"In June, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians (MBCI) announced plans to build a new casino in Sandersville in Jones County. The 27,000-square-foot casino, which is expected to cost $18 million to build, will boast between 500 and 700 slot machines as well as a snack shop. More importantly, it will create about 250 new jobs. That should be welcome news in the current economy; with all the cut jobs and layoffs hitting Mississippians right now, an investment that offers so many new jobs should be counted as a blessing.

However, many of Mississippi’s elected officials do not think so. U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker and U.S. Sen. Greg Harper, both Mississippi Republicans, oppose the casino. Even U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss, and his November opponent, Republican Steven Palazzo, have finally found something to agree upon in their mutual opposition to the casino. But no one is more ferocious in his animosity toward the project than Governor Haley Barbour.

Ever since the project was first announced, Barbour has relentlessly attacked the “slot parlor,” as he derisively refers to it. Initially, he attempted to stop it by means of “diplomacy” with the Choctaw. When that failed, he turned to Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, hoping to find a way to halt the building of the casino through the courts. It was another dead end; Hood explained that one of Barbour’s Republican predecessors, Governor Kirk Fordice, had made opposing the casino on legal grounds impossible when he signed the tribal-state gambling compact in 1992.

“Lawyers in our office carefully reviewed possible legal challenges,” Hood said. “There is no apparent legal avenue to stop the development.”

But Governor Barbour was not going to give up so quickly; the possibility that those independent-minded Choctaw might bring 250 new jobs to the area was just too much. On Aug. 27, Barbour sent a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency saying that the “slot parlor” would not be in compliance with federal environmental standards. He then asked the EPA to halt construction."

Get the Story:
Ashton Pittman: Mississippi should support the slots (The Student Printz 9/2)

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