The real gamble

Sometimes I like saying I told you so. On the day the Illinois Gaming Act was passed (several years ago) I read the back up material for an upcoming city council meeting in DeKalb.  On the agenda was an action item for adding new and more strenuous language prohibiting gambling in local bars and restaurants serving liquor. Maybe the city council should back off adding any related language to Chapter 38 until they knew what the State was up to with video gaming — especially since under existing municipal code any form of gambling was already illegal in DeKalb.

But we had our legal department and other staff expend lots of hours to move forward with the stricter language because, well, people had already spent a lot of time on it and then the darn State passed a new law. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the plans. It’s just that sometimes life gets in the way of those plans. Anyhow why do anything until absolute deadline?

One thing for sure Gov. Quinn was spending the proposed proceeds before a single grain of dust had settled. Massive capital improvement programs. Big promises. High speed trains in Genoa! Or was that Belvidere? Senior moment.

How bad does the State want this video game act to begin?

Well, John Anderson asked the city council to put the whole gambling issue on the ballot for the people to decide in a referendum. He was promptly told that it was too late for the city council to get it on the next (August 6) meeting agenda. I think that’s a crock of baloney but Mr. Anderson once walked the neighborhoods of DeKalb during a freezing winter to collect hundreds of signatures to repeal Home Rule in DeKalb. Since the mayor told Anderson to circulate a petition if he wanted the referendum. The least I could do was look up what John was looking at with about three weeks to go until the August 8 deadline for submitting ballot questions.

(230 ILCS 40/70)
    Sec. 70. Referendum. Upon the filing in the office of the clerk, at least 90 days before an election in any municipality or county, as the case may be, of a petition directed to such clerk, containing the signatures of not less than 25% of the legal voters of that municipality or county, the clerk shall certify such proposition to the proper election officials, who shall submit the proposition at such election to the voters of such municipality or county. The proposition shall be in the following form:
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Shall video gaming                     YES
be prohibited in                       -----------------------
[DeKalb]?                                NO
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If a majority of the voters voting upon such last mentioned proposition in any municipality or county vote "YES", such video gaming shall be prohibited in such municipality or county. The petition mentioned in this Section shall be a public document and shall be subject to inspection by the public.
(Source: P.A. 96-34, eff. 7-13-09.)

That’s right. You read it right. For citizens to have any say on whether or not they want gambling in their community they’ve got to get 25% of the LEGAL voters (in DeKalb) to sign a petition. Not registered voters. Not actual voters. LEGAL voters. That could be 99.9% of those 18 years of age and older if the petition objectors’ lawyers are paid enough. Ummm… 25% of the registered voters didn’t even vote in the February 2012 primary. That’s more than 2.5 times the number of signatures needed to get a repeal home rule referendum.

The State wants this bad.

But for those thinking all is lost, the one arm bandit is getting his finger pulled, there really is a silver lining in those gathering dark moral clouds. Are you ready for this?

Home rule.

If there are enough alder(wo)men on the city council with an ear to those they represent and the backbone to represent them then it only requires 4 votes to put the gambling question on the November ballot (not all that long from now, really). The Illinois Video Gaming Act is NOT Home Rule exempt. At the August 6 regularly scheduled meeting the city council could vote to make a referendum happen. Just replace the first paragraph on 230 ILCS 40/70 with the following line: “Whereas the City of DeKalb is a Home Rule community…” and you are done. Action agenda item ready.

CLICK THIS LINK to tell them you want them to use their Home Rule authority to save you from the State!