Insight on the News: Will Clinton stack the deck on gambling commission?

The gambling industry provided millions to Democrats. Critics want to know what that bought.

Opponents of legalized gambling fear President Clinton will "stack the deck" when he makes his choices for members of the National Gambling Impact Study Commission, a $4 million effort to assess the impact of the nation's many forms of legalized gambling on families and businesses. "They're not really listening to us," charges Barnard P. Horn, political director for the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling, referring to the administration. "We didn't pay them anything."

Horn maintains that Clinton appointments will be influenced by campaign contributions from the nation's $500 billion per year gaming industry He tells Insight his group "had hoped we'd get people who would objectively study the issue, but that was probably a naive wish."

He continues: "The gambling industry contributed $2 million in soft money to the Democratic Party; certainly much of that money was contributed to influence the president. The question is whether he's going to be influenced."

"Absolutely false," counters Frank Fahrenkopf of the American Gaming Association, or AGA, in reaction to Horn's charge of political payback. "I defy Bernie to produce any scintilla of evidence with regard to that." He points out that two of the six commission members named thus far, James Dobson and Kay James, are cultural conservatives opposed to gambling.

"In listening to the whining that's going on [from opponents of gambling], they are not really paying attention to what the legislation says," Fahrenkopf tells Insight. "We're not picking a jury"

The commission was established by Congress to study gambling in its various modern incarnations: on American Indian reservations and riverboats, in posh "family-oriented" casinos and via the Internet. It is to look at gambling's relationship to crime, addiction and such possible consequences as suicide and bankruptcy The legislation specifically asks for "various points of view" on the subject.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott already have announced the three appointments allowed each of them to the nine-member panel. The GOP leaders granted their opposites in the Democratic Party one choice each for the commission.

House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt's appointment was in keeping with gambling opponents' fears. At the request of John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, the Missouri Democrat named an official of the union that serves the gambling industry. The union that Gephardt's appointee serves gave $182,000 to Democratic candidates during the last two years, including $5,000 to Gephardt's campaign and $2,500 to his Effective Government PAC. The union also gave $33,800 to Republican congressional candidates during the same period.

"It's important for the workers to have a voice in this process," said Gephardt in appointing John Wilhelm, secretary-treasurer of the 250,000-member Hotel and Restaurant Employees International Union.

In a similar vein, when asked about the matter of campaign contributions, Fahrenkopf says the industry he represents employs "well over a million people" and consists of publicly held companies with shareholders including many prominent institutional investors. Involvement in the political process through contributions, he says, is a way to help "protect the interests of our employees and our shareholders." Rep. Frank Wolf, the Virginia Republican who sponsored legislation creating the commission, said in offering the bill that "no employee of the gambling industry should be permitted on this commission. It would be contrary to the spirit of the legislation, and it would inevitably create ethical conflicts of interest for commission members."

When legislation was introduced, the gaming industry mounted a powerful attack to quash or neutralize the commission. The AGA's Fahrenkopf, a former Reagan adviser and former chairman of the Republican National Committee, called it "a star chamber inquisition-type commission" as proposed. His group fielded a dozen high-powered lawyers and lobbyists tasked to kill or alter the commission proposal. In addition to the AGA's efforts, individual casinos also fielded teams of lobbyists to tackle the proposal.

The appointments include Wilhelm of the casino-employees union; Dobson of Focus on the Family; James, dean of the Robertson School of Government at Regent University; J. Terrence Lanni, chairman of MGM Grand, a company with major international casino interests; former California Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy; and Paul Moore, a radiologist from Pascagoula, Miss. This has left the president with three choices.

Is Clinton dragging his feet on these matters? That's a possible strategy. Given the commission's two-year study time, the hour is approaching when their report will become the next president's problem.