Opinion: Indian gaming a corrupting influence

Friday, January 20, 2006  

"It doesn't take an Einstein to construct an equation to see that the fusion of gambling and politics is generating massive government corruption. What local and state governments have experienced is now engulfing Washington, D.C. Gambling promoters and their hired lobbyists are now joined at the hip with our elected officials to promote an extensive gambling culture in America.

This is not the mere suspicion of an anti-gambling reformer, but now the focus of investigated teams from the U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Illegal gambling, once the honey pot of organized crime, has now become a cesspool of government corruption.

When I read of the millions of dollars that flow from gambling predators to elected officials for special-interest legislation, I shudder at what corruption is doing to the democratic foundations of our land. For example, how could Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition and now running for high office in Georgia, receive more than a million dollars from a Mississippi Indian casino laundered through an intermediary tax-exempt group, all orchestrated by super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff to torpedo a proposed Indian casino in Alabama?

Both political parties have been equal-opportunity pigs at the feeding trough of the Bureau of Indian Affairs."

Get the Story:
Thomas Grey: Indian casinos, etc. -- Free America from gambling corruption (The Providence Journal 1/20)
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