Lottery decision needs transparency
With just two months before the November election, you'd think candidates would be careful about how they are perceived, especially incumbents in a year in which the political climate seems to be favoring challengers
Yet Gov. Pat Quinn seems oblivious to this. On a weekend when a published statewide poll shows voters already have a negative perception of the man who was supposed to help clean up Illinois government in the wake of the Blagojevich scandal, Quinn has taken an odd stance concerning the Illinois lottery.
No matter your opinion about all the reform measures that were proposed, approved and denied in Illinois, there was one buzzword that all should agree is the ideal: transparency. No longer should Illinois decisions be made in the dark halls or behind closed doors of the Capitol.
Yet that is what Quinn wants to do when it comes to privatizing the $2 billion-a-year Illinois lottery. It's maddening to us and should be to you as well.
This week, two bidders to run the lottery, which will still be owned by the state, will make public presentations on their bids. Next week, Quinn will choose a winner. As an Associated Press story printed in the Daily Herald Saturday tells us, it is a contract some estimate will be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
The two finalists were named only last week, a month after bids were due. No other bidders were publicly named. And the committee selected to review the bids were not identified.
It surprises no one, then, that one of the finalists is Northstar Lottery Group, a partnership of three companies that each already hold Illinois Lottery contracts.
"Widespread fears of this being a wired, inside deal are very legitimate," Better Government Association Executive Director Andy Shaw told the AP. "This is Illinois, and three connected groups teamed up to leverage their clout; that has set off alarm bells.
All laws may have been followed "to the T" as Quinn said Friday. But does he not understand what appearance of impropriety means? Does he not understand that voters in this state want more transparency than is required?
The fact that there may be only a few companies qualified to make a bid is not surprising, said the director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. So why not tell the public all the bidders, as New Jersey and Texas have done.
"Transparency does not taint the process," said Joan Zielinski, a former New Jersey lottery director.
What does taint the process is more secrecy from our state politicians and their aides. We urge the governor to release all the information prior to making his decision. The public has a right to know.