Mississippi should support the slots

In June, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians (MBCI) announced plans to build a new casino in Sandersville in Jones County. The 27,000-square-foot casino, which is expected to cost $18 million to build, will boast between 500 and 700 slot machines as well as a snack shop. More importantly, it will create about 250 new jobs. That should be welcome news in the current economy; with all the cut jobs and layoffs hitting Mississippians right now, an investment that offers so many new jobs should be counted as a blessing.

However, many of Mississippi's elected officials do not think so. U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker and U.S. Sen. Greg Harper, both Mississippi Republicans, oppose the casino. Even U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss, and his November opponent, Republican Steven Palazzo, have finally found something to agree upon in their mutual opposition to the casino. But no one is more ferocious in his animosity toward the project than Governor Haley Barbour.

Ever since the project was first announced, Barbour has relentlessly attacked the "slot parlor," as he derisively refers to it. Initially, he attempted to stop it by means of "diplomacy" with the Choctaw. When that failed, he turned to Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, hoping to find a way to halt the building of the casino through the courts. It was another dead end; Hood explained that one of Barbour's Republican predecessors, Governor Kirk Fordice, had made opposing the casino on legal grounds impossible when he signed the tribal-state gambling compact in 1992.

"Lawyers in our office carefully reviewed possible legal challenges," Hood said. "There is no apparent legal avenue to stop the development."

But Governor Barbour was not going to give up so quickly; the possibility that those independent-minded Choctaw might bring 250 new jobs to the area was just too much. On Aug. 27, Barbour sent a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency saying that the "slot parlor" would not be in compliance with federal environmental standards. He then asked the EPA to halt construction.

The next day, a spokesman for the tribe pointed out that the tribe was indeed in compliance with the EPA, and that Governor Barbour's safety concerns were based on outdated information.

But Barbour is no environmentalist, so it is obvious that he really has no concern in regards to the environmental impact of the casino. So whether or not that information is outdated is a moot point to him; he is only interested in circumventing sovereignty of the MBCI in any way possible. Governor Barbour is attempting to go beyond what his gubernatorial powers allow.

Maybe the intense opposition from politicians like Barbour, Harper, Wicker, Palazzo and Taylor has more to do with appealing to religious conservatives. Religious groups in Mississippi have long protested the building of new casinos. Just recently, the Coalition for Family and Community Values recently erected a billboard in Laurel opposing the Choctaw casino.

That constituency, which is often seen as essential to winning in Mississippi politics, should stop using "family values" as a euphemism for white, southern, conservative beliefs – the rest of us have values, too. There is nothing wrong with personally opposing casinos on religious grounds. However, just because a group "feels" something is a "sin," does not mean their particular brand of morality should be imposed on everyone. After all, someone else may "feel" that "God called them" to build a casino.

Religious arguments aside, we are in a deep recession, and instead of recovering as our leadership in Washington promised, we seem to either be stalling or digging in deeper. The state of Mississippi is slashing the budget for practically everything, and education is being hit extremely hard. Jobs are not easy to come by. Perhaps Barbour and friends should focus on those issues instead of spend all their time trying to subvert the building of a casino that will create 250 very much needed jobs. Perhaps the "family values" groups should consider the families who might value a new opportunity to put food on the table.