By way of disclosure, or just as an FYI, I’m herewith letting you know that I’m part of the legal team that is trying to get the casino repeal on the ballot this November. As you probably know, the pro-repeal forces have already collected enough signatures to place the question on the ballot; the only remaining obstacle is the Attorney General’s ruling that the question was not the sort that can go directly to the people. We think the AG’s ruling is wrong; the Supreme Judicial Court will decide. I’m happy to help out (I am not being paid). Globe:
The casino law repeal movement, once largely dismissed as the whimsical campaign of a few antigambling zealots, has assembled a legal team of experienced constitutional specialists to carry the fight for a statewide repeal vote into the state’s highest court, amid signs that the repeal effort is gaining strength.
Two Boston lawyers who have worked in the state attorney general’s office, Thomas O. Bean and H. Reed Witherby, will lead the team representing the anticasino citizens campaign Repeal the Casino Deal in an ongoing case before the Supreme Judicial Court. The central question for the court to decide is whether a binding question to roll back the casino law and ban the casino industry from Massachusetts will appear on the November statewide ballot….
“This case is not about whether casinos are good public policy,” Bean said in an interview. “It’s about whether the people will get to vote.”
Witherby said litigation over the 2008 ballot effort to ban live dog racing in Massachusetts applies to the current lawsuit over the question to ban casinos.
“If the owner of a dog track that has been licensed for decades can’t prevent the people from voting to outlaw dog racing, it’s hard to see why mere applicants for a license should be able to prevent the people from voting on casino gambling,” said Witherby.
Three other lawyers are helping the repeal effort on a pro bono basis: Matt Cameron, who also advises the No Eastie Casino citizens group; David Kravitz of the firm Murphy & King; and Margaret Monsell, a staff lawyer at Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, according to the Repeal the Casino Deal campaign.
Kudos to you, and the rest of the team, for stepping up.
Now go out there and win!
I’m constantly impressed by the real-world activity from people here. People at BMG don’t just talk about activism, they get out there and do it. Editors leading through example.
Good luck, David.
It will certainly be an event-filled Spring in both jurisprudence and political arenas. May the two bring truth, justice and progress through inclusion and transparency.
Count me on board. But I hope this doesn’t mean we see less of you on the concert stage. 🙂
that it will make it to the ballot? I bet that it makes it to the ballot, but people vote in favor of the casino.
“What are the ODDS…?”
“I BET that…”
I think your conclusions constitute very good PUN-ditry!:)
I am subtly suggesting that gambling is part of our culture. Similar to alcohol, we enjoy participating in bets. The comparison to alcohol is important. As we know, alcohol places a terrible toll on our society. Efforts to ban alcohol were completely unsuccessful, however.
In my opinion, we can’t outlaw casinos any more than we can outlaw bars.
And yet the Commonwealth has made it nearly four centuries without casinos. We might not be able to avoid all gambling but do we really need the shady, predatory multi-billion-dollar companies that come with casino gambling these days?
posters have pointed out how much of a role lottery revenue plays in funding public services like local aid. Given that Gov. Patrick’s budget proposal in January depended on selling gambling licenses to raise $53.5 million, I’m curious if pro-repeal liberals have concerns about repeal’s impact on revenue.
like grownups in a civilized society, instead of looking for every possible gimmick, no matter the collateral damage, to avoid the dreaded “t-word.”
if it includes all of the options.
Casino boosters playing the revenue card, however, come off as a bit dim when they can’t think of better ways to pay for government services.
What are “all of the options” you mean?
Not sure you meant to include me as a player of the “revenue card” (hey, is that related to black jack?). I simply noticed that pols like Patrick have begun operating under the assumption that casino licenses will contribute to revenue, and they’re now planning their budgets accordingly.
I believe that, within reason, the government should require residents and others to remit money to the Commonwealth to cover the cost of providing the government services these individuals and businesses enjoy.
The optimal level and nature of these payments ans services of course are debatable. But, see ryepower’s comment downthread.
When I hear gubernatorial hopefuls defending casinos and slots barns as if the only alternative were even deeper cuts to essential services I am not impressed with their intelligence, honesty, courage, or grasp of the issues at stake.
Your original reference to “all the options” was simply vague and meant nothing to me. No need to get sore at people.
when looking at the question of how we’re going to pay for the costs of our government, there are four big questions that leap out as tests for whether or not a revenue source is a good idea
1. Is it a fair tax? Does it hurt some people worse than others, and are those people the people who could least afford it? Will the existence of the revenue stream itself cause harm to some members in the populace?
2. Is it expensive to collect? Every revenue source has some expense associated to collect it, but not everyone needs entire agencies filled with regulators and lawyers and overseers of other varieties, particularly those that have proven ripe for abuse in the past.
3. Is it consistent? Can we predict within a reasonable range of how much revenue it will collect year to year, so we can reasonably plan for our budgets, or will we be faced with a situation where some years the revenue could fall flat or plummet?
4. Will it cannibalize other state revenue sources? For example, how would local sales taxes be impacted from competing sources, or what would the impact be on the state lottery, which is ‘taxed’ at a significantly higher rate. How much ‘net’ gain can be made if casinos cannibalize other state income sources — if there could possibly be any gain at all.
On all four of these questions, casinos end up being less of a pillar and more of a house of cards. This is why many states with casinos have higher tax rates than Massachusetts — and why a lot of them were hit even harder than we were in terms of budgeting during the Great Recession. Think we had it bad in Massachusetts then? Look at states like Nevada, New Jersey and Connecticut.
Lots of magical numbers have been floated around expanding gambling in Massachusetts, but none of them have ever come from a serious cost-benefit analysis of allowing casinos in Massachusetts —- because all too many of the state’s most powerful elites never wanted one of those. I wonder why?
While noting that Rye never claimed that a revenue stream has to pass all four pillars to be acceptable, I’d like to take a moment to dwell on consistency. It’s actually not all that important, so long as the money from that revenue stream is spent wisely.
Using that money for operating costs, or as a pass-through to cities and towns using it to cover operating costs? Bad idea. Instead, it can be used to pay for infrastructure. Thanks to bonding, multi-year projects, etc., erratic revenue (on a year-to-year basis) is just fine for capital projects. To be sure, there is a risk of permanently underfunding infrastructure because each and every year “underperforms” — but that’s a structural problem, not a symptom of the erratic revenue itself. And, of course, re-funding the rainy day fund is another great use for erratic revenue streams.