Rhode Island Republican Party threatens lawsuit to halt sports betting

(PRESS RELEASE) -- Today, the Rhode Island House of Representatives will be considering abortion legislation approved by the House Judiciary Committee which was appointed by House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello. This abortion legislation will change state law to allow for late term abortions for vague health reasons, and repeal a law which makes it a crime to kill an unborn child when a crime is committed against the mother. Meanwhile, the General Assembly has been moving quickly to approve legislation which will allow an expansion of gambling in the form of online sports betting without voter approval as required by the Rhode Island State Constitution in Article 6, Section 22. This follows the unlawful institution of sports betting at the two state-operated casinos in Newport and Tiverton without voter approval. Simply, it was never on the ballot.

Chairman Brandon S. Bell commented: “The General Assembly has spent weeks talking about putting federal abortion rights into state law. But, during that same time, the General Assembly has refused to follow our State Constitution by seeking voter approval before expanding gambling in the form of sports gambling, and now online sports gambling. If the General Assembly wants to talk about constitutional rights, why don’t they start by following our State Constitution?

We have consulted the leading expert on Rhode Island’s constitutional voter rights requirement for new types of gambling, Joseph S. Larisa, Jr,, who agrees that “the people, not the politicians have the final say before any expansion of gambling is lawful.”

We are actively looking at a lawsuit to protect the constitutional right of Rhode Islanders to approve or disapprove by referendum whether or not they want the new type of gambling in the form of sports betting in person and on line in our state. Voters could not have approved of sports gambling in 2012 and 2016 when it voted for casino gambling, because sports gambling was illegal at that time in Rhode Island.”

Bell concluded: “The General Assembly can go ahead and try to ignore the right to life for the unborn by expanding abortion rights under state law, but they won’t be able to ignore a lawsuit to enforce our state constitutional right to vote on an expansion of gambling. The General Assembly may not care about how strongly people feel about the rights of the unborn but we know how strongly the General Assembly feels about getting more money for the budget.”