The power of the gambling/political complex
- Jul 26, 2007 - 1
Legalized gambling has had an enormous social and cultural impacts on Mississippi since the first small riverboat casinos were approved in the early 1990s. Even fair-minded supporters of gambling admit that much, but differ with opponents on whether the cost to the state has been worth it.
Mississippi’s social and cultural landscapes, always a tangled, disorderly weave of history, current events, and competing visions of the future, have changed radically since the advent of legalized gambling. Nowhere is that more evident than in the breathtaking growth of the gambling/political complex in this state.
As our jails and prisons fill with otherwise law-abiding citizens hooked on gambling to the point of fraud and embezzlement, as our children go without basic necessities while their parents gamble away paychecks and life savings, as families rupture and marriages implode, powerful gambling interests continue to push their expansionist agenda with the help of pliant politicians.
Virtually every governmental body in Mississippi counties where gambling has been approved have to ask this question about virtually every issue that comes before them: “How will this affect the casinos?”
That’s certainly true too of Governor Haley Barbour and even the Mississippi Legislature, the majority of whom gave the gamblers everything they demanded in a post-Hurricane Katrina special session by passing House Bill (HB) 45 and allowing them to move their gambling halls off the water and 800 feet inland.
As we approach the second anniversary of that special session, it’s important to understand the lessons we learned (or should have learned) up to this point regarding Mississippi’s gambling/political complex.
Even HB 45’s 800-feet rule is smoke and mirrors. During the special session, legislators allowed and the governor approved an exception to the 800-feet rule. All street and highway rights-of-way, as well as any utility rights-of-way, are excluded from the 800-feet count.
That means casinos can now move well beyond a literal 800-feet boundary to build their gambling halls even farther inland. You say you didn’t know that? That’s because the gambling/political complex and the news media — themselves beholden to the gamblers’ bottomless advertising budgets — didn’t exactly give that clause top billing in their public pronouncements.
That’s just one example of how the gambling/political complex gets their way in this state. Mississippi Secretary of State Eric Clark, a member of the First Church, Brandon, and also the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board, has had a frustrating time trying to persuade the gamblers and their politician friends to follow state laws with which they disagree.
Clark, who is not a candidate in the upcoming election, took on the Gulf Coast casinos over their exploitation of tidelands which are owned by the people of Mississippi. (Tidelands are the submerged lands along the coastline and lands covered by the daily rise and fall of tides. Funds from the use of these tidelands by private interests are held in trust by the Secretary of State for the people of Mississippi.)
Gamblers have made so many attempts to avoid responsibility for their use of the tidelands — including several major lawsuits filed and bills promoted in the Legislature to strip Clark of his oversight duties — that Clark said of one such attempt in 2004, “It’s a plain example of the casinos and their lobbyists trying to dictate terms to the state, rather than the state effectively managing the casinos.”
In another instance, Biloxi attorney Britt Singletary, representing one of the casinos involved in a tidelands dispute, told the Sun-Herald newspaper (08/24/2001) that Clark was running a “rouge agency” and had launched a public relations campaign against his client using Baptist news media. Singletary also referred to his client’s opponents as “crazy Christians.”
After years of wrangling and pressure, the gambling/political complex was finally able to change Mississippi’s tidelands laws — during the 2005 post-Katrina special session. According to the Sun-Herald (10/08/2005), the Mississippi House of Representatives passed the revised tidelands deal by a vote of 109-4 as tallied on the chamber’s voting machine but, as the newspaper pointed out, only about 40 House members were actually present at the time.
So, how did 113 votes get cast with only 40 representatives present?
“Under House rules, the vote stands, since no one raised a point of order about a quorum not being present,” the newspaper reported.
Looks like we “crazy Christians” better brace ourselves for more stunts like that in the future, and for the eventual complete takeover of our state by the gambling/political complex. They’ll be satisfied with nothing less.
We certainly can’t complain that we weren’t warned.
This article is reprinted from the July 26, 2007, issue of “The Baptist Record,“ the newspaper of the Mississippi Baptist Convention.
Further Learning
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1 comments (post your own) feed
1 On Aug 14th, 2007, at 11:45am, brad hall wrote:
As the gambling lobby works to control states where they are already present, there is a continuing push to legalize casinos in other states. The state of Kentucky is now in the midst of a governor’s election this fall that is all about legalized casino gambling. Incumbent Governor Ernie Fletcher is being labeled as one of those “crazy Christians” by his opponent Steve Beshear. Beshear, along with his democratic buddies in the state, have been courted by the gambling lobby to the point that they are promising, if returned to power, they will give the people “what they want"- land based casinos in Kentucky. By the way, I am one of those “crazy Christian” Baptists who are fighting to keep this moral blight out of the bluegrass state.