Failing gambling proposals

Failing gambling proposals: An annual rite of Springfield
By Mike Riopell

SPRINGFIELD — Just say something if you’ve heard this story before.


State lawmakers — faced with budget problems, looking for ways to create some jobs, hearing the pleas of the suffering horse racing industry — have turned toward more slot machines and casinos to try to heal all those wounds at once.

Then, officials talked in stark terms about the future of horse racing as gamblers took their cash to casinos instead of the tracks. Years later, those revenue declines are even more defined.

But the unpredictability of gambling politics haven’t changed. In 1997, the year Arlington Heights officials approved a nonbinding resolution to oppose slots at the track, Duchossois didn’t panic, but didn’t predict, either.

Nearly every major expansion attempt has failed since, with the exception of legislation that would allow video gambling machines to be installed in bars. Many suburbs have already banned the machines.

And despite that expansion effort and sharply declining casino revenues across Illinois, the push for more casinos and slots at race tracks marches on.

The proposals have taken on many forms over the years, but the results are always the same.

Jim Edgar opposed widespread expansion in the 1990s.

In 2002, lawmakers thought about slots at the tracks, along with legalizing the numbers game of Keno via the Illinois Lottery, and allowing existing casinos to have more slot machines in order to solve a $2 billion budget deficit.

“I don’t play the lottery. I think it’s a stupid thing to do myself. You don’t have any chance of winning. But if it raises $100 million, give ‘em Keno. Be my guest,” then-Senate President James “Pate” Philip of Wood Dale said at the time. “I’m not going to play it.”

In 2005, in a politically puzzling move, House lawmakers even voted to ban riverboat gambling, legislation that would have shuttered the suburbs’ multiple casinos.

Rep. Linda Chapa LaVia, an Aurora Democrat, accused the proposal’s sponsor of “political grandstanding to win over a conservative downstate electorate.”

Link predicted the idea of shuttering casinos stood “a snowball’s chance” in the Senate, and he was right. Casinos remain a part of the river-town landscape in Illinois.

Then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich unsuccessfully pushed a plan for casinos and racetrack slots in 2008 in order to pay for a statewide construction program.

“Given the conditions that exist here in Springfield, I think that the proposed expansion of gaming is a dead issue,” House Speaker Michael Madigan said at the time.

Madigan wryly elaborated for reporters, referring to Blagojevich: “I think most of you have written about those conditions.”

What has made 2011 different so far, though, is that it’s the first year lawmakers in both the House and Senate approved a plan that could be sent to the governor.

Quinn didn’t like it, though, so now lawmakers are back to the drawing board. Quinn seemed at least somewhat willing to deal after the latest gambling rejection in the House this week.

“The governor commends the House on a robust debate on this subject,” said Quinn spokeswoman Brooke Anderson. “It’s clear that this proposal needs more work, dialogue and analysis. We look forward to working with the General Assembly on this issue in the future.”

Despite years of frustrations behind him, Lang made it no secret Thursday that he’d try again.

“Tomorrow,” he said. “Or next month, or next year.” [They NEVER give up!]