Brenda Rocklin IMAGE: STEPHEN VOSS

Gov. Ted Kulongoski, the Oregon Lottery Commission and Lottery chief Brenda Rocklin made a roguish choice last week. Although state law requires the lottery commission to "maximize revenue" from gambling, Rocklin and the commissioners--appointed by the guv--ignored that constitutional requirement, thereby shorting education, economic development, parks and salmon recovery in favor of tavern owners.

Kulongoski's handpicked bunch was asked to consider whether restaurant and tavern owners should get to keep 32 cents of every gambling dollar left in their video-poker machines at closing time. That compensation level, which brought the average video lottery joint $75,000 last year, had been in effect for six years (see "New Deal," WW, Feb. 11, 2004).

Over past decade, the state and independent researchers have produced volumes of data showing that the Lottery could cut commission rates in half without losing revenue. So what did the Lottery do? In a 3-1 vote, the lottery panel cut rates an average of three lousy percentage points.

The Oregon Restaurant Association, which represents video-lottery retailers--and thereby essentially uses gambling revenues to lobby against commission cuts--raised a great fuss about job losses and failing taverns if the lottery brass cut what amounts to a $160 million annual handout.

Panel chairman Kerry Tymchuk, an aide to U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith, gobbled up the ORA's arguments like a basket of freshly fried chicken wings, explaining that many tavern owners had budgeted on commissions staying about the same. Pitiful.

Rather than carry out their mandated fiduciary duty, Tymchuk and two other panel members (Dick Solomon, a Portland CPA, voted "no") instead voted to prop up marginal taverns and restaurants.

And as for Kulongoski, the next time he asks voters or the Legislature for new money for any program, he ought to have to explain how his administration folded a winning hand and let the ORA walk off with the jackpot.