On Friday, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled unanimously that casinos and slot-machine parlors at racetracks built and run by gaming businesses under the 2007 Kansas Expanded Lottery Act are "state-owned." The decision makes available more than $80 million in projected gambling revenues.

In affirming a lower court ruling that stretched the state law as amended, the Supreme Court decision said it was interpreting "a constitutional provision so as to carry out the intention of the citizens when they ... amended the constitution in order to provide a mechanism for raising revenues for the state and for promoting economic growth."

The amendment created the state lottery but made no mention of casinos or slot-machine parlors.

Although gambling backers claim the casinos will be not only state-owned but state-supervised, some legislators believe the current gaming law prohibits legislative oversight of the state gaming commission, ostensibly the agent for state ownership.

As Kansas Liberty reported earlier this month, Rep. Arlen Siegfried, an Olathe Republican, said that he will attempt to re-open debate during the next legislative session on the bill authorizing state-owned casinos.

Siegfried said he was disappointed but not surprised at the ruling.

Siegfried and another member of the Kansas House Joint Committee on Administrative Rules and Regulations, Republican Rep. John Faber of Brewster, are both concerned about an opinion issued in April by Attorney General Stephen Six and amplified by a warning from Assistant Attorney General Mary Feighny that trying to exercise any legislative oversight of the Kansas State Gaming Commission could put legislators in legal jeopardy under Section 30 of the expanded lottery act.

Other legislators disagree, and say they should be able to carry out their oversight without running afoul of language in the Expanded Lottery Act.

“This ruling wasn’t unexpected,” Siegfried said. “I think it’s a ruling that the court was predisposed to make.”

Kansas House Speaker Rep. Melvin Neufeld, a Republican from Ingalls, issued a statement expressing his "disappointment in the Kansas Supreme Court’s decision to uphold of the constitutionality" of the 2007 act, and ridiculed the court's assertion that it was trying to "carry out the intentions of the citizens" when they voted to amend the state constitution in 1986.

The state constitution explicitly outlaws gambling in Kansas. The 1986 constitutional amendment created an exception for a state-run lottery.

“It is disingenuous to think when Kansans voted in 1986 to create a state-owned and operated lottery and allow the sale of scratch game tickets, they were voting to allow casinos in our state," Neufeld said. "I was in the Kansas Legislature in 1986 and I can assure you that was not the intention of the amendment voters approved.  There is a tremendous difference between a scratch ticket and a slot machine.”

Neufeld said he had no disagreement that the state needs to find ways to deal more efficiently with revenues, but that running casinos may not be the best option.

“I would certainly prefer to sit down and find a way to make our state financially secure without literally staking our future on a bet,” said Neufeld. “Construction of the casinos will give us some room to breathe.  However once the casinos are operating, the potential for these predicted revenues to fall is a real concern.”

In his statement, Neufeld also noted that as the state's economic conditions worsen, discretionary spending is likely to slow. “Kansans will be deciding whether to spend $3 for a gallon of milk or put it into a slot machine. Most will chose to provide for their families. The bottom line is that we must learn to operate more efficiently, and until we do, there is no amount of gaming revenue that will keep us from digging another hole.”

Two other state representatives, Mike O'Neal and Lance Kinzer, both attorneys, said there was inconsistency between the Supreme Court's ruling on gaming, and its 2005 ruling that forced legislators to spend more on education.

"In the school finance case, the Supreme Court pointed to the 'suitable provision' terminology and determined that suitability was a specific, objective, definable term," O'Neal said. "Then today, the Supreme Court determines that the 'own and operate' language in the constitution was a subjective, vague and fluid term. So in one case the court determined that a constitutional term is an objective standard, and in the next they determine that a constitutional term is a subjective standard. That seems irreconcilable to me."

The justices on the state's high court are nominated by lawyers and appointed by the governor with no confirmation hearings or other processes allowing for public scrutiny of the appointees.

The current gaming expansion may have resulted from an earlier court decision. During the 2005 special session held to respond to the state Supreme Court's insistence that hundreds of millions of dollars be added to the state education budget, there were more gaming lobbyists in the statehouse than educational experts.

Many observers saw the increased spending mandated by the court as something likely to result in relying on gambling revenues as a way of paying for what the court insisted be spent. The then-speaker, Doug Mays, told a Republican caucus at the time that "this session is all about gaming."

The court's decision came as a response to a friendly legal challenge filed by the attorney general’s office as a means of verifying the constitutionality of the law. It was intended to reassure casino investors that they would not lose their investments if some future case questioning the Lottery Act’s constitutionality were filed.

With the legal challenge in the rearview mirror, the state can now begin sanctioning casino construction projects in Wyandotte, Sumner, Ford and either Crawford or Cherokee counties. In addition, the Woodlands racetrack in Wyandotte County and the Camptown Greyhound Park in Frontenac are now free to add slot machines.