This story about the governor-select of Washington state suggests something unkosher is going on.
Gov. Chris Gregoire is benefiting from more than $650,000 in campaign contributions from Indian tribes that hit the jackpot in 2005 when she killed a gambling compact potentially worth more than $140 million a year to the state.
Unlike 22 other states that collect millions from revenue sharing agreements for tribal gambling, Washington gets no money from tribal casinos under the compact that Gregoire renegotiated with the Spokane Tribe.
Gregoire backed away from the 2005 agreement that included revenue sharing in an attempt to keep gambling from expanding too quickly and after listening to concerns from a wide range of groups, including other tribes, said her spokesman, Pearse Edwards.
But gambling experts say the state’s arrangement, which gives the governor power to approve or reject gambling agreements with the tribes and allows those same tribes to contribute to political campaigns, is ethically problematic but not illegal.
“It’s a payoff,” said University of Nevada-Las Vegas professor William Thompson, who has been studying tribal gambling since 1988. “She shouldn’t take any campaign money, nor should her political party, and it smells too quid pro quo for my liking.”
Even Gregoire’s fellow Democrats in the Legislature question the deal.
“Why would you give someone a monopoly without taking a cut?” asked Sen. Ken Jacobsen, D-Seattle.
Read the whole story… I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about his soon.
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