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* Eriz Zorn’s unsolicited advice to Gov. Pat Quinn…
Gaming Board chairman Aaron Jaffe said in a contentious Senate Executive Committee hearing last week that among his many problems with the current 555-page bill is that it could and should be far shorter — 30 pages or less.
Is he correct? Prove it. Give us that bill. Get a friendly lawmaker to introduce it for you. Put this issue behind us.
As with any legislation, most of the bill simply restates existing statutory language. You have to get to page 60-something before you even find anything new.
And, as with most legislation, there’s repeated language. The ban on campaign contributions by the gaming industry is repeated, for instance.
So, I copied all the new language, except for the repeated stuff on the campaign contribution ban, and pasted it into a text file, counted the words and divided by 270 (which is, more or less, about how many words are on a bill page as far as I can tell) and came up with 98.6 pages. [ADDING: Those first 60-some pages create a new entity, so add that to the total, which comes to160-something]. That’s more than 30, but certainly not 555 pages, a “fact” which is used mainly as a rhetorical device to undermine the bill by people like Jaffe, Gov. Quinn and the Tribune editorial board..
Also, Quinn doesn’t have any friendly lawmakers. He’s the first governor in forever who has no floor leaders. Besides, Quinn definitely does not want to “own” this issue by introducing a bill. He clearly wants any gaming expansion to be blamed on the General Assembly, not him.
* Speaking of which, here is my weekly syndicated newspaper column…
I’ve always believed that just because somebody claims to be a reformer, it doesn’t mean the person has the right solutions.
Many years ago, an activist named Pat Quinn came up with an idea to change the Illinois Constitution. He used the petition process to get rid of a third of Illinois House members in one fell swoop. This, Quinn said, would save money and make legislators more responsive to their constituents.
In reality, all that did was allow a guy named Michael Madigan to more easily consolidate his power. And one way he consolidated that power was by spending lots more money. Quinn’s plan backfired.
But even though this sort of thing has happened over and over again here, the media tends to give reformers a pass, almost no matter what.
So I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised when I read the major media’s news reports of last week’s Senate Executive Committee hearing. It wasn’t at all like the meeting I attended.
Admittedly, I arrived a little late and had to leave for a meeting before it was over, but from what I saw, Illinois Gaming Board Chairman Aaron Jaffe’s years-long criticism of the General Assembly’s gaming expansion bills was exposed as hollow and not entirely fact-based. He badly stumbled through his testimony, couldn’t directly answer questions and despite long-standing public criticisms, a notebook filled with thoughts and a history as a state legislator himself, Jaffe seemed woefully unprepared for the hearing.
For years, Chairman Jaffe has criticized various gaming expansion proposals, which has made him a media darling. He comes up with great quotes, once calling a gaming bill a “pile of garbage.”
But he’s never once said how the General Assembly ought to actually write the bills. Instead, he has relied on media-friendly criticisms of the way the legislature has gone about things.
It’s not like Jaffe is completely blameless here. The people drafting the gaming legislation clearly despise the man and never really attempted to work with him, or even listen to him.
But last week’s Senate meeting was designed to finally provide Jaffe with a public forum to offer up some concrete solutions. He didn’t have any.
Over and over, Senators in both parties pleaded with Jaffe to offer up some specifics for how to make the gaming bill more acceptable to him, and over and over Jaffe simply could not do so.
Instead, Jaffe stuck to generalities and catch phrases.
Jaffe said he hadn’t read the full bill, saying it was too long and claiming that a better bill might be just 25 pages long, without explaining how less language wouldn’t create gaping loopholes and without admitting that many of the pages in the 555-page bill are simply filled with current statutory language restated without any changes whatsoever. Jaffe declared that there were no ethical improvements in the recently revised legislation, even though the new bill would ban campaign contributions from gaming interests.
Jaffe even urged legislators to outright eliminate some state agencies because they were impeding his agency’s staff hiring - even though existing personnel regulations were inspired by decades of state corruption. He bitterly complained about the projects in the bill inserted to attract more votes, even though those projects have no direct bearing on the Gaming Board’s mission. He complained that the Chicago casino language wouldn’t allow the Board to determine whether the region was already too saturated with gaming, but then said he had no philosophical problem with a Chicago casino. His testimony was, in sum, an embarrassing mess by a man clearly past his prime, but the media covered for him, focusing mostly on a one-minute spat between Jaffe and the bill’s sponsor.
The only real progress came late in the hearing when Jaffe’s administrator Mark Ostrowski seemed to pull an idea out of thin air to delete the Chicago management agency’s language and give full responsibility for all operations to the private casino management company that the agency was supposed to choose. The manager, Ostrowski said, would be far easier to regulate than a municipal entity, which could fight bureaucratic battles through the courts. If the Senators were paying attention, they may have found a solution to finally get Jaffe off their backs.
* Related…
* Gaming board, lawmakers aim to overcome insults
* Erickson: Sides lining up on state gambling bill
posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Apr 16, 13 @ 1:43 pm
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Rich,
I’ve always wanted to ask you (and the blog), is there any other industry in the state that is prohibited from contributing to campaigns, and is this an issue that may be an infringement on the 1st amendment rights, especially in light of Citizens United?
Comment by Cincinnatus Tuesday, Apr 16, 13 @ 2:02 pm
- You have to get to page 60-something before you even find anything new. -
Rich, the first 63 pages of SA#1 create a new Act - the Chicago Casino Develepoment Authority Act. A new Act, which does not amend existing law, is set forth in plain text rather than the traditional underscoring and strikthrough.
Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Apr 16, 13 @ 2:06 pm
===is there any other industry in the state that is prohibited from contributing to campaigns===
Yep. State contractors can’t contribute to the folks who give out those contracts and the people running for those offices.
Comment by Rich Miller Tuesday, Apr 16, 13 @ 2:06 pm
Anonymous, thanks. I was just breezing through it. I’ll amend.
Comment by Rich Miller Tuesday, Apr 16, 13 @ 2:07 pm
Jaffe is an arrogant self absorbed incompetent manager. To testify that he is opposed to a bill he admitted he had not read nor obviously understood is ridiculous. Under his leadership the gaming board is becoming an ineffective joke.
Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Apr 16, 13 @ 2:08 pm
Thanks, Rich, but the your answer confuses me. Can I have an example of such a person?
Comment by Cincinnatus Tuesday, Apr 16, 13 @ 2:33 pm
===Can I have an example of such a person? ===
A road builder cannot contribute to a gubernatorial candidate.
Comment by Rich Miller Tuesday, Apr 16, 13 @ 2:36 pm
Thanks, R.
Comment by Cincinnatus Tuesday, Apr 16, 13 @ 2:57 pm
One of the criticisms we hear over and over is that a bill is too long or too complex.
I really wish those people would grow up. Life is complex. Sometimes the law must be complex. I will take a 550 page bill that is clear over a 30 page bill that is ambiguous.
A 550 page bill may be good or bad, but the fact that it is 550 pages is not relevant to the analysis.
Comment by HaroldVK Tuesday, Apr 16, 13 @ 3:29 pm
Jaffe may be past his prime, but did Ostrowski really pull that reasonable idea out of thin air, or did he bring forward an idea his boss ignored? You have to wonder how frustrated Jaffe’s own staff might be.
Comment by DanL60 Tuesday, Apr 16, 13 @ 4:07 pm
Jaffe needs to be replaced. Thank you Rich for shedding light on this.
Comment by soccermom Tuesday, Apr 16, 13 @ 5:01 pm
Mr. Jaffe is doing an excellent job of keeping the Illinois gambling industry honest and ethical.
Comment by Ruby Tuesday, Apr 16, 13 @ 5:14 pm
As Royko said “Lord save us from the reformers”
Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Apr 16, 13 @ 7:12 pm
Perhaps it is still true as Alderman Bauler once said, “Chicago ain’t ready for reform.” But let’s hope the good ethics of Mr. Jaffe prevails.
Comment by Ruby Tuesday, Apr 16, 13 @ 8:44 pm
Too many people confuse ethics and rhetoric.
Comment by soccermom Tuesday, Apr 16, 13 @ 9:14 pm