It looks like slot machine gambling in Pennsylvania has finally become a political issue - only two years too late.

Republican state Senators now want to prevent the Gaming Control Board from starting to issue any of the 14 slot machine parlor licenses next month as planned until after the Legislature has a chance to fix the 2004 law legalizing them.

Finally. It's about damn time.

If you ask me, the fix was in two-years-ago when lawmakers passed that law in the middle of the night during the July 4th holiday weekend without any public comment, rather than risk putting the controversial issue to a statewide referendum.

Not only was this lemon of a law written by lobbyists and passed illegally, it contained a provision that bypassed the state's Ethics Law and allowed legislators to own up to 1 percent of a slots parlor.

Now, a group of 13 Senators has introduced a package of 21 bills that are supposed to close that loophole, increase accountability of the gaming board and enhance oversight by the state Attorney General and lawmakers.

Good luck trying to find them on the Legislature's Web site. I couldn't.

"It is clear that Pennsylvania's statute is defective and has facilitated the 'appearance of impropriety' in the licensure process," Piccola said. "The defects in the law which made it ripe for political influence and manipulation must be reformed."

He later added, "I am calling on (chairman Tad Decker) and the rest of the gaming board to cease the issuance of any licenses for anything until the end of October so these legislative and procedural issues can be resolved."

The board had planned to start issuing licenses next month.

"A lot of this is election-year campaigning against the governor," Christopher Craig, a lawyer for Sen. Vince Fumo, D-Philadelphia, told the Association Press.

Rendell championed slots gambling and used the state's annual share of $1 billion to provide a modicum of property tax relief.

I agree with Craig somewhat.

If Republicans wanted this bill rewritten why did they wait until a month before the first license is to be issued? After all, they have a majority in both the state House and Senate.

Yet, state Rep. Paul Clymer, R-Bucks County, has been the lone vocal opponent to the law in the last two years.

Partisan politics also doesn't explain why Craig's boss, Fumo, held up passage of the state budget a month ago to try and fix the slots law last month.

Nor does it explain why Republican gubernatorial candidate Lynn Swann, who said he was against gambling, won't overturn it because he believes the Legislature's 2004 vote of approval reflects popular support.

Nor does it explain why Fumo's fellow Democratic senators, Sean Logan of Allegheny County and Jay Costa of Pittsburgh, also held a press conference on Wednesday to promote their own reform plan, according to the Post-Gazette.

As I first reported in May, the slots law barred licensee hopefuls from making political contributions after years of gambling interests donating millions to the state top politicians to get the law passed. However, the law did not prevent gambling interests from spending $4.5 million last year to lobby state leaders.

Now, Logan and Costa want to ban lobbying too because, "They will get people from a lobbying firm to give money to us on their behalf," Logan said.

Hate to say I told you so, but I did.