By Steven Allen Adams | West Virginia Watchdog
CHARLESTON — The race for governor of West Virginia gone to the dogs, literally.
In a new TV commercial released today, Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin defends himself against charges of using the Greyhound Breeding Development Fund, created in 1993, to benefit his family’s greyhound racing business.
The new commercials cite an article in Monday’s Charleston Gazette by reporter Phil Kabler. In the article, Kabler fact-checks accusations by the Maloney campaign that Tomblin funneled $ 2.5 million in taxpayer dollars to Tomblin Kennels, owned by Tomblin’s mother and brother.
There are no tax dollars involved. Funds for the greyhound development fund purses come from the state’s share of profits from racetrack video lottery. If you’re never played the slots at one of the state’s racetrack casinos, you can rest easy knowing none of your money has gone to the breeders’ funds.
Tomblin cannot “direct” breeders funds to his family’s business any more than NASCAR can “direct” a larger share of winnings to Kyle Busch. The breeders’ fund supplements purses for winning greyhounds at the tracks. If you don’t breed winning dogs, you don’t get any money from the development fund.
Tomblin’s supposed greyhound ties – The Charleston Gazette
The article also said that Tomblin’s support of H.B. 2966 in 1995 was to close a loophole that allowed outside greyhound breeders to get payments from the Breeders Fund. The Tomblin campaign said the Kabler article proves Maloney wrong.
“Bill Maloney and his friends just can’t stand it. They want to attack Earl Ray, but he’s already lowering taxes and creating jobs. So they’re recycling an attack that Phil Kabler at the Gazette already called a “complete untruth” and “outright falsehood,” said Joe Shafer, campaign manager for the Tomblin, in statement to supporters.
On Tuesday, a day after Kabler’s article, the Maloney campaign released a research paper on Tomblin and the Breeder Fund, pointing to several bills Tomblin supported which help increase subsidies in the Breeder Fund. Tomblin also supported spending $2 million on new greyhound training tracks in 2008, paid for by the Breeder Fund.
Using Charleston Gazette and Charleston Daily Mail articles as sources, the Maloney research paper said that instead of the Tomblin family receiving $2.5 million from the Breeder Fund since 1993, the Tomblin family actually received $3.8 million instead. However, when added together the total amount of Breeder Fund money going to the Tomblin family since 1993, the total is $3.4 million.
