State senate committee approves riverboat casino bill

INDIANAPOLIS -- A state Senate committee on Thursday endorsed a bill authorizing a riverboat casino in southern Indiana's economically depressed Orange County.\nThe Senate Finance Committee approved the bill on a 9-5 vote. It now goes to the full Senate for consideration.\nThe bill easily passed the House last month, but its fate in the Senate was less certain. Both the committee chairman, Sen. Larry Borst, R-Greenwood, and Senate President Pro Tem Robert Garton, R-Columbus, have opposed the casino proposal and helped block its passage during last year's special session.\nA group of supporters from Orange County traveled to the Statehouse for the committee hearing.\n"It feels great," said John McCracken, 60, of French Lick. "These people don't have to come up here. We're coming up for the younger generation, our kids and grandkids who need jobs."\nSupporters say the bill meets the original intentions of lawmakers when they passed the 1993 law that legalized Indiana's 10 riverboat casinos. An 11th license for Patoka Lake remains dormant because the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which oversees the lake, has refused to allow a riverboat.\nThe bill would transfer the dormant license to a new historic-preservation district covering French Lick and West Baden Springs, which are near the lake. If approved in a countywide referendum, the district could then open a casino on a yet-to-be constructed waterway between two historic hotels.