“Follow the money” is always good advice when covering politics. Just be prepared, as you sniff your way down the trail of the cash behind any political fight, to be repulsed. For one nauseating example, look at this year’s fight over Colorado’s Amendment 68.
Coloradans for Better Schools, a campaign group founded this year, spent more than $19 million supporting the ballot measure. In the photo atop the group’s home page, YesForBetterSchools.com, a smiling teacher helps an adorable student work on an expensive-looking laptop in a gleaming classroom.
“Amendment 68 will create a special K-12 Education Fund,” the group explained on its website, “to protect new revenue and ensure that it is used only to enhance our Colorado public and charter schools — through improvements like smaller class sizes, new technology and better facilities.”
This “new revenue” would come from a special 34 percent tax on the casino games that the ballot measure would permit at a horse racetrack in Arapahoe, just on the edge of the Denver metro area.
Open the books of Coloradans for Better Schools and it all starts to makes sense.
Coloradans for Better Schools was seeded with a $1.1 million contribution by Mile High USA Inc., the parent of Mile High Racing and Entertainment, which operates the track in Arapahoe.
Mile High provided the first $17 million in cash and in-kind donations for the Better Schools group. On Sept. 18, the organization got its second donor: Dan Williams of Denver, who gave $500. Williams is a lobbyist whose clients include Mile High Racing and Entertainment.
Coloradans for Better Schools raised $19,201,540, by Oct. 31, according to its latest filings with the secretary of state, with $19,073,098.35 coming from Mile High — that’s 99.33 percent.
The group’s ads explained that Amendment 68 wasn’t just about their race track in Arapahoe. It would allow for a total of three racetracks with casino games, including one in Mesa County and another in Pueblo County. But here’s the thing: These other racetracks don’t exist. If someone built a racetrack there, they’d have to operate for five years before gaming would be allowed, and they’d also have to pay a $25 million startup fee. So Amendment 68 would give Mile High a monopoly of sorts for at least five years.
The No on 68 campaign pointed out that Mile High is owned by Twin River Entertainment, a Rhode-Island-based casino company. One “No on 68” ad knocked “Rhode Island’s Amendment 68 for Colorado.” The group’s site, VoteNo68., com quoted the Durango Herald calling the measure “a transparent attempt to use Colorado’s initiative process to benefit a single out-of-state company.”
No on 68, on the other hand, could be called a less-than-transparent attempt to protect a handful of in-state and out-of-state companies.
Don’t Turn Racetracks Into Casinos was the group running the No on 68 campaign. Its website lists the measure’s opponents, including Colorado PTA, Historic Denver, a group called Protect Our Community, Colorado Preservation Inc., Boulder County Movement for Children, and dozens of others.
Dig through the group’s donor list, though, and you’ll see a slightly different list of organizations.
The organization’s first donation was $100,000 from the Colorado Gaming Association — the lobby for the state’s casinos.
Saratoga Casino in Black Hawk, Colo., gave $100,000 to the anti-68 group. Bronco’s Billy Casino in Cripple Creek gave them $80,000. Double Eagle Hotel and Casino gave $50,000, as did Triple Crown Casinos, Horseshoe Casino, Wild Card Saloon, and Century Casinos.
These were the small players in No on 68. Isle of Capri Casinos gave $4.1 million, Jacobs Entertainment gave $3.3 million, Monarch Casino and Resort gave $1.8 million, and Affinity Gaming gave $1.3 million. Ameristar Casino, Resort, and Spa wins the prize, having spent $5.1 million as of the group’s last filing.
All told, Don’t Turn Racetracks Into Casinos raised $16.2 million by Oct. 31 — all of it from casinos that didn’t want new competition.
A final detail: The chairman of Don’t Turn Racetracks Into Casinos was Republican state Sen. Bill Cadman — just elected as the new Senate president. Cadman also happens to be “a seasoned marketing and public affairs professional who operates his own firm, Advantage Marketing and Public Relations,” according to his website.
Don’t Turn Racetracks Into Casinos paid Advantage Marketing $48,000 this year for “consultant & professional services,” according to filings with the secretary of state.
The existing casinos won, crushing Amendment 68. So one big-money front group beat another big-money front group. That’s politics for you.
Timothy P. Carney, The Washington Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
