From the Sun-Times:

A lot to like in Madigan bid to fix gaming

Reforming state board to root out corruption is great -- if it's sincere

October 30, 2007
BY MARK BROWN Sun-Times Columnist

Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan said Monday he wants to strengthen the Illinois Gaming Board to make it a "genuinely independent" agency with expanded powers to root out corruption.

That's weird. So do I.

Madigan's proposal was so tough, in fact, that it left many believing that his ulterior purpose in setting tighter regulation of the casino industry as a precondition for gambling expansion was to thwart those expansion efforts.

That's funny, because that was my ulterior motive too, in writing a column a couple weeks ago calling for the Gaming Board to be given greater oversight powers and the increased staffing to carry out the workload before Chicago gets a casino.

Now, if I can just get Madigan to buy into my suggestion for a referendum as a prerequisite to a Chicago casino.

Actually, Madigan made the case for beefing up the Gaming Board much more articulately than my column, and I don't mean to question his sincerity, when the truth is that I find him the most inscrutable person in Illinois politics. I have no idea what he's really thinking.

It's just that he's been one of this state's most powerful Democrats throughout the entire life of legalized riverboat gambling, and I never once heard that beefing up the Gaming Board was a top priority for him.
Concession to fund CTA?

More and more, though, I find myself in agreement with Madigan's stated positions on matters of public policy, which is why I haven't put more of the blame on him for the current problems in Springfield, when clearly he bears some of the responsibility for the Democratic infighting that has brought us to this point.

Where we're at is that the Chicago Transit Authority is preparing to cut service and hike fares on Sunday if the Legislature can't agree on a way to provide more funding for mass transit.

Republicans and Downstaters don't want to support mass transit funding unless they can get a public works construction program to benefit their regions of the state. Gambling expansion has emerged as a way for legislators to pay for the public works program.

That's why it was no small development Monday when Madigan, while emphasizing that he's still not a gambling proponent, said he believes it's the "only viable way" to have a construction program right now. His announcement followed a Sunday morning confab with House Republicans at his Southwest Side office, where informal agreement was reached on the outlines of a gambling bill.

That could make it easier for Republicans to support the transit funding bill containing a sales tax increase when Madigan brings it back for a vote Friday, although it's still no cinch and would remain a tough vote in the Senate until everything is squared away for the construction program component -- which means getting everybody in agreement on gambling.
Board currently lacks power

By setting forth his list of non-negotiable safeguards for casino gambling regulation, some of which take at least an indirect slap at Gov. Blagojevich and Senate President Emil Jones, Madigan seemed at the same time to be making it tougher to reach that agreement.

Madigan seeks to limit the governor's power to appoint the Gaming Board members -- and the Senate's power of confirmation -- with a convoluted nominating process involving a committee to be picked by the state Supreme Court. There's no telling if anybody would go along with that, including the court.

He also would remove the Gaming Board from under the auspices of the state Revenue Department.

Madigan said a newly constituted Gaming Board would have the power to investigate and approve all casino contracts, an expansion of the Gaming Board's current role which requires oversight only of gambling-related contracts.

That weakness, which I mentioned in my earlier column, has long needed fixing, but the suggestion is bound to cause the casino industry to put up a big fight.

That previous column unfortunately gave some folks the impression I was criticizing the work of the Gaming Board, when really I was just trying to explain the agency is limited by law. That law was never intended to make Illinois a tough regulatory state for the casino industry.

Madigan's proposal would make our regulations as tough or tougher than any place in the country.

"We're stacking the deck in favor of the people rather than against them," Madigan said.

If we're going to allow more gambling in Illinois, we should insist