The Spokane gaming compact | Gregoire made the right call on Spokane pact

Gov. Christine Gregoire's rejection in 2005 of a massive expansion of gambling in Washington — a move supported at the time by Republican and Democratic legislators, law-enforcement officials and leading county prosecutors — was the right decision then, and it's the right decision now.

It's time to set the record straight about the process by which the Spokane tribal gambling compact was negotiated, renegotiated and ultimately executed by the governor and approved by the U.S. secretary of the interior.

Tribal compacts allow the state to limit the scope of gambling statewide, both on and off tribal lands. At the time, 27 tribes had agreements with the state Gambling Commission. Until 2007, the Spokanes were the only Washington tribe operating a tribal casino without one.

In 2005, after years of litigation between the tribe and both state and federal governments, the Spokanes and the Gambling Commission finally negotiated a compact to bring the tribe into compliance.

But the compact as originally proposed was unusual. It mandated that a percentage of its net winnings be shared both with state and local governments — which would have made the Spokanes the first and only tribe with a revenue-sharing provision in its compact.

In exchange, the Spokanes would have received authorization for 7,500 electronic slotlike machines — more than 10 times the standard tribal allotment.

Since most tribes' compacts include a clause that allows them to seek amendments to their compact if another tribe has reached a more favorable compact, the Spokanes' unprecedented proposal would likely have led the 27 other tribes to seek a similar arrangement.

Almost no one supported the idea of authorizing additional machines for the Spokanes in exchange for a cut of the profits in 2005.

Letters sent to the governor from both sides of the aisle — including from at least seven Republicans — requested that the she not allow the explosion of gambling implied in the compact.

Perhaps the largest voice against the initial compact proposal was that of the late Norm Maleng, longtime Republican King County prosecutor. Maleng was particularly troubled by the prospect of revenue sharing, and said that "gambling revenue is a tempting place to look to fill budget shortfalls, but all this does is create a codependence."

If Gregoire had executed the original Spokane gaming compact and its revenue-sharing provision, she would have greenlighted the largest expansion of gambling in Washington history, while tempting future elected officials to expand gambling to help balance the state budget in tough economic years.

This is why the governor, with widespread bipartisan support, sent the state Gambling Commission and the Spokanes back to the table to renegotiate the compact. The current election-year suggestion that Gregoire was instead motivated by a "quid-pro-quo" arrangement with the tribes for campaign contribution is nonsensical. It also happens to be unsupported by the facts.

On Jan. 23, 2007, my Senate Labor, Commerce, Research & Development Committee and the House Labor & Commerce Committee, held a joint public hearing on the revised compact proposal. This would have been the time to voice support for revenue sharing or concerns about a potential quid-pro-quo arrangement in the renegotiated compact. Yet not a single Republican or Democratic legislator or member of the public raised these issues at that time.

On Feb. 9, 2007, the Gambling Commission voted to approve the compact and recommended that the governor execute it.

It's worth noting that the 2007 Spokane compact mandates that .26 percent of net winnings go to problem-gambling and smoking-cessation programs — the first provision of its kind for any compact, and one subsequently included in other tribal compacts.

Lastly, while revenue sharing is certainly a legitimate public-policy issue, no such legislation was introduced between 2005 and 2008.

Our state and communities are better off because Gregoire rejected a major expansion of gambling and finally regulated the Spokanes' gambling activities. The revisionist historians who insist on playing politics with this important public-policy decision are doing the people of Washington a great disservice.