In a recent Marquette Law School poll of Wisconsin voters, 49 percent of respondents said they supported the Menominee Tribe’s proposed 0 million off-reservation casino in Kenosha, and 35 percent opposed it. Voters still are waiting for a yay or nay on the issue from Governor Scott Walker who’s facing a tough re-election challenge from Democrat Mary Burke, who also has not articulated her position on the issue. Walker is likely to put off his announcement until after the November election; he has until February to decide.
The majority who support the casino say they like the thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in investment the Kenosha casino and the Ho-Chunk’s in Beloit can deliver. Both areas have been hit with high unemployment. A recent editorial in the Beloit Daily News said, “If any other enterprise approached Wisconsin with plans to invest hundreds of millions to create thousands of jobs, the red carpet would be rolled out immediately.”
Meanwhile, the Forest County Potawatomi, which has strongly opposed the Menominee casino, did not make its annual casino revenue payment of $25 million to the state of Wisconsin. The Potawatomi believe the expansion of casino gaming into Kenosha could hurt its hugely successful Potawatomi Casino in Milwaukee, as well as the Ho-Chunk casino in the Wisconsin Dells.
