Speaker DeLeo will not hear the public on his proposed casino legislation after secretly drafting it for months, but will ram it through the House of Representatives in a matter of days. Does anyone believe this is right or reflective of the deep roots of democracy that hold this state steady? This is outrageous arrogance and I am in total shock that something this BIG that will change the landscape of communities and regions statewide will be considered without comment or reflection by the very people it will affect. I have interfaced with the legislature for years and rarely does it get anything right the first time it tries. Only in this case, it will be too late. The speaker of the house does not speak for me and doesn’t care to hear from me or anyone else. I am stunned at this attitude. Long time member of BMG – first post. The speaker offends our democractic principles too deeply for me to stay silent. Outrageous conduct.
This outrageous move by Speaker DeLeo deserves the same high-visibility scorn, contempt, and ridicule that greeted the similarly outrageous behavior of Scott Brown, Teabaggers, Tim Cahill, and Charlie
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p>David’s promotion comment is a good first step — I suggest that we collectively turn up the heat.
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the more people understand the ramifications of this issue, the less likely they are to support it. If DeLeo held a public hearing, he might not get slots for his 2 beloved racetracks. Worse, he’d have to contend with the concerns of legislators from parts of the Commonwealth who don’t have racetracks in their district. Jeez, who’d want that? No, democracy is hard, and apparently it’s just easier to “offend our democratic principles” and move on.
I love you all, but this shit kills me.
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p>Parroting GOP talking points makes me want to puke.
You think not even holding a hearing on perhaps the most consequential piece of legislation this state has seen since the health care bill is defensible? If so, let’s hear the defense. Otherwise, spare me your “GOP talking points” sound-bite.
I would have guessed that a blogger would be miffed at the hamhanded framing.
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p>I’m against expanded gambling. It is not an issue that I champion, however.
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p>Unfortunately, those issues that I do advocate for suffer because “us” cannot be differentiated from “them.” I don’t spend much time circle jerking with like minded folks. Mostly, I’m looking at the “persuadables.” Blogs, for me, are a place to exchange ideas and to TEST those ideas. Part of the test, is the power of persuasion and the frames/memes that are harnessed to persuade.
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p>This blunder, “ram it through the House of Representatives”, set me back. And I humbly submit, set you back.
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p>Now excuse me, as it is rude to highjack a thread.
I think that cherry-picking “GOP talking points” to “parrot” is a fine tactic for those rare times when they get something right.
It is my understanding (correct my if I am mistaken) that the bill that was presented yesterday is a REDRAFT of a bill that was before the Economic Development Committee and will be “exec’d” from that committtee.
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p>If this is so the bill (thus the issues) already had a hearing before the Committee of origin (the committee in which it was orogonally filed – in this case Econ Dev) and this redrafted version will now go to the HW&M Committee and then to the floor for debate. According to Joint Legislative Rules and House Rules this is the proper procedure for bills.
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p>So, I would not say that this is out of the ordinary – In fact major pieces reform legisaltion, accomplished in the past such as Health Care, Cost Containment, and Energy/Green Communities received the exact same process: an original hearing before a joint committee of origin, which then releases a redraft.
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p>Actually the State Budget is also done the same way – the Governor files the budget (House 1) – it receives its hearing(s) before the Joint Ways & Means Committee and then the House releases is REDRADTED version – which is usually significantly different than House 1 to the full house and public.
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p>I know many of us here on BMG are opposed to Gaming but this is not an outrage and circumvention of the process – thsi is the process.
I was originally going to comment here that things should never work this way, that ALL legislation should be submitted to the appropriate committee for public hearing and markup, which I suppose would be nice to do again if there have been significant changes. I’ve also never liked the amount of power the Speaker has over determining the agenda anyway. If the above is true it definitely alleviates my process concerns. If I were chair of a committee with jurisdiction I’d be tempted to hold hearings anyway, even without the Speaker’s request.
I don’t know if you are, but let’s assume you are.
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p>There should still be a hearing, regardless of whether DeLeo is following a technically correct process. This is the first time DeLeo has actually put a proposal on the table, and this is the bill he is going to whip for. So, given all of that, it’s absurd not to hold a public hearing. Whatever came before is no longer relevant.
is there a case for an injunction or other legal action?
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p>This is not a revised bill, it is a unique bill.
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p>1. New major Econonic Crime bill statutes embedded in it which should be separate
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p>2. Different economy than previous legislation
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p>3. A new constellation of 6 (make that 8 with two sovereign tribal slots/casinos revving up) gambling sites
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p>4. No regional siting proposal
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p>5. Crafted in secret
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p>6. Two publicly funded benefit analysis (UMass Dartmouth and Spectrum), NO cost analysis
Even if DeLeo is not following the legislature’s rules (and, as other comments on this thread indicate, there’s apparently some doubt about that), those rules are not enforceable in court. Courts rightly prefer not to intrude on how the legislature conducts its business.
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p>This is a political problem, not a legal one, and it should be dealt with by political means.
I agree with David that action on process faces dubious, at best, prospects in court.
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p>I also agree with your point on the bill containing provisions that are best dealt with in a separate bill. I had the same issue with the Health Care Bill containing the Student Loan provisions.
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p>I think the best course of action includes:
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p>1) Reinforcing our positions with our local reps and senators who voted to send the bill to study last time to ensure that they hold firm and then seek to pursuade the others that the process and likely end result is bad for the Commonwealth and its residents.
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p>2) Investigate the zoning ordinances and requirements in each town with a targeted racetrack as there may be the need for public hearings to change use, etc. This would be a potentially advantageous venue for local concerned citizens and activists to let their feelings be known. Not sure if there will be any requriements, but has a chance.
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p>3) Prepare for legal challenges to the siting of the slots at the racetracks as ths could be one area where those opposed could have standing against the owners of the tracks who will try to install the slots.
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p>4) Vote accordingly this fall. Even if the incumbent is unopposed, vote for someone else, even if a write-in
Due to the Easter holiday I am unable to post more on this subject – however I beleive my statements are correct. That is the process that we followed when I worked up the Hill. 01-09.
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Sorry but the anti-jobs people are sounding a lot like the GOP on health care.
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p>The issue of expanded gaming and resort casinos has had several hearings over the last few years including the DiMasi hearing in 2008 and recent gaming bill hearings as well. As I remember it, there was a very quick vote after that hearing as well.
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p>Claiming “more hearings” is no differenr then the GOPs constant demands that the health care bill have more hearings. If DiMasi hadn’t used his power as speaker to kill the bill in 2008, badly neede constrcution jobs would already be in the pipeline. Further delays mean more homes lost to foreclousres and more blue collar workers left on unemployment.
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p>Delays have cost working women and men enough. Time for the Legislature to act for jobs.
I totally agree! Hopefully they will kill this casino bill and then get right on it.
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p>KIDDING! KIDDING!
So here’s what we’ll do. We’ll allow the casino developers to build the casino, because it creates jobs.
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p>But, they have to bond some money, because the next time MA is at full employment, they have to agree to tear the whole damn thing down again. After all, at full employment it won’t be about jobs. If the reason to build the casino is jobs, then having enough non-casino jobs is a great reason to tear the casino down.
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p>Silly, right? Of course it is. It’s just as silly as pushing through on a major shift in public policy that we’ll have to live with for generations because of the hundreds (maybe a few thousand?) of jobs it will create over the next few years for the 6 million Massachusetts citizens. If casinos are a good idea, they’re a good idea. That building them and maintaining them employs people is irrelevant to the discussion.
Hey that’s a new one. And using this same logic, what should we more accurately call the expanded gambling proponents?
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p>Pro-Addiction People… Pro-Bankruptcy People… Pro-Crime People… Pro-Child Neglect People… Pro-Domestic Abuse People… Pro-New Bloated Regulatory Bureaucracy People… Pro-Hit to the Lottery People… Anti-Local Business People…
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p>My goodness, I could go on. Why don’t you choose. Oh, that’s right, Pro-Jobs! Of course. Jobs like ‘gaming dealer’ – which made it to the Forbes list of worst paying jobs in America. Of course Forbes is backed up by the US Dept of Labor’s Division of Labor Statistics which estimates the median hourly wage for gaming service employees at $6.34 per hour with annual median earnings of $13,179.
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p>So, let’s see… how about “Anti-Good Pro-Jobs People?”
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“anti-jobs people” is an outrageous label and accusation.
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p>One of the reasons why I’m against this is because historically casinos crush small business jobs in the regions they go in. We’re not going to grow any jobs — we’re going to trade the jobs of our neighbors for the jobs of an industry spending millions of lobbyist dollars to get in here, so they can suck up our discretionary income and export it to Las Vegas and elsewhere.
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p>Opponents of slots have repeatedly made the case for more jobs. Among the ideas I’ve proposed is to target the $1.7 billion going to unaccountable and usually-inefficient tax credits each and every year in Massachusetts, and take that money to create tens of thousands of union jobs at the MBTA, at our 49th-out-of50th-per-capita funded public universities and colleges, and local aid to spare our teachers, firemen and police officers, all of whom are union. That would have an infinitely larger impact on the economy, spending money in ways that would grow many more jobs beyond that $1.7 billion could ever pay for on its own.
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p>But Beacon Hill hasn’t been willing to touch that money as of yet, because — like casinos — the special interests spend millions a year to reap them. We must rise up and tell those special interests to go to hell and use that money where it will be best served, not support a policy that will cause harm to this state and cost thousands of Massachusetts employees their small-business jobs in communities within the 50-mile bubbles around any potential casinos.
Its about slots at the tracks!
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p>If it was about jobs then they could have delayed the closing of the dog tracks and retained many of those jobs. They didn’t as they were looking for a bigger payday on the slots.
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p>Now the use of more jobs, more jobs sounds great, but not entirely consistent with what they have done and could have done. IMHO
This is the process. This is the legislative process. It is defined by rules. This bill is following the rules. It isn’t a new bill, it is a redraft of an existing gaming bill that was heard by the committee months ago.
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p>DeLeo put the bill out two weeks before the floor debate to address the transparency issues raised here. This wasn’t released the morning of, and hustled through the House, it is out there. Everyone gets to read it and react.
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p>They’re even planning to have all amendments filed early, so everyone will even know what will be proposed days ahead of time.
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p>THIS IS HOW IT SHOULD WORK! The legislature does lots of things wrong. I laugh at them all the time… but you think another hearing, with the same sides coming in and spending 8 hours reciting their talking points will lead to better government?
No independent cost-benefit analysis, we’re just supposed to trust DeLeo’s friends at Suffolk Downs. The bill was kept secret for weeks, leaving very little time for people to learn up on it and mount a campaign. And now we don’t even get a public hearing.
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p>This is not just a small change to previous bills, this is a vastly different beast — 750 slots at 4 racetracks is essentially 6 freaking casinos, with the 2 full-scale casinos DeLeo proposes, nevermind the potential of tribal casinos in the state and additional casinos around the border in NH and RI as the other states try to keep up in this race to the bottom. We need this to be aired out in the public, so people have the opportunity to actually learn what’s in this freaking bill — we ought to have a full-scale cost-benefits analysis, so state legislators know what it is they’re actually voting for.
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p>If you think this is how it’s supposed to work, then you explicitly support a corrupt process. I encourage you to rethink your position.
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p>Weren’t we supposed to have cleaned up the corruption at this place? Any state legislator who votes for this plan without addressing those points made above is complicit in a corrupt process and should be held accountable by their constituents.
So what? Are you suggesting that all meetings between legislators (or with interest groups or constituents) should be fully open and public? If so, that’s preposterous.
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p>Look, I am not a supporter of this bill, and I agree with some of your points. I don’t like that there won’t be a hearing on the redraft (even if it is following proper procedure under House Rules), and I don’t like that there won’t be a fully independent report available on this particular bill.
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p>But your post implies that private meetings at least partially = corruption. You’re going over the top here.
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p>I don’t seem to remember you complaining about a corrupt process when DiMasi rigged the process for the casino bill in ’08. I’m glad it didn’t pass then and even though it will, I wish it wouldn’t pass this time… But your rhetoric is way over-the-top.
Open meeting laws on Beacon Hill would cure a lot of problems. If we can have them for the local school committee, we can have them for our state reps and senators.
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p>Private meetings do “at least partially = corruption.” People say things differently in private than they do in public, and at least some of these private meetings had the special interests right on inside.
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p>BTW: Casinos are not now nor have they ever been inevitable. Furthermore, DiMasi did not “rig” the process in ’08 either, though he certainly made things easier. I was very saddened by his betrayal of my trust, but the illegal things he did back then I don’t find very much ethically different than what DeLeo is doing now in order to push the special interests within his district who have donated tens of thousands to both him and his PAC for the house. It may not be illegal, but it is morally and ethically wrong.
“The illegal things he did back then I don’t find very much ethically different than what DeLeo is doing now.”
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p>That’s how.
which are worse than things that are illegal. Siding with special interests and against the people of the Commonwealth is wrong whether you do that through a secret software deal with a bribe, or huge contributions to one’s campaign coffers. I hope you enjoyed the red pill.
Rep. Lida Harkins gave the following statement to BMG on this subject:
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Again, have any of you been to Detroit to see what the Greektown casino did to the Greektown neighborhood, and jobs? That casino killed jobs in the neighborhood and concentrated jobs in itself….and overall, did not improve the local economy at all.
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p>Same with Atlantic City. I went there once; never again. In Atlantic City, New Jersey the casinos are like pulsating boils on a diseased patient.
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p>If you follow the money, and the history, casinos are money pits that funnel meager funds extracted from suckers to bloated Neo-Barons many of them over seas.
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p>Too much money sloshing around from those money barons, I guess drowning common sense.
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p>I suppose, too, the factory-like concentration of workers may favor union organization – or maybe not. Perhaps the rallying cry had better be, “Remember the Hyatt Housekeepers”.
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p>Casino operations are all about vacuuming as much money away from the general public as possible – there is not a drop of altruism in that industry.
The casinos in Atlantic City are laying off employees as I post this.
Speaker “Racino” DeLeo is proposing an entirely NEW bill that can be found here:
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p>United to Stop Slots in Massachusetts along with a multitude of other reports and sources of information.
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p>Spectrum Gaming updated the previous report for which you paid $189,000, but kept in 3 euphemistically named “Resort Casinos,” which begs the question Why?
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p>There is a disclaimer on Page 6:
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p>Spectrum Gaming IS the Industry. The Industry drew up the legislation?
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p>Recently, many lawmakers have whined that they can’t offer an opinion because they don’t know what the Omnipotent Speaker will produce. A convenient excuse!
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p>There are glaring flaws in the Spectrum update that will remain concealed without a public hearing.
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p>There are glaring flaws in the Speaker’s proposal that will remain concealed without a public hearing.
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p>Why the secrecy?
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p>Oh! That’s right! This is the way the Gambling Industry works! Just ask Middleboro!
this Industry, you might have noticed that they begin ‘small,’ like, let’s say 750 slots to ‘save the tracks.’ Before the ink is dry, they’ll be back to re-negotiate.
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p>The Ladder Approach