Quinn: Casino Bill "Excessive"

By Chuck Sudo in News on Jun 2, 2011 1:00PM

As expected, Gov. Quinn criticized the State Legislature's gambling expansion bill as being to excessive, but stopped short of saying whether he would actually veto the bill. Quinn used the term "top heavy," which sent Eric Zorn scrambling for a thesaurus.

Quinn saved his sharpest criticism of the bill for the legislators who (pun intended) are gambling on it with their support.

“In Chicago, I have said I can see if it’s properly done, an opportunity for a gambling casino. But once the General Assembly got this subject, both House and Senate, it got more and more top heavy. Well my job is to make sure the people of Illinois come first, not the gamblers, not the insiders,” the governor told reporters in his Statehouse office.

The centerpiece of the bill calls for a casino in Chicago, an effort championed by Mayor Emanuel as an economic development too for Chicago. Emanuel spent the final days of the recently ended legislative session in Springfield deftly lobbying downstate representatives to support the bill.

But the bill, if signed into law by Quinn, would massively expand gambling across the state, with proposed casinos for the south suburbs, Rockford and Danville and slot machines at racetracks and airports.

Editorials across the state have been written have ranged from being in favor, whether wholeheartedly or as a necessary evil, to staunch opposition and repeated questions as to why the state won't make the necessary budget cuts that might make such a broad expansion unnecessary.