SHAKOPEE, MN – This is the second of our two-part interview series with Minnesota lawmakers Rep. Brad Tabke and Sen. Eric Pratt. Both have the unique distinction of representing both Canterbury Park and the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community (SMSC) which presents interesting challenges when it comes to sports betting legislation. We thought it would be interesting to get their perspectives on sports betting and its effect on the Canterbury and Native communities.
We’d like to thank both lawmakers for taking time out of their schedules to discuss these issues and share their insights.
Senator Eric Pratt (R – Prior Lake) is in his fourth term in the Minnesota State Senate having been first elected in 2012. He is a member of the Capital Investment Committee and the Ranking Minority Member of the Finance, Jobs and Economic Development Committee.
Q – Take us through last session – how the sports betting compromise came together…and then it didn’t?
Pratt – I think that most of the last two years were really frustrating in the fact that Sen. Miller would have some conversations on and off with Sen. Kline and Rep. Stephenson and, for the most part, you had Kline going out and saying, “We’re going to pass sports betting with DFL only votes” and on and on and kind of kill some of the bipartisan collaboration that we were trying to get.
It wasn’t until about the very end, I would say the last two weeks. Sen. Miller was really our point person, he was on the inside most of the time, so he would be the one to talk to about the ins and outs, but he came to me and said that there appears to be some movement on this thing.
We had some conversations, and it was interesting because you had me, with both the Tribe and the track, you had Sen Kruen with Running Aces and with Canterbury Park and Running Aces having very different objectives in this issue, we had to walk a delicate line.
Clearly, I would like to see, and I’ve explained this to the SMSC Tribal Chairman, that I would like to see the Tribe and the track have a sports betting license. Horse racing is sports betting. As I’ve explained it to both sides, I don’t want the track to have exclusivity to take customers away from the Tribe and I don’t want the Tribe to have exclusivity and take customers away from the track.
I want parity. I want both to be able to compete fairly and have a level playing field. That is clearly not what Governor Walz and the DFL trifecta wants. It was clear that there was absolutely no movement in allowing the tracks to get a license.
A lot of the work was: what do we need to do to make the tracks whole?
I know both Sen Miller and I and, I believe, Sen Kruen, all met with MIGA [Minnesota Indian Gaming Association] and tracks’ representatives. Along the way I had conversations with the SMSC Tribal Chairman and with Randy [Sampson] about where we were going.
About the second to last day, the deal came across where I had both sides say, “That’s a good deal for us, let’s move forward.”
That was also the day that the Senate went in to about a ten-hour recess because one of the Senators refused to show up and vote and we needed his vote to pass some things.
It was a total leverage play. He was working on the Uber and Lyft bill and he was representing the drivers.
What’s been interesting to me in this whole thing was to see the bipartisan support as well as the bipartisan opposition to sports betting. That’s what I think was frustrating about Kline running around saying that he was going to pass this thing with DFL votes. It couldn’t be done.
I think what was frustrating was that we came to an agreement, we had that long break during the day, we couldn’t get anyone to talk. Then that monstrous, 1400-page tax bill came through with everything but the kitchen sink in it. Unfortunately, the kitchen sink was sports betting.
Q – Where does that leave the compromise heading into next session? It would be easy for folks to think that ‘this is going to be easy, we’re almost there,’ but there is an election and there could be new players next session. Where does that leave us heading into 2025?
Pratt – I think that there are a few scenarios to look at, though two are very similar.
We have a special senate election going on right now and I honestly have not spoken to this candidate about her position on this issue, but you’ve got:
The Republicans take control of one of the chambers and clearly, we would like to see more parity and let all of our casinos and cardrooms have the same opportunity.
That then puts Governor Walz, or Governor Flannigan, in a tough position to compromise. That takes the deal we had last year and starts from scratch. It probably, if we have split chambers, it probably makes it tough to come to that agreement. Not saying that it couldn’t but I think it would be very, very tough.
The other scenario is that the DFL keeps control of both chambers, we try and run the same bill that we come to a compromise with this year and, it depends on the new members coming in, and I’ve heard that the bipartisan opposition would try to derail the effort. Derail it in committee, derail it on the floor and we’d have to see where the governor is.
Q – Is the opposition to sports betting strong enough to do that?
Pratt – I don’t know. I don’t think there are, and I can only talk about the Senate side, a lot of votes to give. I was counting noses at the end of last session, and I think we had it with only about 1 or 2 votes.
I would have liked to have seen more leadership from Governor Walz on this issue other than just saying, “Tribes only” to really push some of the DFL members to come on board and support it because MIGA supports it.
I get it, there are certain senators that have a moral aversion to the expansion of gambling. Certainly, the historical horse racing [HHR] did not help at the end of last year and how that was addressed.
Q – Thanks for touching on that. You voted against the ‘Ban HHR’ bill. What is your take on how that all went down?
Pratt – I would have never had expected the Racing Commission to come out and make that determination. As I explained to the SMSC Chairman, my view is that the legislature didn’t need to get involved. I understand where the Tribes were saying that it was effectively a slot machine and I had the horse racing people coming to me and showing me that, “no, this is truly electronic parimutuel betting on races that already happened.”
I went and looked and there is a law in the books, and I used to know it right off the top of my head, that said if you disagree with the decision of the racing commission, here is the process that you go through to challenge it. Instead, we have the Democrats decide that they were going to bypass this whole process and just pass a law outlawing it.
Was it a slot machine? Was it parimutuel betting? I don’t know and I don’t want to know – I mean I want to know but it doesn’t really matter to me, what matters to me is that we had a process to make that determination, to arbitrate it to litigate it, whatever you want to call it. We, the legislature, decided to step in and were going to make that decision without having all the information.
Q – How did the HHR discussions effect the compromise legislation?
It kind of just raised the temperature on the whole issue. Did it make some people squeamish about wanting to vote for it? Maybe. I think the governor continued to throw fuel on the fire when he appointed two tribal members to the racing commission; clearly retribution for what he decided against his own appointees.
We will be able to come back next session and do our advice and consent, but we will have to have the majority to be able to do that. If the DFL stays in the majority they will likely just rubber stamp it. In fact, they even passed a law where they don’t even have to have a vote if the appointment goes 60-days into session, they are automatically considered confirmed.
If we take control of the Senate, we can hold confirmation hearings and have a vote. That always becomes contentious with the executive branch. I’ve been part of three non-confirmation votes and it’s not a pleasant experience.
It’s not personal and it’s not supposed to be a poke in the eye to the governor, it is just to say that this is a person that needs to follow the law. In one case it was a person who had some very inflammatory things on Facebook, and they wanted to appoint her to the Teachers’ Board. I mean, just vile stuff. She told us that she encourages her students follow her, so her 16- and 17-year-old students are seeing this vile, what can you call it? Basically, swearing online. What kind of example is that for our students?
I’ve met with one of the two appointees. I talked with him about becoming a regent at the University of Minnesota. I thought he would be a really good regent. I have a problem with conflict of interest with the racing commission. I would want to have the hearings, and I would want to talk to people. Some of this is now clouded by the way it happened. In part it’s the people, but most of the controversy is how the governor approached the appointments. This governor has not been very good at appointing people. Look at his cannabis appointee – lasted all of 24 hours. But I think the way it happened was a big part of it.
That’s what I mean when I talk about the legislative process. We’re supposed to vet appointees, we’re supposed to make amendments to legislation, we’re supposed to have audits. We have been trying to streamline this and now we’re finding stuff in bills that hadn’t gone through committee and suddenly it pops up in the bill. We’ve just completely abandoned the process. The governor has abandoned the process. The legislature has abandoned the process, and we have to get back to the point where we follow our process.
This goes back to the HHR debate. The process has been to make sure that we have full transparency on what we’re doing. That we’re being fair to all the stakeholders involved.
Q – You went on the record saying that you don’t believe that the Tribes have exclusivity to gaming. Can you walk me through your viewpoint on that?
Pratt – I worked with our non-partisan legal staff and had the same conversation with MIGA. If you look at MIGA’s website, they’ll even say the same thing: the Tribes do not have any exclusivity when it comes to gaming. They are allowed to compact with the state for anything that is made legal on a non-tribal site. They can apply for any game that is not there but legal.
We, as a state, have chosen to only enter a compact for just slots with the Tribes. But there is nothing in the compact that says that we couldn’t make slots legal at Canterbury or Running Aces either.
When I say that there is no exclusivity, the compacts grant authority to the Tribes to operate slots, but they do not say that we won’t make them legal for anyone else. There may be verbal agreements that have said “we’re not going to do that.” I’m very sensitive to the expansion of gambling that will take away from what Mystic is doing. For me, I had to understand, as we headed into sports betting, the real lay of the land because everyone is throwing around Tribal exclusivity on this and that and they’re mistaken.
Q – The DFL is very strident in stating that the Tribes have exclusivity. Where does that come from?
Well, we’ve given them that exclusivity. They are mistaken.
Q – Canterbury would like to allow residents to be able to sit at home, watch the races and bet on Canterbury. Was that part of the compromise bill?
Pratt – That was something I tried to push during Covid. I had the conversation with Randy [Sampson] and the horsemen when people couldn’t come out to Canterbury, this could be a good way to keep the industry viable and open.
Unfortunately, that was viewed as an expansion of gambling back in 2020 and we were unable to get it through. I think that I was two votes short of getting that passed out of the Senate.
What I tell a lot of my colleagues is that this has always been horse country down here in Scott County. I tell the statistic that one of my teachers, when I was a junior, made a comment that this county had more horses per capita than any single county in Wyoming.
We have the Ameses with the Percherons; you drive down County Road 18 I might see a half a dozen horses out being ridden on any given day. When I talk about racing in Scott County, not only are we an entertainment mecca with Valley Fair, Mystic Lake and the Renaissance Festival, we also have a history of equestrian farms in this area. Admittedly, most of them weren’t thoroughbred but that doesn’t take away from the fact that it has been part of our culture.
