CAPITOL LETTERS

OK, so this debate has shifted from being whether bingo and poker are gambling or an expansion thereof ... to whether the tribes deserve to do this after they had the nerve to open casinos after saying they wouldn't (at the time, there was no gambling in Texas).

It's gotten personal. This is not about gambling anymore, it's about the Indians. Or, as one rep said, "these people."

Rep. Will Hartnett, R-Dallas, just called the Tiguas and the Alabama Coushattas criminals because they were still running casinos while their case was grinding its way through the courts.

Technically, Rep. Joe Pickett, D-El Paso, said "If you're tryng to make these honest, hardworking people out to be criminals that they are not..." and Hartnett answered, "They are."

Later on, someone else asked him and he said, "Absolutely."

Just getting that on the record.

Second. Rep. Betty Brown, R-Terrell, just read out a bunch of stats about how crime rose around the casinos in Gulport, including rape going up 200 percent.

As one of my collegues at the press table asked, "Does she know this is bingo they're talking about?"

I don't know. I would think that hardcore rapists don't generally hang out at bingo halls. But what the heck do I know? I don't hang around a lot of bingo halls. Mainly because they tend to be way too wholesome for my particular preference. So. There you have it.

What I found particularly funny (or... something) was Ms. Brown's follow-up comment:

We've got to find a way to "ease these people off their addiction to gambling, and they're seeing only this way to raise money and be productive citizens, help them with trades, whatever, so they can see that there are better ways to raise money and their families."

She just called the members of three Indian tribes gambling addicts. Because they ran casinos. I don't think most of those guys actually gamble in said casinos. If I recall, their clientele comes from places like, I don't know, Terrell.

So what I'm hearing now is that if these tribes hadn't had the gall to lose their case in court, they'd get their bingo and poker handed to them on a silver platter by this chamber?

Yeah. I don't think so.