01:01 AM EDT on Friday, June 2, 2006

BY KATHERINE GREGG
Journal State House Bureau

PROVIDENCE -- Barring another successful court challenge, voters will get a chance on Nov. 7 to revise the state's Constitution to provide exclusive casino-gambling rights to the proposed Harrah's-Narragansett Indian casino in West Warwick.

The resolution cleared its final State House hurdle when, after about an hour and a half of debate, it won Senate approval on a 23-to-13 vote. Efforts to bring competitive bidding to the license award failed by what, in the end, was a one-vote margin.

Minutes after the vote, Republican Governor Carcieri issued this statement: "I'm very disappointed that the Senate decided to approve this no-bid, sweetheart casino deal for Harrah's. I have consistently argued that casino gambling is a bad idea for Rhode Island. A privately owned casino will undercut state revenues from Lincoln Park and Newport Grand, destroy local businesses and jobs, increase the potential for public corruption, and hurt Rhode Island families by escalating the incidence of gambling addiction."

But as a joint resolution, the measure is that rare form of legislation that does not have to cross Carcieri's desk -- so it is not subject to his veto.

Matthew Thomas, the Narragansetts' chief sachem, said he was "delighted" by the vote, which marks one of the high points in his 2,400-member tribe's never-ending quest, since a 1994 defeat at the polls, to join many of its Indian brethren in the gambling business.

"We're delighted that obviously this is going to go to the people, where it belongs. And at the end of the day, we hope they pass it so we can put people to work and help our tribe as far as education, housing and getting some of them out of a life of poverty," he said.

But after coming this far two years ago, only to be thwarted by a legal ruling, Thomas said he is not overly optimistic and would not be surprised by another legal challenge.

HARRAH'S HAS PROPOSED building a 12-story, 500-room hotel and 140,000-square-foot casino -- with 3,500 slot machines, 50 poker tables and 100 other game tables -- on 86 acres of non-tribal land off Route 95 in an industrial park in West Warwick.

Yesterday's Senate debate pitted those touting the potential $1-billion investment and 3,800 new casino jobs against those who decried the use of the state's Constitution to provide exclusive rights, without competitive bidding, to the nation's largest casino-operating company.

Reciting the long and tangled history that led to last night's vote -- including the 1996 move by Congress to exempt the Narragansetts' South County settlement lands from the gambing rights given other tribes on their own land -- Sen. Stephen Alves, D-West Warwick, said: "Once and for all, let's let the people decide."

Alves dismissed Donald Trump's attempt to put in a competing bid for a casino in Johnston as "long on promises, short on details."

But Sen. Joseph Polisena, D-Johnston, asked his colleagues, "How you can face your consitutents" after closing the door on competition.

"I can hear from here, out in Las Vegas in the Harrah's boardroom, the laughter about getting a casino license without a bid -- all the way to Las Vegas. What a shame," said Sen. Leonidas Raptakis, a Democrat whose meandering Senate district includes the West Warwick ward where the casino would be located.

Sen. J. Michael Lenihan, D-East Greenwich, said he was troubled that the no-bid proposal was headed to voters before the General Assembly had nailed down critical details, such as the tax rates and license fees that Harrah's, which offered $520 million up-front in another state, was willing to pay here.

Assuming voters approved the loosely sketched casino proposal, who then would "construct such a deal?" Lenihan asked rhetorically. "The General Assembly . . . [and] our trust quotient isn't exactly at an all-time high with the electorate right now."

But while Lenihan talked about the "cloud of distrust" that any such after-the-fact deal would forever generate, Sen. Harold Metts quoted the Bible: "Withhold not good from them to whom it is due."

Metts, D-Providence, said he is "aware of the economic upheaval to families when the bread winner has a gambling addiction and loses the rent money to . . . a giant corporation." He said he is also "aware how plush the casinos look in Atlantic City, while the neighborhoods outside their walls are ghettos."

But he said his family lineage is not only African-American and Cape Verdean, but has traces of three Native American tribes: Wampanoag, Niantic and Cherokee. "Every part of my roots has had to face oppression in one form or another . . . Have we forgotten the genocide perpetrated against the Narragansett Indians in 1675 during the Great Swamp Massacre?"

"While we will never be able to fully correct the past injustices done to the Narragansett Tribe, we can at least make amends," said Metts, describing his vote for the casino referendum as a vote "against injustice."

ALONG THE WAY to the final vote, the Senate defeated, 29 to 6, Raptakis' attempt to make the casino operators commit $1 for every man, woman and child in Rhode Island -- a potential $1.04 million -- to treatment for problem gamblers.

Polisena's attempt to introduce competitive bidding failed on an 18-to-16 vote that got even closer after Senate Minority Leader Dennis Algiere, R-Westerly, asked after the fact if he could change his nay vote to "yes." The final vote on competitive bidding: 17 to 16. Polisena, however, voted with the majority to put the casino question before voters.

The final tally fell along largely partisan lines with only a handful of the Senate's Democrats -- including the two running for statewide office: Elizabeth Roberts and Frank Caprio -- joining the Republicans in voting against the referendum. Roberts is running for lieutenant governor and Caprio for state treasurer.

After the session, an angry Senate President Joseph A. Montalbano told reporters that late yesterday he gave the state Ethics Commission amended copies of the yearly financial statements he has filed since 2003 to reflect, for the first time, that he has been paid legal fees by the town at the center of the casino debate: West Warwick.

He said again that the omission in disclosure was inadvertent, as he had a day earlier when questioned by The Providence Journal about the $86,329 his law firm had been paid by the town since 2003. He said he was hired by the town manager to "perfect titles" so the town could take clear possession of 14 tax-delinquent properties.

But he lashed out at the newspaper for saying he was on the town payroll. He said the billings will show that much of the money he was paid covered filing fees of $160 and other expenses. He said he did no work connected to the casino, but could not say if his work extended to two lots in the industrial park where the casino would go.

With reports by Staff Writer Scott Mayerowitz

kgregg@projo.com / (401) 277-7078

How they voted

Yes:

Alves, Badeau, Ciccone, Connors, DaPonte, Doyle, Felag, Fogarty, Gallo, Goodwin, Issa, Lanzi, Levesque, McBurney, McCaffrey, Metts, Montalbano, Pichardo, Polisena, Ruggerio, Sosnowski, Tassoni, Walaska.

No:

Algiere, Bates, Blais, Breene, Caprio, Cote, Gibbs, Lenihan, Perry, Raptakis, Revens, Roberts, Sheehan.

Absent:

Damiani, Paiva Weed.

EXTRA: Recap the route casino proposals have taken in Rhode Island, and share your opinion now on the upcoming ballot measure, at:

http://projo.com/extra/2006/casinovote/