The defense employed by Christine Gregoire and her allies in defending her actions regarding a gaming compact with the state's Native American tribes has been to say the goal was to stop a massive expansion of tribal gaming. The facts don't indicate that actually occurred.
Follow-up P-I coverage said this on the matter:
[Gregoire spokesman Pearse Edwards] said she had renegotiated the 2005 agreement that included revenue sharing in an attempt to keep gambling from expanding too quickly and after listening to concerns from a wide range of groups, including other tribes.
Likewise, Democratic spokesman Kelly Steele's recent appearance on KVI's "The Commentators" show was replete with references to Gregoire not wanting to turn the Evergreen State into Nevada.
One might chuckle at the notion of Sin City coming north to the meet the nanny state favored by many elected officials in Seattle and Olympia, yet gaming itself continues to expand significantly since the compact was negotiated.
The actual debate about gambling regulations and their utility is another issue, but let's assume for this discussion that attempts to limit the growth of gambling in the state is a policy good.
The net receipts for state gaming operations don't support that this stated policy outcome was actually achieved. Overall net receipts were $1.534 billion in the 2004 fiscal year, including $888 million from tribal casinos. By FY 2007, the total had risen to $1.962 billion, including $1.338 billion for the tribes.
Thus, while non-tribal gaming receipts dropped slightly from $646 million to $624 million over that time, tribal casino receipts soared 50.7%.
One could argue that the compact will restrain this explosive growth, which is fair to a degree. Yet the statistics show tribal gaming is already growing at a rapid rate, something of which the general public is quite aware.
Just last week the Seattle Times covered the expanded tribal casino & resort opening on the Tulalip reservation:
Even high gas prices and the weak economy aren't dampening tribal leaders' predictions that the new 12-story hotel near Marysville will become a destination resort competing not with Best Westerns and Holiday Inns along the Interstate 5 corridor, but with the glamorous casino-hotels of Las Vegas itself.
There goes not trying to compete with Nevada.
More importantly, as any observer of TV and radio ads across the state will tell you, tribal gaming operations are expanding, as the Times coverage attests:
Seven other tribes, including the Quinault, Suquamish and Lummi, have built lodging to complement tribal casinos, said Ernie Stebbins, executive director of the Washington Indian Gaming Association.
One has to presume tribes are not build lodging to lessen the number of trips to a casino or to restrain the growth of gambling.
Consequently, it is nigh impossible to take seriously the claims of Gregoire and her supporters that the compact in question has and will achieve its goal of seriously mitigating the overall growth of tribal gaming in Washington state. This rings true especially in light of other policy choices by the state in recent years, including the ban on all online gaming, which results in this from a website for slot machine enthusiasts:
There are well over 100 different casinos listed in the state of Washington. It appears that the tribal gaming centers dominate the slot scene in Washington, especially after getting the recent ban in online gaming pushed through the legislature, so make sure you call ahead to make sure that the casino you wish to visit offers slot machines.
Good people can argue about the merits of gambling regulation and how far it should and should not go. Nevertheless, Gregoire negotiated a compact that doesn't actually achieve meaningful restraint of tribal gaming as pledged, doesn't include any revenue sharing to benefit the state as is common practice elsewhere, and is now publicly coupled with hundreds of thousands of dollars in tribal contributions to the state Democratic party.
It is no wonder this story doesn't look good.
UPDATE: typos fixed.
Additionally posted at the Examiner and The Next Right.
Posted by Eric Earling at June 22, 2008 09:27 AM | Email This''Gregoire negotiated a compact that doesn't actually achieve meaningful restraint of tribal gaming as pledged, doesn't include any revenue sharing to benefit the state as is common practice elsewhere, and is now publicly coupled with hundreds of thousands of dollars in tribal contributions to the state Democratic party.''
SIDEBAR: I would expand the last above sentance by adding this suffix:
''; that were immediately passed on directly to the Gregoire campaign.''
Whoever Gregoire's ''constituents'' are, the average taxpayers of WA clearly are not on the short list.
Posted by: Methow Ken on June 22, 2008 10:54 AMHowever, there was no criticism that the gaming pact failed to share any gambling revenues with the State of Washington. Why wasn't this important at the time?
As for thr tribal donations to the state Democratic Party, about half of that $650,000 was donated in 2004 for use in the 2004 election and recount. And almost all of the money has gone to the soft money account, which cannot be given to candidates. (It can free up hard money to give to candidates, if the hard money had to be used on overhead -- such as Dwight Pelz's salary -- and is now freed up to give to candidates because soft money is now available for these expenses.)
This story definitely has "legs", especially since Gregoire's response has not been very effective so far.
Posted by: Richard Pope on June 22, 2008 11:36 AM''; that were immediately passed on directly to the Gregoire campaign.''
Yes: I realize that SPECIFIC soft dollars contributed to the (D) party cannot themselves be transferred directly to the Gregoire campaign, but:
Unless the (D) party literally had and has NO other expenses on which it must spend hard money (very unlikely at best, I would think), I would maintain that my ''passed on'' to the Gregoire campaign is fundamentally and functionally correct. For max accuracy I should probably have omitted the word ''directly'', to best reflect the situation Richard pointed out.
Posted by: Methow Ken on June 22, 2008 11:55 AMWA deserves a lot better leadership when we have real transportation issues, etc. Gregoire is a 40 year career government stooge. It's time to vote these career bums out of office regardless of which side of the aisle they are on.
Posted by: Jeff B. on June 22, 2008 02:07 PMhttp://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/davidpostman/2006/06/online_gambling_ban_was_easy_sell_with_lawmakers_1.html
At least you can say that all five votes in the House against the bill were Republicans: Chandler, Dunn, Holmquist, Morris, and Nixon
But why not go ahead and blame Gregoire for all this? Forget about the fact that several dozen Republicans voted for this, and less than half a dozen against it.
At least Rossi wasn't in the legislature, otherwise he would have probably joined with every single one of his Senate GOP colleagues, and couldn't use this as a campaign issue ...
Posted by: Richard Pope on June 22, 2008 02:59 PMThe facts are these: Republican support of those bills or a failure to complain at the time being, as it is, completely irrelevant; Queen Chrissy has been paid off by the tribes.
Yes, we can and do blame Chrissy for this. Her actions in bending the taxpayers of this state over with the compact were done entirely to get tribal payoffs, which they have gratefully provided, and the taxpayers of this state have been shafted out of hundreds of millions of dollars by our own governor, who then has lied as to both her motivation and her ignorance as to who provided over $600,000 to her campaign.
And no amount of your spin will either change that, or get you a job with her campaign or administration... which is what it seems you so eagerly are going after.
Posted by: Hinton on June 22, 2008 03:15 PMpope points out that most Republicans voted to ban online gaming, along with all Democrats. Individual lawmakers can vote for the same piece of legislation for different reasons. I would assume that Republicans voted against online gambling for moral/social reasons (addiction as a societal ill) while Democrats voted for it to give their native american friends a nice monopoly.
Posted by: AD on June 22, 2008 05:18 PMCheck it out!
Posted by: Renee Radcliff Sinclair on June 22, 2008 05:49 PMChris SHOULD have said "I don't want the legislature to be addicted to the gas tax which will burden EVERY Washingtonian, so that's why I oppose the $31 billion 'emergency' tax increase to fund projects that, aside from being over budget and behind schedule, won't alleviate traffic."
Sadly, though, we toil under the Queen we have and not the Queen we'd like to have. :(
Posted by: AD on June 22, 2008 09:54 PMSo in other words Richard the tribes actively helped ensure that the Gregoire was "elected" Governor through the recount. Makes you wonder what she promised them to get the moneies for the recount, oh wait we have seen it in the form of this gaming compact, online gambling ban, smoking ban.....
I heard CG say" I did not want the legislature to become addicted to tribal casino money".
Yeah, but she sure does not have a problem with the state being addicted to sin taxes or gas taxes.
Posted by: TrueSoldier on June 23, 2008 05:47 AMOr internet taxes. In light of this revenue sharing giveaway, the tax she imposed on internet sales (affecting ALOT more people) is even more egregious.
Posted by: Palouse on June 23, 2008 07:40 AMDoesn't matter to me where the money comes from if it's legal, just as long as I don't have to pay it.
You can be sure that the next time Queen Chrissy asks for higher taxes for roads, ferries, bridges, etc., I won't be the only one telling her to hit up the tribes for their share before she puts her hand in my pocket.
Posted by: Clean House on June 23, 2008 11:50 AMThe state Democratic party already is. We the taxpayers might as well get a cut of it.
Posted by: Palouse on June 23, 2008 12:24 PMWhat has the Republican Party done for the tribes lately? Or ever? You know the answer -- zero.
Now the tribes have money -- because surprise, people like to gamble -- and they are using it in the political arena, and you lot are getting none of it.
These are choices that *your* Republican leaders made -- like Slade Gorton -- and now the tribes are getting some payback on you. Cry me a river.
Own up to your actions, accept the consequences, and quit your whining, like you're so good at telling everybody else to do.
Posted by: ivan on June 23, 2008 12:43 PMGuess what ivan, I could care less if Republicans get tribe money. I just dislike the political payoffs like the one your Queen gave the tribes, while she raises taxes on the rest of us.
Posted by: Palouse on June 23, 2008 01:55 PMivan's MO is like the rest of the Democrats- give millions of illegals the right to vote to win elections, give every special interest group lots of money and legal status in order to win elections; yep, sounds like a winner. Thank goodness for Republicans who want to limit government or slow it down.
Posted by: swatter on June 23, 2008 02:17 PMTribes have money because they were granted a monopoly by the government for a specific line of business. Now, they're giving hundreds of thousands to Democrat politicians not because they just got a hankering to be civically engaged but to PROTECT and EXPAND their monopoly. It's pay to play politics.
Posted by: AD on June 23, 2008 06:20 PM