McHenry County Blog

It’s been a couple of weeks since the McHenry County Board bucked Chairman Ken Koehler, State Senator Pam Althoff, State Rep. Mike Tryon and those who stand to gain financially from placement of video poker machines in local taverns and restaurants.

It’s time to tell the tale of how McHenry County Establishment got narrowly beaten in that fight.

The vote was close (13-10-1) and my guess is that video poker proponents will try to reverse that vote after new county board members are sworn in, if the people they back defeat anti-gambling incumbents like District 2’s Barbara Wheeler.

Video gambling was the first local issue taken on by Patriots United, the folks who coordinated the Independence Day TEA Party, picketed State Rep. Jack Franks’ office on a cold spring day about his sponsorship of a bill considered pro-abortion and gun control, held a well-attended forum on the Democrats’ health care reform, and co-sponsored with the McHenry County Young Republicans a candidates’ night for 8th congressional district GOP aspirants.

Members attended John Hammerand’s License and Liquor Committee meetings and sponsored a debate between proponents and opponents.

Here are Patriots United video slot machine debate panels, ban proponents on the right, opponents on the left. Opponents, from left to right, are Tom Grey, David Smith and James Blue.

Then, Patriots United had a forum in Woodstock during which video poker machine salesmen debated three social conservatives:

• Tom Grey, the nationally- known Methodist minister who started out in Galena during the time the county board decided to site a riverboat in Jo Davies County and now Field Coordinator and National Spokesman for Stop Predatory Gambling
• Jim Blue, representing Illinois Church Action on Alcoholism and Addiction Problems
• David Smith, Executive Director of the Illinois Family Institute

They urged their members to contact county board members, but that was not what did the trick.

They used this robo call technique I first saw tobacco companies us in lobbying against cigarette tax hikes maybe ten years ago.

Call people, explain the issue and ask if they would like to speak to their county board member.

Since there are four county board members per district, how would that work?

The Illinois Family Institute selected six county board members considered to be approachable on the issue.

They were

• Yvonne Barnes in District 1
• Jim Heisler in District 2
• Ed Dvorak in District 3
• Sue Draffkorn in District 4
• Jim Kennedy in District 5
• Dan Ryan in District 6

From 1,334 to 1,453 calls were made in each district.

From to 649 to 774 of the calls were answered by voters. After the recorded pitch, voters were asked to push a phone button if they wished to be transferred to their county board member.

There were over fifty transfers for all but one district.

From the time my father served on the county board, I can tell you that he never got that many calls on any subject. On some zoning matters, especially the landfill ones, he might have gotten fifty letters. One phone call on a subject was a big number back in the 1980’s.

Getting dozens of calls must have sounded like a tidal wave.

And it was. You can’t find an issue where that many constituents have contacted county board members by phone. Undoubtedly, some of them were friends and supporters of each member.

A little over half of the calls were answered in person; the rest went to answering machines.

Of the six county board members receiving calls, only Huntley’s Ryan, a Sun City resident, voted in favor of allowing video slot machines in establishments serving liquor in unincorporated McHenry County.

Barnes, Kennedy and Ryan are up for election this year. District 6’s Ryan is the only one with GOP primary opposition.

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Check out possible targets for the pro-gambling forces in this post.

Leaves are still waiting to be raked this last week that my Village of Lakewood picks them up, so I won’t be in Woodstock for the McHenry County Board meeting vote on video slot machines.

Little casino next to Wisconsin's Happy Trails Restaurant

Proponents, of course, will describe the devices as video poker machines.

With all the poker tournaments on TV, it sounds more like a game of skill, rather than a carefully devised program to induce one to gamble more and more.

In any event, only the final vote counts.

If you want my prediction, it’s that the resolution which would ban video slot machines in unincorporated areas will fail.

That, even though a Chicago Tribune poll showed suburban residents in opposition.

After all, all three Republican state legislators—State Senator Pam Althoff, State Representative Mike Tryon and State Representative Mark Beaubien—voted for this massive expansion of gambling.

Tryon has been particularly active in promoting approval of video slot machines, but Althoff also made a pitch for approval at last month’s county board meeting when a resolution. (Articles about that meeting: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.)

McHenry County Board Chairman Ken Koehler, a close ally of Tryon, has consistently supported the gambling devices.

Yesterday, McHenry County Blog published a little of the unfocused situation surrounding the county board’s debate on gambling, as well as the roll call showing who was up for election this time around.

Today, I’m going to tell you what I saw from a civics classroom point of view.

From the beginning District 3 county board member Barb Wheeler has been ready to vote to ban video gambling in the unincorporated part of McHenry County.

She made that very clear in the License and Liquor Committee.

British Member of Parliament Edmund Burke took a position similar to Wheeler’s and several of her colleagues. He epitomizes the “trustee model” of representation. Some might refer to the role as a “statesman.”

Burke’s most famous quote of justification was to the electors of Bristol in 1774:

“Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”

My quick research indicates he lost the Bristol seat six years later.

Here’s how Wikipedia explains the different concepts of representation:

“The trustee model of representation is a model of a representative democracy. Constituents elect their representatives as ‘trustees’ (or ‘entrust’ them) for their constituency. These ‘trustees’ have sufficient autonomy to deliberate and act in favor of the greater common good and national interest, even if it means going against the short-term interests of their own constituencies. The model provides a solution to the problem uninformed constituents who lack the necessary knowledge on issues to take an educated position.“This model parallels the delegate model of representation, which is a model in which the representative is a tribune of the people.”

I have to admit on issues that I did not campaign on I tended toward the delegate model in my representation in the Illinois House of Representatives.

If the people of McHenry County wanted something, I would more likely than not be presenting that viewpoint in the General Assembly during my sixteen years there. I conducted mailed polls to gain a sense of the electorate in addition to putting out my listening post in public places.

On financial issues, I tended toward the trustee model, especially for those from the educational community hell bent on having me vote for a high income tax, most of the proceeds of which would end up in Chicago and Downstate. I cut my teeth doing cost-benefit analysis at the United States Budget Bureau right after grad school in public administration (probably called “policy analysis” now).

The debate on whether there should be an advisory referendum on gambling brought the various concepts of representation into focus like I have not seen them previously on the county board.

Part 3 tomorrow.

As we were on our vacation to the Intermountain West the last part of June, my family was amused at my taking photos of gambling signs and machines.

Look at the difference in the British Petroleum gas station sign in Minnesota, seen at the left, and the one just across the South Dakota border to the right. (Click to enlarge any image.)

Under the capital construction plan McHenry County’s Pam Althoff and Mike Tryon supported, there will be five slot machines (euphemistically called “video poker machines”) in all sorts of establishments that have liquor licenses.

Think your neighborhood convenience store.

No longer will people have to travel to the Elgin casino to lose their paycheck.

I found my first shot machines at a Wisconsin truck stop where we ate at the Happy Trails Roadside Dinner. (To my surprise, there was nothing about Roy Rogers.)

They were located in a little room between the gas station and convenience store and the restaurant.

One was called

My son thought it was neat.

The slot machine looked just like the video games younger kids play.

In the hall near the lottery stand was a machine I haven’t seen since the Caribbean cruise we took about seven years ago.

There, the

game was in the ship’s casino.

Clearly, it was a gambling device, luring people by showing racks of quarters which could, oh so easily, be swept into the tray for you to take home.

We found the same kind of machine, albeit jammed, at the Dixie Truckers Stop south of Bloomington on I-55.

It was called

there and can be seen sitting to the left of the other slot machines.

Governor Pat Quinn is about to break ties to his party’s liberals and sign this massive expansion of gambling bill on Monday.

I believe I have read that this expansion will make turn Illinois into the biggest gambling state in the United States of America.

Somehow, with our sordid history of corruption, that seems appropriate.

I don’t suppose calls to Quinn’s office would make any difference now that he has announced his deal with the devil, but, if you feel strongly about protecting the weakest among us, please give him a call.