Politics

By ROBERT KIECKHEFER

Still, Mrs. Byrne's was not the first suggestion that legalized gambling could take up the slack for a revenue-hungry city government. Alderman Roman C. Pucinski suggested the idea a year earlier, so it was not entirely out of left field.

And it's clear the city could use the money a casino would bring. It's not easy for a mayor with a tentative grasp on the reins of power to order layoffs of city workers, as Mrs. Byrne has done. It's not easy, either, to see the city's bond rating sink or to face serious union demands for written contracts that could ultimately cost the city a significant amount of money.

In addition, although everyone involved denies a deal has been cut, there is a certain Chicago-style symmetry in the idea of putting a glittering casino in the Hilton Hotel scheduled for construction as part of the North Loop development project. After all, the developer and the Hilton chain need the city's continued active cooperation to make the project go. In those circumstances, it's only traditional to provide a quid pro quo. How nice if it should be a quid pro quo that's also a veritable gold mine.

So what happens if the mayor is serious and decides to open "Daley Palace" or "The Golden Ward Healer" in the new Hilton or on Navy Pier?

The first possibility is that she could have the City Council just go ahead and legalize casino gambling, claiming the right under the home-rule provisions of the 1970 Illinois Constitution.

That would prompt an interesting court test.

The prevailing opinion among home-rule experts seems to be that such a step would be unconstitutional. It would, in effect, be local legalization of an act which is a felony under state law. That is a little beyond what Con Con had in mind when it granted home-rule powers, the experts say.

The second option is legislative action — most likely special legislation legalizing casino gambling for one specific site within Chicago only. The bill also might limit the type of games allowed. For instance, it's not likely the horse racing industry, which only recently got rid of the bet messenger services that were bleeding it dry, would allow passage of any measure that would permit off-track betting.

But if it were tightly drawn, could such a bill pass? That is an interesting question.

The history of Illinois and gambling is checkered, indeed. On the one hand, there is a relatively rich horse racing tradition, and the state recently has acted to safeguard and improve the horse breeding and racing industry. On the other hand, the mention of gambling brings to mind the image of Paul Powell and his hangers-on; of Otto Kerner and Marge Everett and the shady deal that sent Kerner to prison; and even the only real shadow that has touched Gov. James R. Thompson — his treatment of Mrs. Everett after her participation in the Kerner prosecution.

One would think it would be hard to raise moral objections to a casino gambling bill in a state that runs a lottery and, in effect, recently authorized a state-run version of the numbers racket; a state which takes a cut from some pretty marginal racetracks frequented primarily by the poor and minorities; and a state where many schools exist only because of the money they make at weekly bingo games.

But there would be moral objections. This is also the state where, thanks to former Gov. Daniel Walker's amendatory veto a few years ago, it is against the law to bet on a hand of poker in a private home; the state which has seriously refused to consider bills to legalize parimutuel betting on jai alai; and the state that has spurned suggestions of a lot of other kinds of legal wagering.

The key to the success of any gambling bill probably would be the bottom line — how much revenue it would generate. If there were enough to spread around, to finance downstate schools, roads, local governments, or other such popular legislative causes, the bill might have a chance.

But if a single casino were the goal, it's not likely there would be that much of a pie to cut up. And lawmakers, still answering questions from angry constituents who wonder why the state's money problems weren't solved by the lottery, are not likely to rationalize their vote for one casino in Chicago on grounds it would be a financial well-spring for anyone.

It's one of those issues, like abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment, that blurs party lines and forces legislators to put themselves on record on an unpopular issue. Maybe that's enough reason to let the idea slide. On the other hand, Mrs. Byrne has shown no inclination of ducking a good fight. And, after her support on the transportation funding program and the sales tax cut veto, it appears the governor owes her some help under the Statehouse dome.

34/ November 1979/ Illinois Issues