Waterford Rep. Sawin Millett’s bill reviving a casino for Oxford County hasn’t been printed yet, but if its text echoes his sentiments so far, the venerable lawmaker has a good idea.

Oxford County needs development. That 500 people would apply for six full-time and 11 part-time jobs at the new tractor store in Oxford, the proposed casino site, signals the sober seriousness of the economy in Western Maine. People are losing jobs. Jobs are not coming.

Casinos are imperfect job creators and nobody’s sane idea of sustainable development, but if well-designed statutorily, the presence of one is not unappealing. The primary reason we – and the majority of Maine voters – objected to a casino last year was its legal framework.

The enabling legislation was awful, larded with provisions that would have bestowed immediate political power onto the casino owner by virtue of positions on numerous state boards and spreading cash across funding-starved programs.

The voters of Maine were right to reject it, as the prospect of having the Legislature trying to negotiate a better deal for taxpayers with a bad bill on the books was untenable. Millett seems to recognize this and has offered his subsequent compromise.

His bill, he says, doesn’t lower the gambling age or give a monopoly to one company. It proposes a casino for Oxford County, not for some pre-determined investor but for an outlet that offers the best competitive proposal to the state’s gambling control board.

It does, in short, give the state control over expansion of gambling, rather than letting gambling force its expansion on the state. Ballot boxes have filled for years with yeas and nays about gambling, with each time save one – Hollywood Slots – the gamblers losing.

That debate’s been had. What hasn’t happened is discussion of what Maine’s control and regulation of casino gambling would look like, how it could work, or whether it could work. Augusta’s been quiet on that. The capital’s been content to watch the fight, round by round.

Millett’s bill could be a non-starter. The Oxford casino was defeated last November, though the voting results could indicate gambling opposition in Maine is waning. (Everywhere but the Blaine House that is, as Gov. John Baldacci remains a staunch opponent of its expansion.)

Nevertheless, Millett’s legislation is a good idea. Even if it doesn’t deliver a casino to Oxford County or elsewhere, the bill should spark an overdue debate about gambling in Maine.