Congressman Brian Baird said Monday he doesn't believe casinos are good for communities, but the four-term lawmaker remained resolutely neutral on the Cowlitz Tribe's project near La Center.

Baird, a former college professor and clinical psychologist, said compulsive gambling is "a powerful, powerful addiction that destroys people's lives."

"I don't think in general that casinos are going to be an asset to the community," the Vancouver Democrat said. "It's based on my past life as a statistician. The more you gamble, the more you lose."

But Baird also said he doesn't believe it's his role to say whether people should gamble.

"I'm not saying I'm personally against this casino," he said during a meeting with Columbian reporters and editors. "People have a right to make personal decisions about what to do with their money."

Baird rattled off a number of arguments for supporting the casino: convention business, the entertainment value of gambling, construction jobs and potential revenues to be shared with local governments.

The project would have other positives as well, namely the creation of 3,151 jobs paying an average annual wage of $28,000, plus benefits.

Baird has been careful to neither support nor oppose the Cowlitz Tribe's plans for a

$510 million casino-hotel-retail complex along Interstate 5 west of La Center. Instead, he has called for an open, fair process for determining whether the tribe can build and operate a 134,150-square-foot casino only a 20-minute drive from the Portland-Vancouver area.

Baird he understands that some casino opponents believe the federal process is neither open nor fair.

"There's some truth to that," he said. "I think it's inherently somewhat of a biased process by design, weighted in the direction of supporting tribal applications."

Baird said he has been repeatedly lobbied by supporters and opponents of the casino project, lobbying that has been more passionate and intense than on other issues.

He specifically mentioned David Barnett, the Cowlitz Tribe member who is coordinating the casino project; Steve Horenstein, the attorney who represents the partnership between Barnett and the Mohegan Tribe of Connecticut; Richard Curtis, a former La Center City Council member and current state representative; Kamie Biehl, founder of the anti-casino group Stand Up For Clark County Citizens; and Ed Lynch, chairman of another anti-casino group, Citizens Against Reservation Shopping.

Baird said he has examined some of the 19th century maps that Lynch says indicate the Cowlitz Tribe's historic range is north of La Center.

"I'm not an expert on that, but the maps are kind of intriguing and raise some interesting questions," Baird said.

The tribe's roots are a source of major contention. In November, the National Indian Gaming Commission issued a legal opinion saying that although the Cowlitz probably were not the dominant tribe in present-day Clark County, they used the area for "hunting, fishing, frequent trading expeditions, occasional warfare and, if not permanent settlement, then at least seasonal villages and temporary camps."

The opinion concluding the casino site qualifies as "restored lands" for the Cowlitz is significant because that is one of the exemptions contained in the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, which generally prohibits gambling on land taken into trust by the federal government after 1987.

Several local governments, including Clark County and the cities of La Center and Vancouver, have criticized the process used to develop the restored-lands opinion.

Baird said he shares those concerns, calling the process "profoundly flawed" because there was "no time or mechanism for public involvement" and concluding the process requires what he called "clarity."

Several bills have been introduced to change the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, but Baird said he isn't sure any will win congressional approval. Baird did not advocate specific changes to the landmark

1987 law and said he would not support a moratorium on new Indian casinos.

"I think you have to look at it on a case-by-case (basis)," he said.