Opinion

The people lose in casino ruling

You would think the basic test of transparency would mean the government would have to let citizens know the exact wording of a controversial ballot initiative in time for anyone to challenge it.

Apparently not. On Wednesday, acting Albany Supreme Court Justice Richard Platkin dismissed a lawsuit challenging the wording Gov. Cuomo’s team used for a ballot initiative on a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow more Las Vegas-style casinos in New York.

The judge ruled the lawsuit was “both untimely and lacking in legal merit” because it was filed after the 14-day deadline for challenging a referendum. As a result, it was “barred by the statute of limitations.”

But there’s the rub. The ruling ignores evidence that the change was made in as secret a process as possible — and that the new language wasn’t even publicized until more than two weeks after the legal deadline for challenges had passed.

That’s a pity, for two reasons. For one thing, the language was added specifically to stack the deck. According to a Sienna College poll, when voters were asked straight up about legalizing casino gambling, they were evenly split. When language about all the claimed benefits of more casino gambling was added on — more money for schools, lower property taxes, more job growth — there was a 13- point swing in favor of casinos.

More important, the burden ought to be on the government to let its citizens know what it is doing, not on citizens to have to force that out into the open. That’s the essence of transparency in a democratic state. Judge Platkin’s rule has just set the cause back.