For nearly 30 years, Louisiana’s casinos have been prohibited from contributing to political candidates to prevent possible corruption, but an amendment slipped onto a legislative bill this week with no public attention would lift that ban.

State Sen. Thomas Pressly said in an interview that he sought the change at the behest of an attorney for Penn Entertainment, a major gambling company with five riverboat casinos in Louisiana. Pressly, R-Shreveport, would not identify the attorney.

"I believe it’s a clean- up bill that’s dealing with allowing a corporation to give contributions that are fully disclosed,” he said of the amendment, which was narrowly approved by the Senate Finance Committee Monday.

But Ronnie Jones, a former chair of the Louisiana Gaming Control Board, said the ban on contributions from casinos and their key employees ought to remain.

"We don’t want to ever live through what we did with the rollout of gaming during the Edwin Edwards administration," Jones said. "It’s taken us years to get past that and improve our reputation among other gaming states and gaming companies."

The legalization of gambling under Edwards in the first part of the 1990s generated reams of negative headlines.

The bill legalizing the Harrah’s casino in 1992 was passed with legislative trickery, as the governor’s children sought to cash in by forming companies that got hired and the Senate president handed out campaign checks to senators on the Senate floor from a riverboat casino owner.

Edwards eventually was convicted of taking payoffs from companies wanting one of the state’s 15 riverboat licenses from a board he appointed.

The Legislature imposed the ban on casinos and their key employees in 1996 just after Edwards left office. Other states have a similar contribution prohibition.

https://www.nola.com/news/politics/louisiana-senator-moves-to-lift-ban-on-campaign-contributions-from-casinos/article_ec8a6cbe-17b9-11ef-88a2-4775bbeb5d60.html