Gaming one budget solution for Hahn, Dayton (but not Entenza or Kelliher)

By Baird Helgeson

Independence Party gubernatorial candidate Rob Hahn wants to help balance the state budget by bringing riverboat gambling to Minnesota.

Based on data from the American Gaming Association, Hahn said the plan would add 3,000 jobs and at least $400 million for the state.

Rather than compete with Native American tribes, Hahn proposes partnering with a tribe to run the operation.

Hahn will reveal the plan at a Capitol news conference Thursday morning.

"The main priority is to find a way to get riverboat gambling going and use the new sources of revenue to benefit as many
Minnesotans as possible," Hahn said. "When the state is facing a budget crisis like the projected $6 billion deficit, everything must be on the table and everything is negotiable."

Hahn isn't the only one looking to gambling as a possible solution to the state's budget problems.

He said the casino would also be a "magnet for tourism" and offer native tribes some "much needed" competition in the gambling market, particularly the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux-owned Mystic Lake casino.

"I don't think the state Legislature or the DFL leadership should be invested in protecting that monopoly," Dayton said. He said he is well aware that the Mdewakanton tribe would work to defeat his proposal and said he "wouldn't be surprised" if the tribe worked against him in the primary.

Between 1998 and 2008, the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Dakota Community made nearly $1.4 million in political contributions, more than 85 percent to DFLers.

Update from Rachel E. Stassen-Berger:

DFL gubernatorial candidate Matt Entenza isn't so fond of using gaming as a partial budget solution.

Update II from Rachel E. Stassen-Berger:

DFL gubernatorial candidate Margaret Anderson Kelliher is "generally opposed" to any new gambling in Minnesota.

"I don't think an expansion of gambling is a way to fairly raise revenue in Minnesota....In fact, it is often a tax on the most poor Minnesotans," she said.

For Tom Horner's response go here and for Tom Emmer's mixed response go here.