Court Opinion

ID: 9693182
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 16:29:01.110876+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:42.109961
License: Public Domain

O’HERN, J.,
concurring.
When two widely respected members of the Court dissent on a constitutional issue of such profound significance, it gives me pause.
*541However, in this instance I believe that the contemporary news accounts quoted in the dissent better portrayed the meaning of the amendment than does the opinion.
Those who say the amendment is misleading in promising great rewards for the taxpayers of New Jersey are overlooking the fact that those who drafted the amendment and those who support it have never promised the people of New Jersey a bonanza as a result of casinos in Atlantic City. But in preparing the legislation they made realistic provisions to share eight per cent of the gross revenue from gaming unth those with the greatest need-senior citizens and the disabled.
[Post at 545, 734 A.2d at 1185 (quoting Statewide Referenda: Seven Questions, Trentonian, Oct. 81, 1976, at 36) (emphasis added).]
That was the promise, made to the people in 1976, with which the Legislature and the Court have kept faith.
If “the State’s revenues” from gambling casinos meant “all the State’s revenues,” as the dissent suggests, post at 546-55, 734 A.2d at 1186-92, then the dissent should require the State also to turn over the Corporation Business Tax and Sales Tax revenues derived from “gambling casinos” to seniors and the disabled.
I do not find that suggestion in the dissenting opinion, leading one to conclude that, despite its high-sounding tone, the dissent is internally inconsistent.