Feature Article |
Gaming the System
By Matthew Teague
The Senate took up the bill within a matter of hours of its reconstitution, and passed it, 30 to 20 — a big win for Rendell and Fumo. But the bill was only halfway home; it still faced Clymer and his anti-gambling colleagues in the House.
The House legislators worked around the clock that night and the next, trying to untangle the gambling bill and all its implications. The lobbyists also worked around the clock, persuading, leveraging, cajoling: If you don’t pass this, they told legislators, the money will just go to New Jersey. So think of the good you’ll do for your district by keeping it here.
About 4 p.m. Saturday, July 3rd, the House started debating the bill. Many representatives took the floor to rail against gambling and the lack of a public referendum on it. Clymer stood and said, “There is a foul odor in the halls of government” — but as in the Senate, the outcome seemed inevitable. Rendell and Fumo had bridged the partisan divide by allying themselves with the House’s leader, Speaker John Perzel, a Republican from Philadelphia; Perzel had long supported slots, and accepted campaign donations from gambling interests. Just after midnight on July 4th, representatives passed the bill, 113 to 88. The whole process, from the scratching of the 33 lines to the final passage, had taken less than 72 hours.
By 3:30 a.m., the bill’s backers threw their arms around each other and swapped high-fives in the Capitol’s rotunda, while Rendell declared victory. In a single deft push, he and Fumo had resurrected his governorship and set themselves atop a political gold mine: Each year, a billion or so dollars in casino tax money would go toward Rendell’s promised programs — better taxes, schools and business — and both of Philadelphia’s casinos would, ultimately, land in Fumo’s district.
Rendell immediately issued a statement titled “Governor Rendell Cheers Passage of Expanded Gaming,” and, rather defensively for a brand-new act, “Governor Will Amend Code of Conduct to Include Anti-Corruption Measures,” ostensibly to keep casino money from pouring into politicians’ pockets. According to the Inquirer, though, between January 2000 and the introduction of the bill, the gaming industry had already pumped almost $6 million into state political campaigns. Fumo and his political committees received more than a quarter million of that, and Rendell about $1.7 million.
And so, in the darkest hours of July 4th, the most democratic of holidays, the colossal bill passed with no public scrutiny, no hearings, and no input from citizens.
That isolated conception — isolated from the average citizen — would set the tone for everything that followed. Act 71 guided the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and most especially the City of Philadelphia, toward an almost inevitable gambling industry, and at every turn it remained true to its genesis: a done deal, even before the people knew it existed.
Opponents, as we’ll see, contend not only that casinos were rigged to come to the state in general, but that Philadelphia’s two eventual site winners — Foxwoods and SugarHouse — were just as inevitable, thanks to a mesh of political cronies and big-dollar contributors.
The House legislators worked around the clock that night and the next, trying to untangle the gambling bill and all its implications. The lobbyists also worked around the clock, persuading, leveraging, cajoling: If you don’t pass this, they told legislators, the money will just go to New Jersey. So think of the good you’ll do for your district by keeping it here.
About 4 p.m. Saturday, July 3rd, the House started debating the bill. Many representatives took the floor to rail against gambling and the lack of a public referendum on it. Clymer stood and said, “There is a foul odor in the halls of government” — but as in the Senate, the outcome seemed inevitable. Rendell and Fumo had bridged the partisan divide by allying themselves with the House’s leader, Speaker John Perzel, a Republican from Philadelphia; Perzel had long supported slots, and accepted campaign donations from gambling interests. Just after midnight on July 4th, representatives passed the bill, 113 to 88. The whole process, from the scratching of the 33 lines to the final passage, had taken less than 72 hours.
By 3:30 a.m., the bill’s backers threw their arms around each other and swapped high-fives in the Capitol’s rotunda, while Rendell declared victory. In a single deft push, he and Fumo had resurrected his governorship and set themselves atop a political gold mine: Each year, a billion or so dollars in casino tax money would go toward Rendell’s promised programs — better taxes, schools and business — and both of Philadelphia’s casinos would, ultimately, land in Fumo’s district.
Rendell immediately issued a statement titled “Governor Rendell Cheers Passage of Expanded Gaming,” and, rather defensively for a brand-new act, “Governor Will Amend Code of Conduct to Include Anti-Corruption Measures,” ostensibly to keep casino money from pouring into politicians’ pockets. According to the Inquirer, though, between January 2000 and the introduction of the bill, the gaming industry had already pumped almost $6 million into state political campaigns. Fumo and his political committees received more than a quarter million of that, and Rendell about $1.7 million.
And so, in the darkest hours of July 4th, the most democratic of holidays, the colossal bill passed with no public scrutiny, no hearings, and no input from citizens.
That isolated conception — isolated from the average citizen — would set the tone for everything that followed. Act 71 guided the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and most especially the City of Philadelphia, toward an almost inevitable gambling industry, and at every turn it remained true to its genesis: a done deal, even before the people knew it existed.
Opponents, as we’ll see, contend not only that casinos were rigged to come to the state in general, but that Philadelphia’s two eventual site winners — Foxwoods and SugarHouse — were just as inevitable, thanks to a mesh of political cronies and big-dollar contributors.
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