Pols urged to disclose contributions linked to gaming

A Harrisburg-based government-watchdog group called yesterday for state legislators to voluntarily disclose campaign contributions from people with ties to the gambling industry.

Common Cause complained that the General Assembly is considering two pieces of legislation - to allow video poker in bars, and table games at state-approved casinos - even though legislators won't have to file campaign-finance reports detailing campaign contributions, including those from casino investors, until next year.

James Browning, the group's director for development, lamented an April ruling by the state Supreme Court that struck down a provision in the 2004 gaming act prohibiting campaign contributions by casino investors.

"Our main concern is the potential for corruption that comes with these huge contributions," Browning said yesterday, joined at City Hall by members of local anti-casino groups. "The state is completely exposed now."

State legislators are considering legislation to reinstitute the ban on political contributions by casino investors. One such bill, introduced in the state Senate on Monday, said that it "is necessary to prevent corruption, or the appearance of corruption, that may arise when politics and gaming are intermingled."

That legislation was unanimously approved yesterday by the Senate's Committee on Community, Economic and Recreational Development.

The state House Gaming Oversight Committee is to consider legislation today from Majority Whip Bill DeWeese, D-Greene, to add table games such as poker, blackjack and roulette to the state's casinos. DeWeese yesterday said that he could see logic in Common Cause's concerns.

"But the public could find out in a heartbeat by asking the membership if they had accepted campaign contributions," said DeWeese, adding that legislators now know that the public can check up on them. "I think we're all too circumspect to tell a mistruth. The world of transparency has arrived in Harrisburg."

DeWeese, as sponsor of the table-games legislation, said that he won't take campaign contributions from the gaming industry.

Common Cause, in a report released yesterday, said that it had found $4.4 million in campaign contributions from the gaming industry to state politicians from 2001 to 2008. Many of the donations by casino investors were made before the ban became law in 2004.

Peter DePaul, a local developer and investor in the proposed Foxwoods casino in Center City, came in second in the Common Cause list of the top-20 donors.

DePaul challenged the state's ban on campaign contributions by casino investors in 2007.

The state Gaming Control Board fined him $100,000 in December 2006 for making 21 contributions for a combined $31,750 while he was an applicant for a casino license.

The board also fined the Foxwoods partnership $100,000 and awarded it a casino license two weeks later.

The state Supreme Court sided with DePaul on April 30. He asked the Gaming Control Board last month to refund his fine with 6 percent interest.

Foxwoods also plans to ask the board to return the $100,000 fine it paid.