Federal Panel to Urge Halt to New Gaming

The federal commission created to study the proliferation of legalized gambling voted Wednesday to urge state and other policymakers to consider a moratorium on new casinos, lotteries and other gaming until more is learned about the human and social costs.

But the 5-4 vote, and the emotion-charged debate that accompanied it, laid bare the deep divisions that exist not only within the commission but in the larger society over the costs and benefits of widespread gambling.

The commission’s recommendations are not binding. Moreover, they are in the drafting stage and can be revised before the panel’s charter expires in late June. And the sticking point that led to Wednesday’s vote--the sharpest open division since the commission began in 1996--was not over whether to urge a possible pause on expansion of gambling; rather, it was over a proposal to add further language saying expansion might be justified in some places.

Nonetheless, undercurrents of disagreement and even antagonism ran so strong beneath the commission’s normally amiable surface that when compromise efforts on the moratorium proposal broke down the result was a spate of dire warnings about the road ahead.

Some members declared it could mark the end of their efforts to reach consensus. Others warned that the panel now might be unable to agree on a final report of any kind, though producing such a report was mandated by Congress when it created the commission.

“I don’t think there is going to be any report here unless it is balanced,” commissioner John W. Wilhelm, who voted against the moratorium, declared in a blistering speech afterward. Wilhelm heads the labor union that represents many casino workers.

“I can see impatience on the faces of some of my fellow commissioners, and, frankly, I don’t care now,” he thundered in a voice that rocked the small meeting room in Washington’s Hall of the States.

“We’re way off track here,” Wilhelm said. He accused a majority of commissioners of giving short shrift to the jobs and other economic benefits he said gambling facilities have brought to some depressed areas.

On the other side of the issue, commissioner James C. Dobson, president of the Focus on the Family organization and a prominent religious conservative, warned that failure of Wilhelm and others to support what Dobson considered extremely mild language on the moratorium issue could reduce prospects for compromise on future issues.

“If it’s going to come down to how many votes you’ve got, there will be less motivation to try to find common ground,” Dobson said. “I’m very surprised such a bland statement produced that much controversy. We’re approaching the finish and people are starting to dig in.”

Dobson held out hope for a return to consensus, however, saying “everything is open until it’s over.”

Likewise, commission chairwoman Kay C. James, who served in the George Bush and Ronald Reagan administrations and is now dean of the Robertson School of Government at Regent University, predicted the panel will finally reach consensus on a range of issues. “Any reports of our early demise are greatly exaggerated.”

Still, an effort by James and others to broker a new compromise and to bring the moratorium issue up for another vote after the lunch break Wednesday came to naught, even though commissioners on both sides recognized that division would reduce the effect of the panel’s work.

The commission was created by Congress in 1996 in response to widespread complaints from religious and other leaders over the proliferation of lotteries, casinos and other forms of gambling.

In 1976, the last time a federal commission looked at gambling, only two states permitted off-track parimutuel, only Nevada had casinos, and 13 states operated lotteries. Since then, the number of state lotteries has soared to 37, plus the District of Columbia, 21 states have casino gambling and legal waging of some kind is conducted in every state except Utah and Hawaii, according to commission research.