Weekly Roundup: Shall we play a game?

By BRANDON LARRABEE
THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

THE CAPITAL, TALLAHASSEE, June 3, 2016..........The game's the thing, or at least it was this week in Florida politics. A judge grappled with the future of high-stakes card games, while a state panel tried to map out a plan for a controversial sport.

The judge in question was dealing with how pari-mutuel facilities are running popular card games. The state panel was the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, facing new pressure to allow another round of bear hunting in Florida.

There were also less recreational issues at play, such as a challenge to a new abortion law by Planned Parenthood. No one on either side was likely to term that battle a game.

HARASSMENT OR CONSTITUTIONAL?

On an otherwise largely slow news week, the biggest story might have been Planned Parenthood's decision to file a federal lawsuit Thursday challenging a major new Florida abortion law. The group accused the Legislature of seeking to "punish, harass, and stigmatize the state's abortion providers for their and their patients' exercise of constitutional rights."

The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Tallahassee, seeks a ruling that three parts of the law are unconstitutional and an injunction against those parts of the law, which Gov. Rick Scott signed March 25.

The complaint, in part, targets a section of the law that seeks to prevent state agencies, local governments and Medicaid managed-care plans from contracting with organizations that own, operate or are affiliated with clinics that perform elective abortions.

While government agencies are already barred from funding elective abortions, Planned Parenthood argues that the new law would prevent clinics from receiving money to provide other health services for women, such as tests for cervical cancer, pregnancy testing and screening for sexually transmitted diseases. The complaint also challenges part of the law requiring the state Agency for Health Care Administration to inspect at least 50 percent of abortion-clinic patient records each year.

The organization contends the requirement violates equal-protection rights because it unjustifiably treats abortion clinics different from other types of health-care facilities.

The complaint also challenges a section of the law that changes the state's definition of trimesters of pregnancy. That change in definition came after a controversy last year in which the Scott administration alleged that some clinics were performing second-trimester abortions without proper licenses --- an allegation refuted by the clinics, which said the administration tried to use a new definition of trimesters.

The Republican-dominated Legislature approved the law largely along party lines in March, with Republicans saying they had taken steps to make sure the measure would meet legal tests --- like the ones now coming from Planned Parenthood.

"Our intent is to put forward a piece of legislation that is constitutionally sound," Rep. Colleen Burton, a Lakeland Republican who sponsored the bill, said during the session.

The lawsuit filed Thursday is not the only one focused on the politically volatile issue. The Florida Supreme Court is considering a challenge to a 2015 law that would require women to wait 24 hours before having abortions.

CAN THE STATE BEAR ANOTHER HUNT?

Gun-rights groups who defend the right to bear arms were putting some extra emphasis this week on the "bear," pushing the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission to once again allow hunters to open fire on Yogi and his friends.

National Rifle Association lobbyist Marion Hammer, a past president of the organization who also serves as executive director of the Unified Sportsmen of Florida, penned a letter to the commission that also called for steps such as increasing the number of days to hunt. She painted the issue as essentially a matter of self defense.

"Bears continue to terrorize homeowners and prevent families from allowing children to play outside in some areas," Hammer wrote. "And while FWC (the commission) is working to educate people about securing trash and is trying to move dangerous bears out of residential areas, those programs are helpful but cannot succeed without hunts to reduce the population."

Commissioners, who approved a controversial bear hunt last year but have not made a decision about another round, are expected to receive a staff recommendation before a meeting later this month in the Franklin County community of Eastpoint.

The October 2015 hunt --- the first in the state in more than two decades --- was scheduled for seven days, but ended after two days as hunters killed 304 bears. The state agency had put a 320-bear quota on the hunt and later acknowledged it "underestimated the hunter success for the first day."

The bears, of course, have no voice in the matter. But they do have advocates.

Kate MacFall, Florida state director for The Humane Society, said while hunt opponents push for non-lethal means to reduce human-bear conflicts and see opposition growing against another hunt, they believe commissioners have already decided.

"It's trophy hunting, which we certainly don't support," MacFall said. "Floridians love bears. Their (the bears') subpopulations are already fragmented. They're already having a tough time with habitat destruction, huge developments, so many people moving to Florida … there are so many challenges that these bears already face."

Local government officials from Seminole, Miami-Dade and Volusia counties have also voiced opposition to a repeat of the 2015 hunt.

Commission staff members have been holding a series of webinars that recap the 2015 hunt, offer the latest estimates on the numbers of bears in Florida, summarize efforts to reduce incidents involving humans and bears, and take public input.

Harry Dutton, leader of the commission's hunting and game management division, said last week that "for a possible future hunt" officials are looking at the length and time of year for the hunt and limiting the number of permits --- a step that wasn't taken last year. Also, they are looking at how check stations are monitored, rules for hunting on wildlife management areas, the prohibition on baiting bears, the use of dogs to track bears and the minimum size of bears that could be killed.

The agency estimates, based on recent surveys, 4,220 bears are in the state, up from 2,640 in 2002. The population growth has been called robust as the estimated bear count was as low as 300 to 500 in the 1970s, when bears were put on the state's list of threatened species. Bears were removed from the list in 2012.

BANKING ON A RULING

Meanwhile, lawyers for state regulators and those for a Jacksonville pari-mutuel showed their hands in front of an administrative law judge this week.

While the case is technically limited to Jacksonville Kennel Club, Inc., it could have wide-ranging implications for pari-mutuels throughout the state. Most of those establishments are hosting "designated-player" card games --- also known as "player-banked" card games. The games have eclipsed other poker games like Texas Hold 'Em among Florida gamblers.

Regulators first authorized the designated-player games, in which a player serves as the "bank," more than four years ago, but in December filed complaints against seven pari-mutuels over the games.

"If the petitioner (the department) allowed something that should not have been allowed, shame on us," Department of Business and Professional Regulation lawyer William Hall told Administrative Law Judge Suzanne Van Wyk during closing arguments Wednesday. "But … are these games legal, or are they not?"

Hall said that the way the games are being conducted --- not the games themselves --- violates state gambling law, which prohibits pari-mutuels from acting as the "bank." Under Florida law, a "banking game" is defined as one "in which the house is a participant in the game, taking on players, paying winners, and collecting from losers or in which the cardroom establishes a bank against which participants play." Pari-mutuel cardrooms are allowed to conduct games in which players compete only against each other.

At the Jacksonville facility, also known as bestbet Jacksonville, designated players who work for third-party companies sit in front of trays of chips but do not actually play the games. Dealers, who work for the cardroom, dole out the chips to the other players at the table. Hall said the Jacksonville facility has essentially established a "bank," even if it does not directly operate it.

But John Lockwood, who represents the Jacksonville facility, argued that the law is open to interpretation.

"Nowhere does it say you cannot play designated player games. Nowhere does it say you cannot play player-banked games. This is simply an interpretation of the phrase 'or in which the cardroom establishes a bank against which participants play,' " he said.

The outcome could be costly for the facilities. Jacksonville Kennel Club President Jamie Shelton testified Wednesday that the games, launched in September, bring in about $1 million a month. The company invested about $350,000 in setting up the designated-player games, and 85 employees would lose their jobs --- paying between $45,000 and $60,000 a year --- if they went away, Shelton said.

Lockwood accused regulators of abruptly changing their view of the games after Gov. Rick Scott and the Seminole Tribe signed a proposed $3 billion gambling deal in December. The deal was never approved by the Legislature and never went into effect. The designated-player games are also an issue in a lawsuit between the tribe and the state over banked card games. A five-year deal giving the tribe exclusive rights to operate the banked games expired last summer, prompting that lawsuit.

STORY OF THE WEEK: Planned Parenthood filed a federal lawsuit Thursday challenging a new abortion law approved by the Legislature this spring.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: "If a mannequin was sitting in the designated player's seat, or you just put a Coke can there, the games would play no differently than if a living, breathing, human being was sitting there. They'd play the exact same way. Literally, all the designated player does is sit next to the chips."--- Department of Business and Professional Regulation lawyer William Hall, during a hearing on controversial card games offered at many pari-mutuels.