Cedar Rapids, Linn County to hire lobbyists for gaming-reform help

CEDAR RAPIDS - City officials here felt they needed to beef up their lobbying team in 2011 for the city's uphill and ultimately successful battle over two years to secure $264 million in state funding support for the city's flood-protection program.

Mayor Ron Corbett on Wednesday said the city is returning to the same tactic as it begins a new climb - this one to pass gaming reform legislation designed, in part, to bring Iowa's first smoke-free casino to Cedar Rapids.

Corbett said the city intends to hire Statehouse lobbyists Don Avenson and Tom Cope of Avenson, Oakley and Cope for $35,000 to work on the city's and Linn County's behalf specifically on gaming reform in the upcoming legislative session.

Avenson of Oelwein is a former speaker of the Iowa House of Representatives as is Corbett. Cope is past chief of staff for the majority leader of the Iowa Senate. Avenson is a Democrat, Cope a Republican.

'We're up against a pretty formidable foe in the casino industry,” Corbett said.

He said Gov. Terry Branstad said as much in October during his re-election campaign when he said he was 'realistic about the clout” that the casino industry has in Iowa, a sentiment Branstad repeated in a radio interview on Tuesday evening in Des Moines.

Branstad was responding to a Tuesday news conference in Cedar Rapids at which Corbett and state Sens. Wally Horn, D-Cedar Rapids, and Dan Zumbach, R-Ryan, said the senators would sponsor gaming reform legislation when lawmakers begin work in January.

'… (O) bviously the existing casinos have a lot of clout in the Legislature as well, so it will be interesting to see if they're able to put a coalition together,” the governor said. 'As I've said, I'm going to keep an open mind. I'm willing to look at different proposals. I've always kind of reserved judgment on any bill until I've seen it in its final form because through the legislative process things can change dramatically.”

Corbett on Wednesday said Avenson and Cope will be at the legislature to promote the gaming reform measure when he and other city and Linn County officials cannot be.

'We need to make sure that we have our team down there on a daily basis to answer questions and concerns that the legislators have,” Corbett said. 'We need a solid lobbying team under the Iowa Statehouse's golden dome.”

Brent Oleson, a Linn County supervisor and one of five members of the non-profit Linn County Gaming Association, said Wednesday that the Board of Supervisors will share in the cost with the city of Cedar Rapids of the gaming-reform lobbying team. Both jurisdictions still support bringing a casino to Cedar Rapids and Linn County, he said.

Both the city and county already hire additional lobbying support for their wider legislative priority list.

Each pays $60,000 a year to employ Larry Murphy, a Democrat and former Iowa lawmaker, and the city also employs Gary Grant, a Republican, who runs a lobbying firm in Cedar Rapids.

The gaming-reform legislation introduced on Wednesday also seeks to double the amount of casino revenue that goes to non-profit groups in non-casino counties and to eliminate a state tax on free-play promotions so casinos and the non-profit groups they support will have more revenue.