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Editorial: Make decision on Wisconsin off-reservation casino

Gov. Scott Walker said in November that he would not accept donations from tribes involved in the fight over a proposed Menominee casino in Kenosha. "It doesn't make any sense for them to be involved politically," he said. He's right - but that hasn't stopped a major player in this game from playing politics anyway.

And while that player and another haven't been contributing to Walker directly, they did make significant contributions last year to the Republican Governors Association, which uses its money to support GOP gubernatorial candidates across the nation and has aired commercials supporting Walker in the past, and presumably will this year, too.

The Journal Sentinel's Cary Spivak reported Tuesday that Seminole Hard Rock Entertainment Inc., the financial muscle behind the proposed casino, and the Seminole Tribe of Florida, which owns Hard Rock, combined to give the governors group $65,000 in the second half of last year, including a contribution in December. On the other side of the fence, the Forest County Potawatomi, the tribe that is leading the opposition to the Kenosha casino, gave the governors association $10,000 in July — a contribution that brought its tab for last year up to $60,000, according to filings reviewed separately by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, Spivak reported.