Babbitt Blasts ‘Half-Baked Theory’ in Casino Inquiry

Denouncing attacks on his integrity as “uncalled-for and unwarranted,” Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt told a House committee Thursday that he is being victimized by “a half-baked theory of improper political influence” involving his department’s rejection of a proposed Indian gambling casino in Hudson, Wis.

Testifying before the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, Babbitt forcefully reiterated his denials that outside political influence played any role in the decision or that he had contact with White House or Democratic Party officials about the outcome of the matter.

Babbitt told the committee that allegations tying the casino decision to more than $350,000 in Democratic campaign contributions were “manufactured by the losers to take advantage of the corrosive political atmosphere that surrounds this city at this time.”

White House involvement in the controversy began April 24, 1995, when the chief lobbyist for the anti-casino forces buttonholed President Clinton at a Minneapolis reception. Within days, then-White House Deputy Chief of Staff Harold M. Ickes and then-Democratic National Committee Chairman Don Fowler were being urged to help kill the casino proposal.

Babbitt said the issue had been clouded by lobbyists “floating around on both sides of the issue.”

The hearings were part of the congressional investigation into the campaign fund-raising practices of the 1996 election cycle. In the Hudson case, the Interior Department, citing intense local opposition, overturned a recommendation by its Minneapolis office to approve the casino proposal.

Opponents of the casino included the Hudson City Council and other Indian tribes in Wisconsin and Minnesota that have their own casinos. The tribes later contributed about $350,000 to the Democratic Party.