MORGANTOWN — The state Senate failed in its latest attempt to end greyhound racing in the state, as its bill to discontinue the Greyhound Breeding Development Fund died 11-23 on the Senate floor Wednesday.
SB 285 would have eliminated the requirement that the Wheeling Island casino in Wheeling and the Mardi Gras in Nitro conduct dog racing in order to maintain their casino licenses. It would have ended the development fund and channeled the $17.4 million estimated for Fiscal Year 2021 back to the Excess Lottery Fund.
Through July 1, 2022, $1 million of the total would have been set aside to care for the greyhounds and $3 million set aside to retrain the displaced workers.
The actions, it is broadly believed, would have ended dog racing in the state.
The effort isn’t new. A similar bill passed both houses by narrow margins in 2017 and fell to a veto. Gvo. Jim Justice said at the time, “If we get rid of greyhound racing, it will mean job losses and fewer people coming to West Virginia. Eliminating support for the greyhounds is a job killer and I can’t sign it.”
Two versions of the bill in 2018 went nowhere.
This year, Senate President Mitch Carmichael was lead sponsor and promoted the bill before the session began. He stepped down from the president’s dais on Wednesday to support the bill.
The death of the industry is inevitable, he said, whether it happens now or later. “West Virginia one more time is an outlier. Across America, this activity is in drastic decline.” It’s legal in just a few states, and West Virginia is the only one that supports it directly. West Virginia has just two of the five remaining dog tracks in the country.
Carmichael cited the treatment of the dogs as one reason to end it. They suffer injuries and die.
Money was his other reason. That $17.4 million could go to other purposes.
The industry has argued that the breeder fund money comes from a fee on video lottery machines — from the gamblers, not the taxpayers. In this way, it’s not really a subsidy, they say. The state simply acts at a pass-through.
Carmichael disagreed, saying it’s the state’s money and a vote on the bill reflects each senator’s priorities. “That’s the choice that we have.”
Eight Republicans joined 15 Democrats to vote against the bill. Among the eight was Majority Whip Ryan Weld, R-Brooke. He contradicted a statement by Carmichael that one racing dog dies every 10 days. A note he received form the Racing Commission that morning said there had been 69 dog fatalities in the past five years. While that’s bad, it’s not as severe as Carmichael made out.
The industry truly isn’t in decline, he said. In 2010, the total amount gambled – the handle – was $92 million. That climbed to $104 million in 2015 and $124 million in 2019. During that period, horse racing revenues fell dramatically. “I struggle with the industry in decline label for greyhound racing.”
Weld and his Panhandle colleague Sen. Bill Ihlenfeld, D-Ohio, both visited a kennel on the same day and agreed the dogs are treated well, they said. Ihlenfeld said, “It was clear that these dogs have a life that’s pretty darn good. I would not be advocating for this industry if I thought the dogs were not treated well.”
Some do die, but there’s a risk in any athletic endeavor, he said.
Wheeling just took a big blow, Ihlenfeld said, from the closure of Ohio Valley Medical Center. The track and casino support police and fire pensions and the TIF district. “We can’t absorb this blow right now.”
Instead of letting the industry die, he said, it would be wiser to modernize and promote it, and pick up revenue from places like Florida, which just ended dog racing. “We’d be fools to let this industry go when there’s such an opportunity on the horizon.”
They found an unexpected ally in Sen. Randy Smith, R-Tucker, who said he’d voted for the bill twice before. Since then, he’s had time to think about and talk with people in the industry.
He said $17.4 million to preserve 1,700 jobs is a good investment in comparison to the $9 million annual windmill subsidy that preserves only 29 jobs.
“In good conscience I just can’t vote to do away with these people’s jobs,” he said.
Other bills
Among the other bills the Senate approved on Wednesday was SB 204, to establish nonpartisan elections of county prosecuting attorneys starting with the May 2024 election. The bill establishes a November runoff of the top two vote-getters if no candidate would win a majority in May. It passed 34-0 and goes to the House.
HB 4026 would exempt from Public Service Commission jurisdiction companies that transport scrap tires to approved disposal sites and trucks operating under a Department of Environmental Protection contract to transport tires collected under its Rehabilitation Environmental Action Plan program. The idea is to get more people involved in the business. It passed 34-0 and returns to the House for concurrence on Senate amendments.
The Senate also concurred with House amendments to two other bills and sent them to the governor. SB 620 authorizes the commissioner of the Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation to establish a nonviolent offense parole program for qualifying nonviolent offenders without action of the Parole Board. And HB 4007 is the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.
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