Illinois governor supports scaled-back gambling proposal

Governor Pat Quinn won’t sign a massive gambling expansion bill and, in its place, proposed a scaled-back alternative Monday that would still give Lake County a casino, but not in Park City.

The package the governor proposed Monday would scale back the plan that lawmakers sent to him in May that allowed for five new casinos, including one in Park City, as well as slot machines at racetracks, O’Hare and Midway airports, and the Illinois fairgrounds, in addition to more gambling “positions” at existing casinos.

Quinn said he would support adding five new gambling locations, not nine, and won’t support slot machines at the airports. “I’m the final word,” Quinn said. “We’re not going to have a willy-nilly gambling bill in Illinois that is not protecting integrity, that is way too big and excessive and doesn’t provide adequate revenue for education ....Casino gambling at 14 different locations in Illinois is way too much. We have no interest in becoming the Las Vegas of the Midwest. We need to retain our culture.”

The governor said he would support putting five new casinos in Chicago, Rockford, Danville, a Lake County site to be chosen by the Illinois Gaming Board — not the Park City location passed by the Legislature — and a southern Cook County site, also to be chosen by the board.

Proximity to other casinos was a prime consideration, Quinn said. “Anyone who looks at this issue, as I have for four months, will come to realize you need fundamental principles, honesty and integrity at all times,” Quinn said. “You can’t expand too much. You can’t have oversaturation.”

Quinn’s alternative also would ban contributions to state elected officials by gaming licensees and casino managers, which other states have done, and undo a generous tax break for the highest-grossing casinos that was contained in the legislation that narrowly passed the House and Senate in May.

The list of demands by the governor ends months of caginess from Quinn, who had been giving strong signs he intended to veto or rewrite the legislation, which he repeatedly had called “top-heavy.”

His counterproposal, which comes a week before lawmakers return to Springfield for the start of their fall veto session, gives the Democratic-led Legislature a roadmap as they try to recalibrate a bill that has been held up by a parliamentary maneuver amid fears Quinn would veto it. Neither the House nor Senate passed the bill with enough votes to override a veto.

The bill, supported by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, would have allowed for casinos in Chicago, Park City, the south suburbs, Rockford and Danville, plus allow slot machines to be installed at racetracks and increase the number of gambling positions at existing casinos.

“I don’t think it’s going to be a mile apart between us,” state Senator Terry Link, the bill’s chief Senate sponsor, said after Quinn made his comments. “Maybe we’re a half-mile apart but not a mile apart. I think I see the governor has moved a long ways. He thought (the original bill) was ‘top-heavy,’ but now he’s OK with the five casinos. That’s a huge move in the right direction. I think maybe we can come to compromise on things.”

Quinn’s decision to snub the horseracing industry after intense lobbying for slot machines could cause gambling negotiations to collapse since the votes in the Legislature in May were so close, but the governor defended his move. “The fact we don’t have casino gambling locations at racetracks doesn’t mean the state isn’t providing adequate support for horseracing and other businesses,” he said. “The very notion we have to have seven more gambling locations in order to ‘save horseracing,’ I don’t think is necessary.”