In recent years, the Legislature has allowed the riverboat casinos to be situated on land, but required them to operate within 1,200 feet of a waterway allowed under the 1991 legislation.
Repeating the scene of a week earlier, about 15 religious conservatives came from Slidell to Baton Rouge to speak against Hewitt’s bill, and they gathered around her in the hallway after state Sen. Bodi White, R-Central, the Finance Committee chairman, announced that SB213 would not be heard on Monday.
Hewitt said she wants nothing more than to give St. Tammany residents an opportunity to vote on what she called an economic development project that would bring jobs and investment to the parish. The ministers believe having a casino in their midst will create gambling addicts. Churches, they believe, will have to pick up the pieces of broken families that result.
“Other people get the tax benefits, while we get the consequences,” rejoined one member of the group to Hewitt.
She then said she was pushing the measure because it’s in her Senate district.
“It’s not something I asked for,” she said.
“You have a choice,” said Tom Thornhill, a former Republican state representative from Slidell. “You can decide what side you’re on.”
A minute later, Slidell attorney Josh Clayton added, “It’s not too late to repent. God’s not playing games here.”
“I have stood here with you every Monday,” Hewitt said, standing her ground. “I have met with pastors in my office. I have been accessible to you, and I hear what you’re saying.”
Those gathered around Hewitt are normally her legislative allies, something Gene Mills, the president of Louisiana Family Forum, noted, trying to tamp down the tension.
Meanwhile, Mike Noel, a former State Police commander who began chairing the Louisiana Gaming Control Board last year, said in an interview that if the Legislature does not authorize the vote in St. Tammany Parish, his board will likely ask P2E to reopen the Bossier City casino, with additional investment. If Stevens and P2E don’t want to do that, the board could ask them to return the license to the state.
“He can sell the corporate entity but not the license,” Noel said.
The state could require each applicant to pay for the right to bid on the license.
Noel said the board required Pinnacle Entertainment to return a casino license in Lake Charles about 15 years ago after the company’s board chose not to move forward with plans for the casino.
