Gaming scandal threatens conservatives

Gaming scandal threatens conservatives
Sunday, July 17, 2005
The Economist
In 1994, just as Newt Gingrich's Republicans were storming Capitol Hill, Christopher Buckley published his satirical novel "Thank You for Smoking." It featured an informal lunch club of Washington lobbyists, consisting of the chief spokesmen for three of the most despised pressure groups in the country - the Society for the Advancement of Firearms and Effective Training of Youth, the Moderation Council (formerly the National Association for Alcoholic Beverages), and the Academy of Tobacco Studies. The club happily marches under the name of "the Mod Squad," or the Merchants of Death.

The Mod Squad's antics look humdrum compared with the alleged antics of two of today's most famous influence-peddlers: Jack Abramoff and his side-kick, Michael Scanlon. They are not only accused of bilking six Indian tribes out of some $66 million, but of using the religious right to do it.

It should be stressed that despite congressional committees and a federal grand jury looking into their affairs, Abramoff and Scanlon insist they have behaved ethically. They have not been charged with any offenses. Nevertheless, according to their accusers, the story allegedly goes like this:

Abramoff was hired to protect various Indian tribes from sundry threats to their gambling interests - particularly the threat of competition from rival tribes. He then got prominent social conservatives to oppose the creation of rival casinos, ostensibly in the cause of protecting public morality. From 1999 to 2002, Abramoff-linked organizations paid around $4 million to a company run by Ralph Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition, in order to organize a grass-roots campaign against a Texas tribe that wanted to compete with Abramoff's client, the Coushatta tribe in Louisiana. With amazing chutzpah, "Casino Jack" then turned to the defeated Texans and offered to champion their cause - for a fee.

According to Abramoff's accusers, the sheer success of his caper forced him to bend even more rules. He skirted the lobbying industry's disclosure laws by getting the tribes to make most of their payments to Scanlon, who was a public-relations specialist rather than a registered lobbyist. He persuaded the tribes to make generous contributions to leading congressmen and conservative groups. And he established a collection of front organizations such as the American International Center - a think-tank in the business of influencing "global paradigms in an increasingly complex world" and bringing "great minds together from all over the globe," which was housed a couple of blocks from the sea in Rehoboth Beach and employed as its two directors David Grosh, Rehoboth's "lifeguard of the year" in 1995, and Brian Mann, a former yoga instructor.

The Abramoff scandal has everything you could want from an inside-the-Beltway blockbuster. It has hypocrisy. What was Abramoff, a vigorous defender of traditional values, doing with gambling houses? Reed has not been accused of doing anything dishonest, but Christian conservatives in Georgia, where he is running for lieutenant governor, may ask him how he squares his association with Abramoff with his previous claim that gambling is a "cancer on the American body politic." It has racism. Abramoff allegedly called his clients "monkeys," "morons" and "troglodytes." And, above all, it has the potential to shake the Republican establishment to its foundations.

Investigating Abramoff and Scanlon is one of Washington's growth industries. The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, headed by John McCain, is examining their treatment of Indians. The Senate Finance Committee is investigating their use of nonprofit organizations. The executive branch has put together a task force that draws from the Interior Department, the IRS, the National Indian Gaming Commission and the Justice Department. The FBI reputedly has 30 agents on the case.

Abramoff has been at the center of the conservative movement for 25 years. His pals include not just Reed but Grover Norquist, the king of the anti-tax movement (and the executive director of the College Republicans when Abramoff was national chairman), and Tom DeLay, the troubled majority leader in the House. Abramoff helped to arrange some of DeLay's controversial foreign junkets. Scanlon used to work for DeLay.

Two things seem clear: First, the Republican revolutionaries who promised to purify Washington back in 1994 have changed the capital less than it has changed them. Many of Newt Gingrich's radicals are now making a good living exploiting the very government that they once despised. George Bush's presidency has seen the fraternity of lobbyists doubling in size, from 16,342 in 2000 to 34,785 today.

Second, the deepening association between Indians, gambling and politicians guarantees trouble. At a recent meeting of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, everybody was full of sympathy for Abramoff's Indian clients. But many of them are well heeled, thanks to those casinos. And they hired Abramoff to use the might of the government to crush the competition. The 1988 federal law that authorized casino gambling on Indian reservations was dependent on state laws. That created a sharp divide between winners and losers: Only two-thirds of America's 350 Indian tribes may tap into an industry with revenues of $15 billion a year. It also ensured that the tribes are permanently entangled with politics.

Even if he were eventually to take a tumble, Casino Jack may yet be able to reinvent himself. He has other strings to his bow, including restaurants, movie production ("Red Scorpion," starring Dolph Lundgren) and a long record of charitable work. What happens to the conservative movement is harder to say. The Economist magazine is published in London.



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