Ed Rendell Sucks
Monica Yant Kinney has a must read in the Inquirer today:
“Having suck with me,” the governor explains, “doesn’t mean I will do stuff for you.”
In Ed’s lexicon, suck is strictly a noun. It refers to influence, preference, a VIP spot in the governor’s crowded mental garage… Suck is an emotional IOU paid in full only after you have.
…
If you’re scratching your head, you must have missed Rendell’s musings in Sunday’s Inquirer.In great detail, my colleagues Jennifer Lin, Mario Cattabiani, and Amy Worden explained how Foxwoods – the casino being forced down South Philadelphia’s throat like a vat of brussels sprouts – won legislative life support thanks to lawyer Stephen A. Cozen.
Cozen has suck with Rendell, the kind that comes with lobbying for other big shots with suck and opening the wallet – $143,000 personally, $66,000 from a PAC at his firm.
Having suck got Cozen a face-to-face to plead for an extension for the stalled casino project.
Yant Kinney’s refering to “How Foxwoods Got a Leg Up”, published this past Sunday. It’s truly disgraceful:
Foxwoods needed help in Harrisburg.
So its lawyer and lobbyist, Stephen A. Cozen, turned to an old friend whose campaigns he had generously supported: Gov. Rendell.
Then Cozen called on legislative leaders – Democrats Todd Eachus and Dwight Evans in the House, Republican Dominic Pileggi in the Senate. It was as if someone had drawn Cozen a map. Indeed, someone had.
“I advised him to talk to everyone in leadership, on both sides of the aisle,” Rendell remembered.
By December, a 42-word sentence appeared on Page 55 of the 230-page bill to legalize poker and other table games at Pennsylvania casinos.
It said the state Gaming Control Board could extend a casino’s license for “36 months . . . or December 31, 2012.”
Those words spelled hope for Foxwoods’ future.
Who put them in the bill?
The answer isn’t simple or clear. It’s behind the scenes, in the tortuous, often murky process of building a major piece of legislation – the “melting pot of ideas,” as a Senate aide said.
But the idea of giving Foxwoods more time did not rise from the grass roots; it drifted down from the top. Casino foes learned of it too late to get it undone.
Go read the rest, if you can stomach it. It’s a nauseating look at the way politics is done in Pennsylvania: it ain’t what the people need, it ain’t what’s best for he commonwealth, it’s he who pays, gets toplahy.
No wonder the legislature likes casinos so much: they identfy with the house!
