FOR POTAWATOMI, ENOUGH! WAS NOT ENOUGH

When Enough! is not enough

Same Tribe, New Group

Exclusive to the readers of milwaukeeworld

By Michael Horne

Back in March, 2005, an organization called “Enough! Inc.” was chartered by the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions [DFI].

“Enough! is a growing and diverse grassroots coalition opposed to the expansion of off-reservation gambling in Wisconsin,” the organization’s executive director Brian J. Nemoir claimed on a website called No More Casinos.

He refused to name any of what he claimed were “300 organizations of all shapes and sizes” that supported Enough!, leading the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to describe it as a “one-issue” “mystery group.”

The mystery group managed to spend $326,686 lobbying the 2005-2006 session of the legislature at $236 per hour prior to disappearing this year, along with its website.

Of course, there really was no mystery, just as there never were 300 members of Enough!, or at least paying ones.

Everybody knew that Enough! was bankrolled by the Forest County Potawatomi Community, which had its own lobbying effort that spent $860,260 during the session, at a whopping rate of $1,311 per hour.

The paperwork filed with the DFI listed “G&K Wisconsin Services LLC” as the registered agent of Enough! G&K, LLC registered by Peter A. Sommerhauser in 2001, is a division of LaFollette Godfrey & Kahn, which is the name the Godfrey & Kahn law firm of Milwaukee uses to impress people in Madison. Sommerhauser is the G&K specialist in mergers and acquisitions and corporate governance.

Godfrey & Kahn, it should be noted, is the attorney for the Potawatomi, and has an 18-member Indian Nations legal team.

Enough of that!

Now a new organization has surfaced called “Wisconsin Gaming for Wisconsin, Inc.,” and it filed its papers with the DFI on March 16^th, 2007. This outfit, which is responsible for the inaccurate commercial alleging that Dairyland Greyhound Park officials "lobbied" on behalf of the Mohegan tribe for a Kenosha casino, also claims G&K Wisconsin Services LLC for its registered agent, using Post Office Box 510197, Milwaukee, WI, 53202 as its “principal office.” .

Unlike Enough!, this group is not shy about trumpeting its connections to the Potawatomi, and for good measure has brought the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the Milwaukee Urban League into its fold, along with the taxpayer-supported Greater Milwaukee Convention and Visitors Bureau, a.k.a. VISIT Milwaukee.

Although its openness is in contrast to its predecessor, one thing the groups have in common: you can be sure the financial and legal support for this anti-casino expansion group comes from the Potawatomi, just as it did for Enough!

{Footnote: G&K also chartered an outfit called “Enough is Enough, Inc., claiming for it a principal office in a Washington, D.C. office building. That group was registered with the DFI on Mary 4^th, 2006, and probably is involved in congressional issues. Perhaps if I have the time I will poke around for that information. – Horne}