Feature Article |
Gaming the System
Two summers ago, Ed Rendell and Vince Fumo pushed through a bill virtually ensuring that the favorite slots parlors of the usual Philadelphia insiders would come to town. Never mind whether we wanted them — or what gambling might do to the city
By Matthew Teague
- Illustration by Christoph Niemann
BY HIS SECOND summer as Pennsylvania’s headman, Governor Ed Rendell had dug himself into a serious political debt. He needed a way out. He needed, as it were, a jackpot.
In 2002, Rendell had won election by making sweeping promises — namely, to reduce taxes and bring business to the state. But he quickly discovered that his reputation as Philadelphia’s mayor didn’t mean much in Harrisburg. His enemies hit harder there — Senator Robert Jubelirer, the top-ranking Republican, got into a legislative spat with Rendell and told him, “Fuck you, Governor. You’re a liar” while his friends stood watching. But he turned it all around in the wee hours of a summer night, with a single political gamble — or, at least, what appeared to be a gamble — on casinos.
As far back as the 1990s, Rendell, as mayor of Philadelphia, had wanted riverboat casinos on the Delaware, but he never flexed quite enough political muscle to make it happen. He made a campaign promise in 2002 to expand legalized gambling, but the idea didn’t get traction until 2003, when, now flailing as governor, he proposed a whopper of a program called the “Plan for a New Pennsylvania.” This new plan aimed to fix schools, reform property taxes, and patch a hole in the state’s budget — largely paid for with gambling proceeds. “This is something the Governor wanted badly,” Jubelirer told me recently. Rendell toured the state promoting the plan, hoping his famous charm and straightforward approach might carry the day. They didn’t, and the program languished.
Rendell’s relationship with one particular man, Senator Vince Fumo, had withered since he took over as governor. They had been political pals in the past, until Fumo had backed Rendell’s opponent, Bob Casey, in the Democratic primary during the election. Naturally, that incensed Rendell. But Fumo is powerful — also corrupt, federal prosecutors now say — and he made a far better friend than enemy. So in May 2004, Rendell met with Fumo in Philadelphia to patch up their relationship. And almost immediately after that meeting, Rendell’s life as governor took a an upward turn.
The project Rendell and Fumo teamed up on following that meeting — bringing casinos to Pennsylvania, and most significantly to the City of Philadelphia — would be, in Fumo’s words, “the most important and dramatic thing we’ve done in state government in 30 years.” The two politicians’ decisions would touch almost every citizen in the Commonwealth, in ways good and bad. This eventually ignited an ardent grassroots resistance to the casinos, and fears that their arrival would trample some of Philadelphia’s most important neighborhoods. But a series of deft political maneuvers kept all the power consolidated with a handful of insiders, and impenetrable to public opinion.
The whole thing started, appropriately, with a piece of midnight intrigue at the Capitol.
In 2002, Rendell had won election by making sweeping promises — namely, to reduce taxes and bring business to the state. But he quickly discovered that his reputation as Philadelphia’s mayor didn’t mean much in Harrisburg. His enemies hit harder there — Senator Robert Jubelirer, the top-ranking Republican, got into a legislative spat with Rendell and told him, “Fuck you, Governor. You’re a liar” while his friends stood watching. But he turned it all around in the wee hours of a summer night, with a single political gamble — or, at least, what appeared to be a gamble — on casinos.
As far back as the 1990s, Rendell, as mayor of Philadelphia, had wanted riverboat casinos on the Delaware, but he never flexed quite enough political muscle to make it happen. He made a campaign promise in 2002 to expand legalized gambling, but the idea didn’t get traction until 2003, when, now flailing as governor, he proposed a whopper of a program called the “Plan for a New Pennsylvania.” This new plan aimed to fix schools, reform property taxes, and patch a hole in the state’s budget — largely paid for with gambling proceeds. “This is something the Governor wanted badly,” Jubelirer told me recently. Rendell toured the state promoting the plan, hoping his famous charm and straightforward approach might carry the day. They didn’t, and the program languished.
Rendell’s relationship with one particular man, Senator Vince Fumo, had withered since he took over as governor. They had been political pals in the past, until Fumo had backed Rendell’s opponent, Bob Casey, in the Democratic primary during the election. Naturally, that incensed Rendell. But Fumo is powerful — also corrupt, federal prosecutors now say — and he made a far better friend than enemy. So in May 2004, Rendell met with Fumo in Philadelphia to patch up their relationship. And almost immediately after that meeting, Rendell’s life as governor took a an upward turn.
The project Rendell and Fumo teamed up on following that meeting — bringing casinos to Pennsylvania, and most significantly to the City of Philadelphia — would be, in Fumo’s words, “the most important and dramatic thing we’ve done in state government in 30 years.” The two politicians’ decisions would touch almost every citizen in the Commonwealth, in ways good and bad. This eventually ignited an ardent grassroots resistance to the casinos, and fears that their arrival would trample some of Philadelphia’s most important neighborhoods. But a series of deft political maneuvers kept all the power consolidated with a handful of insiders, and impenetrable to public opinion.
The whole thing started, appropriately, with a piece of midnight intrigue at the Capitol.
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