Monday, January 30, 2012

Group calls for Governor to release names of those involved in "secret meetings on gambling legislation"

For Immediate Release
January 30, 2012

LEXINGTON, KY--The Family Foundation today asked for Gov. Steve Beshear to release the names of the people involved in negotiations on the constitutional amendment to legalize gambling. "We think the Governor needs to tell Kentuckians who has been involved in the secret back room meetings to rewrite Kentucky's Constitution," said Martin Cothran, spokesman for the group.

"We think the public needs to be reassured that there were not wealthy casino interests involved in writing themselves into our state's Constitution," he said. "We need to keep corruption and cronyism out of this process."

Cothran said he thought that if horse tracks were involved in writing a bill in which they had a financial interest, it could doom the bill altogether. "This legislation is already in trouble," said Cothran. "If we were to find the fingerprints of some wealthy casino corporation like Churchill Downs on this legislation, it could drive a steak through the heart of this bill."

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7 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you have evidence of these "secret meetings" you should publicize the evidence. It would make you look much better than you do by merely asserting that there were "secret meetings".

Martin Cothran said...

Several news reports said there were "negotiations." Furthermore, these "negotiations" were not publicized, therefore, they were not public. Either they took place in person, in which case they were a face-to-face meeting, or they were conducted electronically through e-mail. It is highly unlikely that all the negotiations were conducted electronically.

Besides, if we are wrong, the Governor can just say so. It's an easy problem to settle.

Anonymous said...

So you don't have any evidence of "secret meetings".

Martin Cothran said...

How do you think they're "negotiating"?

Anonymous said...

Martin, can you tell me where the secret back rooms are located?

Martin Cothran said...

That's what I'd like to know. Are you for the Governor revealing who's been involved in writing this legislation?

Anonymous said...

How do you know the secret back rooms even exist then? Actually, the casino issue is one of the few things I agree with you over. However, I find it amazing you would make the claims you did in the press release without evidence.