Cross-posted from Media Nation.
Tim Faulkner of GateHouse News Service has an interview with state Rep. David Flynn, D-Bridgewater, who says Gov. Deval Patrick's three-casino proposal won't even come up for a vote. Faulkner writes:
“The casino bill isn't going anywhere,” Flynn said. “I find very little support for it from members of the house.”…
The casino bill, he said, will receive an “adverse ruling,” thus blocking a vote on the bill….
Flynn said Rep. Daniel Bosley, D-North Adams, head of the Economic Development Committee “will issue an adverse report, preventing the house from voting on the casino bill.”
Flynn has been pushing a “racino” bill, which would allow 2,500 slot machines at the state's four racetracks. He claims Bosley will allow a vote on that bill. I hope it's defeated.
On the larger issue, though, this is very good news indeed. Bosley and House Speaker Sal DiMasi have been signaling for months that, at some point, they would act to kill Patrick's proposal. If Flynn's information is solid, then it looks like that time has arrived.
Ugh. That’s the worst of both worlds. If we allow slot machines at racetracks, then the Wampanoags can go ahead and build their casinos with neither local competition nor a deal with the state, as I understand it.
Rep. Bosley has weighed in briefly at Media Nation, saying, in effect, that Rep. Flynn is wrong in claiming an adverse report would keep the casino bill from coming to the floor. As he is a frequently contributor to BMG, I hope he’ll say more here.
I don’t think that I can add much except that I have never buried this bill in committee in the past. We have been deliberating this issue in different forms since 1996. The committee has always brought a bill to the floor for debate. In most cases this has been as an adverse report. In other words, the committee feels that it should not pass. However, even with this, the full House gets to debate whether the report should be overturned. While everyone knows how I feel about casinos, it is important that we have a full hearing on the 18th and after that we will take the temperature of the committee members. One of the frustrating things for me has been that the administration has put out the same information wrapped up in different packages over the past few months. I know that many members are looking forward to questioning the administration on their facts, figures, and thinking during the hearing.
Dean Flynn and I talked a few days ago about his bill. Unfortunately the House sent the bill to my committee while the Senate sent it to a different committee. This happens on occasion and one shouldn’t read anything into it.We need to clear this up as he deserves a hearing on his bill. I told him that regardless of this, he should come to the hearing and testify. He has been around for a long time and has a lot of experience on this issue.
For the love of God, drive an oak stake into the heart of this bill.
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p>gambling will only serve to exacerbate local social ills already straining the social fabric of our communities and families. Chronic gambling addiction, attendant alcoholism, loss of support for families with children, embezzlement and larceny (read the Mass Teachers Assoc comptroller/CFO) and domestic violence ( hate to flog that poor dead horse)
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p>Patrick’s allegation that it will create 30,000 construction jobs strains credulity. I was an administrator on the Central Highway Tunnel Project (Big Dig) for two years. At the height of the project, working 24/7 we han just in excess of 8500 employees. The largect civil engineering project in US history. When Gov. Patrick came out with that statement I stopped thinking he was being optimistic, now I think he is a bold faced liar. If I never hear that man utter another word, he’ll make my existence more tolerable.
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p>Gov Patrick is now a drowning man grasping at straws. How this man bamboozled so many voters in Massachusetts is simply astonishing.
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p>Deval Patrick/ PT barnum: “A sucker is born every minute.”
Maybe at the height of production there was 8,500 employees, but the total figure had to have been considerably higher. The Governor’s estimate of 30,000 construction jobs is the total number, not a figure at the height of construction. The Big Dig was a lengthy process that involved thousands of workers at various stages of construction, just as building three casinos will be. And who’s the “bold faced” liar? Does anyone else agree that Rep. Bosley’s postings should be removed from Blue Mass because they lack credibility? As the Herald reported today: “It will teach me not to blog off the top of my head when I am at home,” Bosley said. “It’s a dumb thing to do.” (http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1080869&format=comments).
now attempt to build the casinos anyway through stealth means somehow. I can only view this a minor victory in a far larger war.
Couldn’t we just task MIT with creating a “Bringing Down the House” team on behalf of MA taxpayers? Ie, send genius undergrad card-counters to Foxwoods, win a bunch of money every weekend, drop it off at the State House?
Here’s another one. Didn’t Mitt Romney once suggest that we tell Foxwoods to send us money so that we wouldn’t build a competing casino? Why did he not pursue that? Definitely one of his better ideas.
Coase theorem in action. This happens all the time, actually.
Chairman Bosley, not surprisingly, is exactly right. The Speaker has said all along that the Governor’s casino gambling bill would receive a full hearing and some action on the House floor. The Speaker told WBZ’s Carl Stevens yesterday that he expects a vote of the full House sometime after the March 18 hearing but before the full House debates the state budget in late April.
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p>… from David Guarino, communications director for Speaker DiMasi.
http://www6.comcast.net/news/a…