Romney is facing a gamble on slots

As state Senate leaders prepare for a push to legalize slot-machine gambling in Massachusetts this fall, influential conservatives in key presidential primary states are vowing to press Governor Mitt Romney to veto any such legislation, or to risk losing their support in the 2008 contest for the White House.

A prominent conservative activist and a crusader against gambling in Iowa is threatening to try to hamper ticket sales for a Republican ''Steak Fry" fund-raiser in Dallas County, Iowa, if the governor does not come out strongly against expanded gambling in his home state. Romney has been invited to the steak fry to be the keynote speaker.

The activist, Stacey Cargill, mobilized thousands of voters last fall to soundly defeat a proposal to bring a casino to Dallas County.

Cargill said she would seek to unleash the same forces on Romney, in concert with several other influential groups in the state, such as the Iowa Christian Coalition and the Iowa Family Policy Center.

''If Mitt Romney is going to engage in incorporating casino slots as a form of economic development for the state of Massachusetts, we will spread the word and ask the state of Iowa to vote for another candidate in the caucuses," Cargill said in a telephone interview last week. ''It's that big of an issue."

Romney has signaled support for limited slot machines in Massachusetts, but now, as he considers a run for the presidential nomination, activists opposed to gambling in New Hampshire and Florida said they are keeping a close eye on his position on slot machines.

The New Hampshire Republican platform explicitly denounces expanded gambling.

''I wouldn't hestitate in calling him," said Donna Sytek, the former Republican speaker of the New Hampshire House and a major GOP activist in the state.

Sytek was invited by Romney to his Lake Winnipesaukee home on Aug. 20, as part of the effort to build support in New Hampshire for a potential presidential run.

According to Senate leaders, the new measure would be written to permit roughly 3,500 ''video lottery terminals," which are essentially slot machines, at the state's two horse-racing tracks, its two greyhound-racing tracks, and an unspecified site in Western Massachusetts.

State Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill would oversee the new gaming industry, the lawmakers said, to ensure that the slots would not eat into the $1 billion the state Lottery pumps into schools and municipal governments.

In 2003, Romney said he would support a measure to license slot machine parlors in the Bay State if licenses for such facilities were auctioned off to the highest bidders, and if the licenses had limited terms. This put him at odds with Democrats who were seeking to hand such licenses exclusively to the state's greyhound and horse tracks. Romney signaled his backing as legislators were seeking ways to drum up revenue to bridge a $3 billion budget gap. The gaming issue died in the Legislature before it reached Romney's desk.

But last week, Julie Teer, a Romney spokeswoman, said that the Senate's slot machine proposal is not on his agenda. ''Expanded gaming is not something Governor Romney has proposed or is even considering," Teer said.

Backers from both major parties say the chances for a slot-machine bill are the best they've been in years.

They also say internal polls of House and Senate members show that the slot-machine measure, which is likely to be debated as an amendment to the annual ''economic stimulus package" in late September or early October, has a narrow majority of support.

That means Romney, who normally has no hope of sustaining a veto in the Legislature, dominated by Democrats, would wield true veto power on a hot-button topic for one of the first times since he became governor in 2003.

To override a veto, a two-thirds majority is required in both houses of the Legislature.

''I think there is interest on both sides of the aisle, and in both houses, so now we have to come up with a package that everyone feels comfortable with, and I feel optimistic that we can get there," said the Senate Republican leader, Brian P. Lees.

Lees is one of the primary backers of the slot-machine measure, with Senator Joan M. Menard of Somerset, a Democrat, and the Senate majority leader, Frederick E. Berry, also a Democrat. ''With a lot of members, as with the governor, casino gaming would be a problem, but this will not include casino gaming."

Backers say the slot machines would pump at least $550 million a year into state coffers. Critics suggest that this number does not take into account the losses that the machines would mean for the state lottery, as well as the social costs that may be associated with expanded gaming.

''There is no economic development from this; it doesn't happen," said State Representative Daniel E. Bosley, a leading critic of expanded gambling. ''I respect people who say, 'I like gambling and I want to do it in Massachusetts.' But the economic issue doesn't hold water."

For months, Romney critics have accused him of altering his policy positions to improve his standing among conservative voters beyond Massachusetts. From his veto of a bill encouraging embryonic stem-cell research to his effort to void another measure to expand access to emergency contraception, Romney has taken positions that appear to hurt his standing in the Bay State, even as they win over social conservatives in places like Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, where the first primaries are held.

There is no apparent groundswell of pressure on lawmakers to pass a slot machine bill, and it was only five years ago that a ballot initiative aimed at outlawing greyhound racing was defeated by the narrowest of margins, 51 percent to 49 percent.

''I think Governor Romney needs to think about it because the conservative community might not support someone like him for president if he supported gambling," said Barbara Collier, who chaired the Broward County, Fla., re-election effort for President Bush last year, and who runs that county's branch of the Christian Coalition. ''If he's thinking about it, he needs to think very seriously about it." In Iowa, the gambling issue remains important to many conservative activists, said Mitch Hambleton, who chairs the Republican Party of Dallas County -- a key GOP stronghold and the fastest-growing county in Iowa.

''Would it be an issue? Definitely," Hambleton said of the potential threat by One Voice Iowa, an anti-gambling group, to undermine the Romney event. ''We have a strong religious base that is very sensitive to the issue."

Raphael Lewis can be reached at rlewis@globe.com.