TRENTON — A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit brought by two state Democratic lawmakers and gaming advocates who claim the ban on sports betting in New Jersey is unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Garrett Brown said Senate President Stephen Sweeney, Sen. Raymond Lesniak and the gaming advocates who filed the complaint are not the ones legally permitted to...
Horses are shown at the Meadowlands Racetrack in a file photo.TRENTON — A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit brought by two state Democratic lawmakers and gaming advocates who claim the ban on sports betting in New Jersey is unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge Garrett Brown said Senate President Stephen Sweeney, Sen. Raymond Lesniak and the gaming advocates who filed the complaint are not the ones legally permitted to bring the lawsuit against the federal government.
Deciding they had no "standing" to bring the case, Brown declined to rule on their other arguments alleging that the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) violates the federal Constitution.
To convince Brown they have standing, Sweeney (D-Gloucester), Lesniak (D-Union) and the others would have had to show, among other things, that they experienced some harm because of the PASPA provisions. In his 19-page decision issued on Monday, Brown said they did not.
"The court finds that these plaintiffs have not alleged an actual or imminent injury," Brown wrote.
Brown said Gov. Chris Christie — through the state Attorney General’s Office — would have had to file the suit. Lesniak filed it with the Interactive Media Entertainment & Gaming Association, the New Jersey Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association and the Thoroughbred Breeders Association of New Jersey.
Lesniak, whose Parsippany law firm is handling the lawsuit for free, challenged the legality of PASPA, which prohibits sports betting in all but four states. A contingent of lawmakers wants to legalize sports betting and online gambling in Atlantic City to help pump new life into the resort city, which has been losing millions of dollars in revenue to casinos in neighboring states.
In addition to filing the lawsuit, Lesniak had convinced the Legislature to approve online gambling and to put on the November ballot a referendum on whether the state should offer sports betting.
But Christie last week vetoed the online gaming legislation because, he said, it would have allowed gambling to expand beyond Atlantic City. He also has refused to join in the litigation, saying federal law does not allow for PASPA to be expanded through referendum or an amendment to the state constitution.
Brown said the lawsuit "puts the cart before the horse" because New Jersey would still have a ban on sports betting even if he declared PASPA unconstitutional.
Lesniak said he was disappointed with the decision and vowed to bring the lawsuit again after November referendum. If voters approved the measure, the court will be forced to rule in their favor, he said.
"This law essentially puts New Jersey and 45 other states at a competitive disadvantage and allows only four other states in the nation — Nevada, Oregon, Delaware and Montana — to have a monopoly on legal sports book in this country," he said in a statement.
When PASPA was enacted in 1992, it prohibited sports betting nationwide but grandfathered in those states already providing that wagering. At the time, the law gave New Jersey a year to pass legislation authorizing sports betting, but that deadline expired without any legislative approval.