Lottery Official Posing as Reporter Questioned Foes of Giant Jackpot

As state Lottery officials struggled to explain why one of their workers posed as a reporter to get information on a lawsuit challenging California’s enrollment in Mega Millions, a senator proposed a law Tuesday to sanction participation in the giant-jackpot game.

Kim Smith, the lottery’s liaison to the Legislature, acted on her own last week when she described herself as a “freelancer” at a news conference called by gambling opponents who filed the suit, lottery officials said. Holding a tape recorder, Smith asked “probing legal questions” of the director and past director of the California Coalition Against Gambling Expansion, coalition attorney Fred Jones said.

The coalition had sued the lottery a day earlier, asking a Sacramento County Superior Court judge to shut down Mega Millions in California until lawmakers or voters authorized participation in the multi-state game.

Jones said he got the impression that Smith “didn’t really have intentions of misrepresenting herself.”

“I think she came over to gather intelligence and got caught up in the moment,” he said.

Lottery spokeswoman Rosa Escutia said it is common for agency officials to attend news conferences on lottery issues, but they typically identify themselves as employees. Smith attended the news conference as part of her job duties, Escutia said, “and ... nobody directed her to make that statement that she was a freelancer.”

“She is very, very apologetic about the whole incident,” Escutia said.

State Sen. Dean Florez (D-Shafter), who has questioned the lottery’s authority to join Mega Millions, called Smith’s behavior a “no-no” and said it was a sign that the lottery was “dysfunctional and secretive.”

Florez said he would use a common “gut and amend” maneuver to slip into an unrelated bill a proposal that would make it clearly legal for California to join Mega Millions.

The attorney general and the Legislative Counsel have split on whether the 1984 initiative that created the lottery allows it to join a multistate game without the approval of the Legislature or voters. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s three appointees on the Lottery Commission voted in February to join Mega Millions, saying it could boost lottery sales by $300 million to $500 million a year.

The California lottery sold more than $3 billion in tickets in the fiscal year that just ended.

Florez’s proposal would give public schools 45 cents -- up from the current 34 cents -- of every dollar generated in lottery sales. The lottery ought to be able to manage that, he said, because it is sharing the cost of administering Mega Millions with 11 other states.

“I believe that given that we’re bringing most of the money -- most of the jackpot -- most of the folks to the game, we shouldn’t pay equal in terms of marketing,” Florez said. “We think the other states should step in and do something for California.”

His measure would ban California from joining an international lottery or Internet-based lottery without voter approval.

Escutia said lottery officials were “receptive to any recommendations” from Florez but hadn’t had the time to scrutinize the legislation.

Also in the Senate on Tuesday, a committee revived a bill to legalize same-sex marriage that was defeated in the Assembly last month. With hundreds of opponents from Sacramento-area churches milling in the hallway outside, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the measure 4 to 1.

If the bill passes the Senate, it will return to the Assembly, where its prospects are uncertain.

Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) carried the bill that fell six votes short of passage in the Assembly on June 2. The chamber’s 32 Republicans voted against it, joined by several Democrats. Seven more Democrats refused to vote either way, which has the same effect as a “no” vote.

Now Leno is trying to build momentum in the generally more liberal Senate. He gutted a marine-research bill that had already passed the Assembly and was awaiting a hearing in the Senate, and changed it to match the measure the Assembly killed.

It would define marriage in state law as a civil contract between two persons, instead of between a man and a woman.

“I think this is the civil rights issue of the day,” said Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica).

Tuesday’s hearing on the bill drew an overflow crowd from Sacramento-area Slavic Christian churches to a small room in the Capitol.

Many parents brought their children and spent hours in the hall before being able to enter the hearing room.

Few opponents had a chance to tell lawmakers anything but their name and position on the bill. The committee chairman, Sen. Joe Dunn (D-Santa Ana), limited testimony on all bills to four people: two in support and two in opposition.

A woman who gave her name as Susan and darted into the crowd immediately after her testimony, drew an outburst of applause when, her voice wavering with emotion, she told lawmakers: “You are not going to be able to legislate marriage between two of the same gender. It is not possible.... The truth speaks here today: Marriage is God’s holy institution, and no one should forget that.”

Randy Thomasson, president of the Campaign for Children and Families, told lawmakers that Leno’s bill “disrespects” the more than 60% of California voters who passed Proposition 22 in 2000, which states that only marriages between a man and a woman are recognized in California.

He said Leno’s bill would help build support for an initiative that opponents have vowed to put before voters next spring to ban same-sex marriage.

Leno’s bill must clear the Senate Appropriations Committee and the full Senate before going back to the Assembly for another vote.

Geoffrey Kors, executive director of the gay rights group Equality California, said momentum in favor of the bill has built since the last Assembly vote, with the Los Angeles City Council, the United Church of Christ and the United Farm Workers of America voting to endorse it.

“As people focus on it more,” Kors said, “I think we have the possibility of bringing it back to the Assembly and getting it through.”