Posted on: Sunday, January 13, 2002

It's win-win for GOP if gambling passes or fails

By Bob Dye

With gambling outlawed in Hawai'i,Ernest Chang, a Kane'ohe retiree, has been among thousands of state residents who journey to Las Vegas to try their luck. On this trip, his sister-in-law, Sandra Kuboyama of Torrance, Calif., joined him in playing the poker machines at the Boulder Station Casino. Advertiser library photo • 1996

The big push to legalize casino gambling in the upcoming session of the Legislature has united Republicans and divided Democrats.

Whether or not a gambling bill passes or fails, Republicans will surely exploit the issue in this year's election. If just those Democratic promoters of gambling are tossed out of office by angry voters, the GOP takes control of the House and increases its members in the Senate. It is win/win for Republicans. They will be on the winning, albeit bipartisan, side of the gambling vote and take credit for causing its defeat.

A bill to legalize casino gambling will fail because:

• Hawai'i folks repeatedly have said no to legalized gambling.

• The suggestion that the government grant a gambling monopoly is anti-democratic. Folks don't want a business to use government to enrich itself at the expense of others. What happened to free enterprise?

• If the monopoly license goes to a foreign corporation, as it could, that helps some other country's economy, not ours. On this one, America first!

• That the state be beholden to a single operator is politically dangerous. Look what happened to the banana republics.

• That the state be beholden to a single industry is politically and economically dangerous. Remember the Oligarchy! Folks want to diversify the economy, not intensify our economic dependence on tourism.

• Add to the above reasons a large dose of voter suspicion about the motives of politicos for introducing the gambling issue.

Folks saw through Gov. Ben Cayetano's junket with cronies and a gambling lobbyist to the Bahamas for what it was. Ben said he went there to look at an aquarium, which I'm sure he did. Everyone who stays at the posh Atlantis Resort probably does. The resort also has a casino. And the Sun International folks who run it are the very people who want a monopoly license to operate a casino on O'ahu at Ko Olina. Coincidence! Voters don't like to be taken for fools.

Twisting and turning on the issue, Cayetano now purports to protect us from gambling spreading across the state. He says he wants voters, by referendum, to decide on the number of casinos and the kinds of games. He is quoted in The Advertiser as saying: "I don't want to see the Legislature approve it (gambling) in the form of general law. General laws, once you pass them, you can change. You can start with a single casino now, and five years later you can open it up to multiple casinos.

"One of the big reasons," he went on, "that a place like Las Vegas has all kinds of problems is because they've got slot machines and gambling in everything, from grocery stores to service stations to McCarran airport."

That has to be music to the ears of those Sun International executives who are in town to advocate a one-casino monopoly.

But Ben's not going to get his referendum, if Sen. Colleen Hanabusa has her way. An opponent of the governor's plan, she appears to have the votes in the upper chamber to kill it and any other gambling bill that's proposed.

If Democrat Hanabusa leads the charge to kill a gambling bill proposed by members of her own party, will there still be political fallout at the polls?

You bet! Republicans will make sure that any debate in the Legislature over gambling defines for voters the difference between the two major political parties here.

By uniting to fight gambling, Republicans appeal to voters who support family values and oppose vice. And they put their party squarely on the side of long-term economic development, not a quick fix. That message will bring voters to the GOP, they believe. Every ad placed by gambling advocates will deliver voters to them, they think.

From now to Election Day, Republicans will remind voters that powerful Democrats in the Legislature, including Senate President Bobby Bunda, will continue to support legalizing gambling. And that Republicans will continue to oppose it.

"We are against the legalization of gambling," says Micah Kane, the soon-to-be new head man of the GOP.

All of you?

"All of us!" he says in the voice of a CEO who has listened to GOP stakeholders.

"That's right!" confirms Minority Leader Galen Fox. "All 19 Republican members of the House oppose the legalization of gambling."

GOP Sen. Fred Hemmings says he, too, is opposed: "Gambling is really another tax. It's detrimental to our society. Our clean image is our greatest asset. Let's keep it."

Senate colleagues Bob Hogue and Sam Slom agree.

The candidates for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, John Carroll and Linda Lingle, state firmly that they are opposed to casino gambling. And the popular GOP mayor of Hawai'i County, Harry Kim, says he is against land-based gambling.

Republicans show political smarts by standing shoulder to shoulder on this one.

Now watch for new GOP head executive Micah Kane to exploit further the gambling issue.

A Kamehameha Schools graduate with an MBA from UH, Kane is a street-smart former Honolulu City Council staffer. An accomplished organizer and articulate advocate of the GOP platform, Kane contends that the GOP now has the solidarity and momentum to take control of the House and win the governorship.

If he's right, Kane can thank Ben Cayetano, Bobby Bunda and those Democrats in the Legislature who unwisely continue to support the legalization of gambling.