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Oregon Gov. Kate Brown this week wrote to the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs opposing the Coquille tribe's proposal to build its second casino, this one on 2.42 acres in Medford.
"I do not believe that an expansion in the number of casinos sited in Oregon is in the best interests of the State or her people," Brown wrote to the bureau April 13.
In her letter, Brown hewed to a policy Gov. John Kitzhaber laid out in 1997: that Oregon's nine recognized tribes should each be allowed one casino. The Coquille tribe already operates a casino in North Bend—but that location is far from population centers and Interstate 5.
The one-casino-per-tribe doctrine is not a law. The tribes are sovereign nations, and neither governors nor the Legislature have legal authority to tell them what to do.
In his 1997 white paper "Gambling in Oregon," Kitzhaber laid out a number of policy goals in addition to maintaining a one-casino-per-tribe framework.
Kitzhaber wanted to "halt the expansion of the Oregon Lottery by prohibiting line games" and "reduce the dependence of Oregon on lottery proceeds."
Neither happened. Once Oregon legalized gambling in 1985, it's been forever hooked.
When Kitzhaber published his white paper in 1997, annual lottery revenues were about $700 million. Over the next decade, the state expanded lottery offerings aggressively and revenues soared to more than $1.2 billion in the peak year of 2008.
Today, Brown is in a complex position. Like her predecessors, Kitzhaber and Ted Kulongoski, she warns in her letter of "significant efforts to expand gaming across Oregon, to the detriment of public welfare."
Yet Oregon's policy makers are addicted to lottery revenue, the second-largest source of state income after income taxes. Tribal casinos—especially in densely populated areas—are competition for the lottery.
So is the long-proposed Cowlitz Casino in La Center, Wash., 20 miles north of Portland. After years of efforts by Oregon's tribes to block that facility, which will be the closest casino to Portland when completed, the Cowlitz tribe finally broke ground in February on what it says will be a $500 million project.
So Brown may have preserved the status quo this week, but with Oregon Lottery revenues having seemingly plateaued, the Cowlitz Casino threatening to siphon revenues north, and large fiscal challenges looming in 2017-19 from public employee benefit costs and Medicaid expansion, the governor may have to revisit the issue of Oregon's gambling policy in the not-too-distant future.
Willamette Week