Sen. Morrissey
Stories this photo appears in:
Senate committee’s ‘no’ vote for Morrissey casino bill may mean ‘yes’ for Richmond
With two weeks to go in the 2023 General Assembly session, Richmond appears to be on track to retain the right to hold a second vote on hosting a casino in November. While it could all change, Richmond gained much needed help from a slim majority of the Senate Finance Committee. Last week, the committee voted 8-7 to kill Petersburg Democratic state Sen. Joseph D. “Joe” Morrissey’s bill to add the Cockade City to the list of cities allowed to have a casino and authorize that city to host a referendum before Richmond made a second attempt to get voters to approve after a majority rejected a casino plan in 2021. If the majority holds in the Senate Finance Committee, the same fate would await an identical bill that Petersburg Repub- lican Delegate Kim Taylor successfully pushed through the House on Tuesday. Petersburg believed it had a good chance to win after sign- ing an agreement with The Cordish Companies of Baltimore to deliver a casino and related developments worth $1.4 bil- lion. Despite the setback, that city is still is likely to hold a November referendum seeking approval from its voters for the Cordish proposal. Richmond is not guaranteed to retain the right to hold a referendum. With Gov. Glenn A. Youngkin seeking to lift up Petersburg, the Free Press has been told that some of those who opposed Sen. Morrissey’s bill in the committee could use the Petersburg casino measure as a bargaining chip when the House and Senate conferees meet to finalize the budget. A year ago, after Sen. Morrissey’s bill appeared to be dead after losing 9-7 in the Finance Committee, budget language re- vived it. The legislature followed Sen. Jennifer L. McClellan’s
