Quinn Vetoes Gambling Plan

Appearing at Oak Park's on Tuesday, Gov. Pat Quinn vetoed a gambling expansion plan that would've added five new casinos in the state and allowed slot machines at horse racing tracks. Full text of Senate Bill 1849.

Quinn, flanked by reporters in the school's playground, said his main concerns were about integrity and ethics in regulatory oversight process. A copy of Quinn's letter to the Illinois General Assembly announcing his veto is attached as a PDF. 

"I think I did the right thing. We're not going to have loopholes for mobsters in Illinois, and the bill that was on my desk was woefully deficient when it came to protecting integrity and honesty in the regulation of gambling in our state," he said.

Quinn's veto, carried out hours before a deadline that would've automatically turned the bill into law, wasn't much of a surprise. From the Chicago Tribune's Monique Garcia:

For months, Quinn has warned about what he views as shortcomings in the bill, saying the measure would not provide enough oversight of casino operators and other gambling interests. The Democratic governor also has said that any gambling expansion should set aside a proper amount of money for education.

Instead, much of the revenue from expanding gambling would go to "other areas, such as agricultural programs and paying off some of the state’s billions in overdue bills owed to vendors, schools and providers," via Illinois Issues.

Proponents of the plan are vowing to override the veto, possibly as soon as legislators reconvene in Springfield this fall.

Quoting State Rep. Lou Lang (D-Skokie), one of the bill's chief sponsors, the Sun-Times reports proponents of gaming will attempt to override the governor's veto later this year.

“The governor’s action today is disappointing but predictable,” Lang told the Sun-Times.

Shortly before the playground press conference, Quinn spoke with the Oak Park fourth-graders in a muggy classroom, quizzing the students on the origins of Roosevelt Road, extolling the virtues of staying active and quoting a verse from school namesake Henry Wadsworth Longfellow which reads "it takes less time to do a thing right, than it does to explain why you did it wrong."

It was a message he invoked again while explaining his stance on the gambling bill.

"If we do things wrong," he said, "we'll have a lot of explaining to do down the road."