Land-Based Casinos Given Green Light by Mississippi Legislature
by Fred Jackson and Ed Vitagliano
October 4, 2005
(AgapePress) - The Mississippi State Senate has joined House lawmakers in approving a measure that will allow casinos to be built on land just off the Gulf Coast. The two votes came in response to pressure from gambling interests in the state. "They now basically control our state politics," American Family Association chairman Don Wildmon says of the casino owners. "That will not be visible for a year or two or three, but before long, if you're not totally pro-gambling in Mississippi, you better stay out of politics because you don't stand a dog's chance." Wildmon's group, which is based in the Magnolia State, had urged its supporters to contact state lawmakers and the governor to voice their opposition to the proposal.
Prior to the vote, Mississippi law prohibited casinos from being built on land. Casinos were only allowed to operate on water, as barges tethered to piers along the Gulf Coast. However, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, gambling interests quickly moved to take advantage of the heavy casino damage generated by the storm by asking the legislature to change the law. Governor Haley Barbour urged Senate and House members to make the change, and a majority did.
"The gamblers won, the people lost. And in years to come -- and only in years to come -- the people will realize what all they've lost," Wildmon says. "They really lost the future of their children, and I think that's going to become evident as years come and go."
Wildmon said he had predicted that if the Mississippi legislature OK'd land-based casinos, it would only be the beginning of the giving process. But he said even he was surprised at the speed in which the gambling interests were thrown another gift.
"Immediately after the legislature gave the gamblers the right to expand their casinos to on-land buildings, even before the ink had dried on the bill, another bill was introduced that would lower the tidelands rent they paid the state," he said.
According to the way the bill reads, Wildmon said, apparently if the casinos choose to stay in the water on government tidewater land, their rent will decrease. "And the casinos which choose to move onto land won't pay the state any rent at all," he added.
Secretary of State Eric Clark said the new give-away bill "will be very bad for the Gulf Coast if it is passed in its present form. It will gut the Tidelands Fund, which has generated about $60 million for improvements on the Coast."
Wildmon said he was not only disappointed in Governor Barbour and the legislature, but also the federal government. President Bush announced that Congress was considering a bill that would give about $500 million in tax credits to the casinos on the coast in order to help them rebuild after Katrina.
But Wildmon said, "The casinos didn't even ask for the half-billion dollars in tax credit. The administration simply made a decision to include them. The gambling industry has never received government aid in the past. But now all that is changing. Gamblers will be treated as a legitimate business and our government will go to their aid with our tax dollars -- hundreds of millions of dollars."
"Gamblers are greedy," Wildmon said. "They want it all, and it comes out of the pocketbooks of Mississippians."
