Closing the loop on an earlier post, the Attorney General’s office has ruled that a referendum to repeal the new casino law cannot go on the ballot because that law is an appropriations measure and any law that “appropriates money for … the commonwealth or for any of its departments” is excluded from the referendum process under the State Constitution.
In a press release (no link), a spokesperson for the Repeal The Casino Deal Committee said “I am disappointed but not entirely surprised. We understood going in that the Governor and legislative leadership had inserted appropriations language into the law to secure this very outcome.” Indeed.
Casino opponents can appeal the ruling to the Supreme Judicial Court, but their acknowledgement that the appropriations sections were added expressly to sabotage any repeal effort suggests that they won’t.
The law is not untouchable, just not (if this holds) though the repeal process.
A referendum could change or repeal the non-appropriations part of the law, or impose new restrictions on gambling.
Casino opponents could use the initiative process in the State Constitution to propose a new law to change some or all of the just-enacted casino law.
The advantages of the referendum process are that fewer signatures are required and it’s faster. If the casino law had been subject to the referendum process, it could have been up for a vote on the 2012 state election ballot. Any initiative to change the law can’t move that quickly.
that simply says, “Class 3 gambling is illegal in Massachusetts.” That way, it avoids the appropriations issues of the Speaker’s Suffolk Downs Corporate Welfare bill.
But one big problem is how long it would take to get a new law enacted that way – see above. Not possible to get it on the ballot for 2012 – it would have to wait for 2014. How hot an issue will casinos be then? The casino lobby is betting heavily on “not very.”
Maybe they’re wrong and the issue will be even hotter then. In any case, a repeal of the law that passed in November — but for the fatal appropriations issue — could have been on the ballot in 2012.
After all, the premise of casinos was to raise revenue for the state, so it stands to reason that such revenue would be appropriated.
Personally, I’ve never been a fan of referenda anyway except for constitutional matters, and this doesn’t seem like the type of thing that should be in a constitution. That’s why we pay the legislature the big bucks!
they were appropriating revenue FOR the state to deal with various new problems that casinos will bring — the need to negotiate a peace with the Indian tribes, the need to get up to speed on how to fight new opportunities for criminal mischief, etc.
But you raise a good point. How urgently did these appropriations need to be made, such that it was necessary to include them directly in the casino legislation?
The Legislature usually passes maybe 3 or 4 supplemental budgets every year. In fact, one was signed into law only a few days before the casino bill. Why not include the needed appropriations in a separate bill, especially since this kind of bill comes around several times a year?
I think the answer was to make sure that a ballot question about repealing casinos would not be on the ballot in 2012.
In addition to Hester’s accurate point about appropriations, it’s important not to confuse initiatives with referenda (and almost everybody does). An “initiative” is a proposal for a new law, or for a change in an existing law. For example, as noted upthread, one could propose an initiative that would drop the number of casino licenses from three to one, or that repealed the licensure provision all together, thereby effectively outlawing casinos. A “referendum,” however, is a “yea or nay” vote on a law that the legislature has already passed. A referendum can’t make changes; what it can do is prevent a law already enacted by the legislature from going into effect.
So you can see why appropriations bills are excluded from referenda: in general, it would be awkward to appropriate money, perhaps spend it, and then have the appropriation repealed by a referendum. But, unfortunately, that sensible restriction has created a giant loophole that makes it easy to immunize laws from referendum that should be amenable to it.
Opponents just have to try harder to find it. After all, the Germans just went around the Maginot line, so the answer to this might be to go around it, not attack it head on. If the AG says it’s an appropriations bill, and thus can’t be repealed, then can an alternative be devised that prevents creating the board and the spending plan to implement it.