Hoping to put more arrows in its quiver for a challenge of the table game law, the West Virginia Family Foundation is going to the pews, the board rooms and directly to individuals with a special survey.

Before filing its suit, the conservative Christian group wants 50,000 signatures from voters saying casino gambling never crossed their minds when voting on the 1984 lottery amendment.

And that is the heart of its case — a contention the lottery amendment cannot be used as the basis to legalize table games, and thus, the Legislature’s bill cannot pass constitutional muster for that very reason.

“We want to have the signatures in hand to present as evidence that the average voter in 1984 were only voting for a lottery and in their wildest imaginations, did not encompass table games,” the group’s president, Ray Lambert of Beckley, said Friday.

“This would refute the claims of our pro-gambling legislators and gambling promoters that West Virginia voters approved casino table games when they passed the lottery amendment in 1984.”

Special elections are planned June 9 in the four affected dog-and-horse track counties of Jefferson, Ohio, Hancock and Kanawha.

Just what approach the foundation will take through its attorney, Barry Bruce of Lewisburg, remains to be seen.

There has been talk of seeking injunctions to block the special elections while the larger question of the table legislation signed by Gov. Joe Manchin is taken up by the West Virginia Supreme Court.

Lambert said the group is distributing surveys to churches, businesses, and individuals as a means of increasing its evidence in a planned lawsuit.

“How they voted, for or against the lottery, doesn’t matter,” he said.

“We believe that the vast majority of all state voters believed that they were voting just for a scratch-off lottery, and not opening up ‘Pandora’s Box’ to unlimited, uncontrollable casino gambling.”

No timeline has been set on the actual filing of its case, although time is becoming critical with the special elections already scheduled in the track counties.

“We don’t have a date to say when we’ll be at the courthouse steps,” Lambert said.

“But we’ve got good information. The time we spent researching this has strengthened our case greatly.”

Confidence is just as strong within the West Virginia Racing Association, whose president, John Cavacini, said his group welcomes the legal challenge.

“We feel confident and we feel comfortable that the table games bill, when it was written, was written on sound constitutional grounds, and our lawyers are prepared to defend that,” Cavacini recently told The Register-Herald.

The foundation announced plans to sue the Legislature on the final night of the session, March 10, indicating it would also pursue other reasons besides the constitutional issue, including the societal impacts of more sophisticated gambling.

“The devastation of gambling addiction and the negative impact upon West Virginia reaches far beyond the borders of these four counties,” Lambert said.

“That’s why all West Virginia voters need to vote on this harmful legislation.”

— E-mail:

mannix@register-herald.com