Now that Attorney General Bill McCollum has clambered onto the I'm-more-conservative-than-Charlie-Crist bandwagon with a lawsuit trying to stop the Seminole gambling deal and the press corps has once more trotted out comparisons to that "staunch opponent" of gambling, Jeb Bush -- let's just stop a moment and recall how we got here, in a position where the Seminole Tribe essentially have a can’t-lose case in their bid for casino gambling.
Let's see … four times over the past three decades, the gambling industry has tried to sell voters on the idea of casinos in Florida. It failed three times, and succeeded just once, on the watch of -- oh right, staunch opponent of gambling Jeb Bush. As I wrote in
Jeb:
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Jeb, as a good Christian conservative, has long opposed gambling as emblematic of the “something-for-nothing” culture that afflicts America. And so when the gambling interests put on the ballot an initiative to allow slot machines at pari-mutuels in Miami-Dade and Broward counties by local referendum, one would have expected Jeb to fight it tooth-and-nail, right? At least as hard as he fought the class-size amendment, right?
Wrong. In fact, Jeb barely lifted a finger, leaving it to the usual anti-gambling groups to fight millions of dollars in dog- and horse-track money. The consequence: The pro-slots initiative passed, leaving the question of slots in those two counties to the local voters in early 2005. Jeb mobilized his people to defeat it in Miami-Dade, but could not stop it in Broward. But why so little effort, so late in the game? Why not a full-bore campaign against the statewide ballot question in 2004?
“I was busy,” he said in February 2005. “I was trying to be a good governor, and the other priorities were important. The re-election of the president, and election of a United States senator. I would have preferred that it not win.”
Translation: My brother was facing a tight race again, and I needed every Republican and independent vote I could get, including the libertarians who have no problem with gambling.
And so, Florida in 2006, with a conservative Republican governor, finally got the casino-style gambling that Democratic governors Reubin Askew, Bob Graham and Lawton Chiles had successfully staved off in 1978, 1986 and 1994. |
During his campaign for governor, Crist said he would oppose the expansion of gambling, and since then has modified that to say that he dislikes only one thing more than gambling, and that's increasing taxes. This shift is certainly fair game for criticism.
But to blame him for cutting a deal with the Seminoles while not criticizing Bush for allowing the amendment to pass in the first place seems more than a bit disingenuous. Perhaps Crist could have jerked the tribe around for another year or two, but the facts on the ground cannot be ignored. Florida is now permitting slot machines in the state, which means the tribe was going to get at least that no matter what. It's also quite possible that had the state played hardball, the tribe could have played right back -- and wound up with full-blown slots without having to share a dime with the state. Does it really make sense to risk that merely to keep out the so-called banked table games?
For that matter, it's a little unclear what the major philosophical objection to black jack and other card games is, compared to the far more addicting slot machines. Particularly when the state legislators have already permitted poker in the licensed pari-mutuel gambling parlors.
In fact, given that it was the horse and dog tracks that pushed the 2004 gambling amendment, isn't there a bit of poetic justice that Crist's deal helps the Seminoles at the pari-mutuels’ expense?
Or is that what all the bellyaching by McCollum and Marco Rubio is really about: The deal hurts the pari-mutuels, which have pretty much had their way with state government for decades and have now found themselves losing a game they thought they had rigged?
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December
20, 2007