The House State Affairs Committee is now debating HB 279, the bill to create a new state gaming commission. Rep. Vito Barbieri, R-Dalton Gardens, said he was ambivalent. “It’s pretty obvious that the legislation before us is pretty reactionary, and even with the best effort, there are issues that arise in language and purpose,” he said. “The lottery really is separate from the issues at hand here. … If passing this legislation enables us to avoid doing the damage that a repeal would do in the following bill, then I’d say let’s fix these later and let’s get on with it.” But, he said, “I’m just not sure we’re going to arrive at that conclusion.”

Rep. James Holtzclaw, R-Meridian, said he wondered if an interim committee might be a better solution than passing the bill. Rep. Christy Perry, R-Nampa, said she’d be entirely open to sending the bill to the House’s amending order for changes.

Barbieri asked Rep. Lynn Luker, R-Boise, if he thought changes to the bill could be made on the amending order, or if it needed more study. Luker said it needs more study. “Some of them are easy, you can certainly take out instant racing easily enough. The board composition, we could fumble around with that a little bit, we’ve heard some different things there.” But he said there are bigger questions about financing, purview, the need for more employees or sub-commissions, and more. “I don’t think this is ready for prime time yet,” Luker said.