The Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribal nations made a lobbying blitz Thursday in the hopes of improving their odds of winning authorization to jointly develop Connecticut’s first casino off tribal lands. One House leader says odds of passage are still just 50-50.
Mohegans
Posted inPolitics
Legislator asks for independent analysis of casino expansion
Rep. Daniel S. Rovero, D-Killingly, said he arrived in Hartford for an all-day public hearing Thursday seeking clarity on the risks and benefits of granting the tribal owners of Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun the right to jointly develop a casino off tribal lands without considering other bidders. He left disappointed, unsure if the state was getting a good deal and unhappy the state was providing no independent analysis of casino expansion.
Posted inPolitics
Campaign for casino expansion approaches a crossroads
In a political consultant’s conference room on the 16th-floor of CityPlace II, an MGM Resorts International executive named Uri Clinton sipped a late-afternoon Starbucks coffee, still jet-lagged after his latest red-eye flight from Las Vegas to Hartford. In Clinton’s world, the action right now is in Connecticut’s capital.
Posted inNews
Merrill to Schaghticokes: Our goof doesn’t get you a casino
Secretary of the State Denise Merrill formally notified the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation on Wednesday that her office’s mistaken acceptance of a business filing last month does not confer any right to develop a casino in Connecticut.
Posted inMoney, Politics
A tentative step toward casino expansion in Connecticut
The push by the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribal nations for casino expansion in Connecticut ended early Friday morning with final passage of a measure that represents more of a consolation prize than a victory.
Posted inPolitics
Connecticut’s unlikely history of casinos gets a new chapter
Failing to slam the door on casino gambling in 1991, Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. cut the deal in 1993 that both gave the industry a foundation and firmly capped its reach in Connecticut — until now. Today, the legislature’s Public Safety and Security Committee holds a public hearing on what appears to be the strongest attempt in two decades to expand casino gambling off tribal lands.
Posted inPolitics
Twenty years later, Connecticut has a new view of casinos
Questions about morality and the societal impact of expanded gambling are fading, if not gone. Competition in surrounding states, notably a planned MGM casino-resort in Springfield, has distilled the issue of a new casino in Connecticut to one overriding concern: Keeping jobs.