Backers of Idaho’s horse industry gathered for a press conference in the Capitol today to release their proposed legislation setting up a new gaming commission that could authorize “instant racing” machines to benefit the industry, and also oversee gaming machines used in tribal reservation casinos – but Sen. Patti Anne Lodge, R-Huston, said she may be the only member of the Senate State Affairs Committee who would vote for the bill.

It hasn’t been introduced, nor has it been scheduled for a hearing. Senate State Affairs Chairman Curtis McKenzie, R-Nampa, has long taken the position that he won’t schedule hearings for bills that don’t have the support to pass – the reason he gave for refusing a hearing this year for minimum-wage increase legislation.

Lodge joined the Idaho Horsemen’s Coalition and Rep. Christy Perry, R-Nampa, to speak out in favor of measure, saying horse racetracks shouldn’t be denied the opportunity to have profitable gaming machines when Indian tribes operate reservation casinos with gaming machines, and the state lottery makes money from gambling. Lodge held up her iPhone, and said people can gamble right from their phones these days.

“It seems very unfair that in a state where we believe in freedom and fairness, that we would single out one group to have this opportunity and we would not allow others to have this opportunity,” she said.

Idaho Indian tribes have casinos because Idaho authorized a state lottery, which then allowed sovereign tribes within the state to offer their own Class III gaming under negotiated compacts with the state. Idaho voters in 2002 approved an initiative specifically authorizing tribal casinos, and it’s been repeatedly upheld in court.

Lodge said she believes the horse industry deserves to have gaming machines because horse racing is part of Idaho’s history and culture. “We had racing in Idaho when I was a young girl,” she said. “It’s just the history, and it’s the western way of life.”

The coalition’s bill, unlike an earlier bill introduced by House State Affairs Chairman Tom Loertscher that hasn’t advanced, doesn’t call for the new gaming commission to oversee the state lottery, just machines operated at racetracks and tribal casinos. The three-member commission would be appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Senate. The “instant racing” machines could be allowed at just three locations in the state: Les Bois Park east of Boise, Sandy Downs racetrack near Idaho Falls, and the Greyhound Park Event Center in Post Falls. The first two are active horse racing tracks; the Greyhound Park, which never has had horse racing, has been “grandfathered in” for off-track betting as the former location of live greyhound races, which the state outlawed in 1996.

Backers of the bill said they see the profitable machines as the only way to avoid destruction of Idaho’s horse industry. “Live racing frankly does not pencil out,” said Ken Burgess, lobbyist for the coalition. Sam Whitford, treasurer for the Idaho Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association, said, “We just haven’t found anything else. … Clearly we want to abide by the law and make sure everything’s legal.”

Idaho lawmakers first authorized betting on “historical horse racing” terminals in 2013, after being shown machines that looked kind of like microwave ovens, described as a new form of betting on broadcasts of races, only with the races involved being randomly generated past races. They were shocked a year later when the machines that showed up featured spinning reels, cherries and bars, flashing lights and instant wins, with just a tiny screen depicting the final seconds of a horse race. Last year, the Legislature repealed its authorization for the machines. The Idaho Constitution specifically permits pari-mutual betting, like the pooled betting on horse races, but not if it involves “any electronic or electromechanical imitation or simulation of any form of casino gambling.”