I'll find out when I check the view totals later.
"SJC allows a casino repeal vote; Gambling supporters, opponents mobilizing for prospective referendum in November" by Mark Arsenault | Globe staff June 24, 2014
The state’s highest court decided Tuesday that a casino repeal measure can appear on the November ballot, touching off a ferocious referendum campaign over one of the most charged issues in a generation and jeopardizing the future of the billion-dollar industry in Massachusetts.
I'm actually surprised by the ruling, but I expect the rigged voting machines to do their jobs.
The long-awaited ruling by the Supreme Judicial Court instantly overshadowed the state’s nearly three-year debate over where casinos should be built and reignited an argument over whether they should be allowed at all.
Over the next four months, voters can expect a barrage of slick advertising, phone calls, and tenacious door knocking on the casino question, in a relentless campaign orchestrated by experienced political operatives on each side. The clash could eclipse the sleepy gubernatorial race.
“This is going to be a multimillion-dollar campaign, no doubt about it,” said Springfield political strategist Anthony Cignoli, who has closely followed the development of the state’s casino industry.
For passionate casino opponents across the United States, the Massachusetts repeal referendum presents a tantalizing opportunity to defeat an industry that has steamrolled opposition for years, spreading into 39 states.
“This is a very historic ballot question,” Les Bernal, director of the national anticasino group, Stop Predatory Gambling, said in a recent interview.
Support for the casino industry, once quite solid in Massachusetts, has slipped over the past year as several communities voted down proposals and the gambling commission faced accusations of bias.
A Boston Globe poll this month found that only 52 percent of likely voters favored keeping the 2011 gambling law authorizing casinos on the books, while 41 percent favored repeal. A Suffolk University poll in early June found that only 37 percent approved of casinos here.
Maybe not. If it's 2-to-1 against they won't be able to steal it.
“I think the campaign will matter a lot,” said Clyde Barrow, a University of Massachusetts Dartmouth casino expert. “I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion for either side.”
John Ribeiro, chairman of the citizen-led repeal effort, hailed the court ruling as “the starting gun in this incredibly important campaign.”
“We know Massachusetts can do better than this casino mess,” said Ribeiro, head of Repeal the Casino Deal. “We’re elated at the opportunity to continue sharing the truth about casinos and the harm they would bring to our communities.”
For the developers pursuing casinos in Massachusetts, the ruling puts about $1.7 billion a year in projected gambling revenue in jeopardy. The companies are expected to spend heavily to save the emerging Massachusetts market.
“Our fight to protect jobs and preserve this economic development opportunity for Massachusetts begins today,” said Eric Schippers, a senior vice president for Penn National Gaming, the company building the state’s sole slot machine parlor, in Plainville.
MGM Resorts International, which has won the right to build an $800 million gambling resort in downtown Springfield, said the troubled city is “a comeback story in progress with hard-working people eager to grow jobs and get back to work.
“We are fully prepared to extend this message to a larger audience through a statewide campaign to educate the voters on the enormous economic benefits that would be lost to the taxpayers of the Commonwealth in a repeal,” said Michael Mathis, MGM Springfield president.
And the casino industry’s national trade group, the American Gaming Association, promised Tuesday to “ensure that voters have the facts about our industry, instead of tired stereotypes.”
In its unanimous decision, the high court ruled that Attorney General Martha Coakley made a mistake last year when she ruled that the repeal measure was unconstitutional. Coakley had said the repeal would illegally take the implied contract rights of casino developers without compensation.
The court rejected that argument.
“We conclude that . . . the Legislature and, through initiative, the voters of Massachusetts may choose to abolish casino and slot parlor gambling and parimutuel wagering on simulcast greyhound racing, and doing so would not constitute a taking of property without compensation,” the court said in a lengthy decision written by Justice Ralph D. Gants.
The court also said casino developers who paid the state’s $400,000 application fee and then spent millions more developing their bids had entered the process with eyes open.
“The possibility of abolition is one of the many foreseeable risks that casinos, slot parlors, and their investors take when they choose to apply for a license,” the court said.
Governor Deval Patrick, who was an early champion of expanded gambling in Massachusetts and signed the casino law, said he is not surprised that one of his signature initiatives would be put to a vote.
“It is what it is,” said Patrick, who said he would vote to keep the law on the books even though he has previously stated he would not support a casino in the Western Massachusetts town where he owns a home. “I think [the law is] a great balance between how we expand gaming and how we let our local communities make decisions that are right for them.”
The only remaining formality facing opponents is for Secretary of State William Galvin’s office to certify at least 11,485 signatures from the roughly 27,000 signatures they submitted. Opponents are confident they will meet that threshhold.
Despite the “atmosphere of uncertainty” created by the court decision, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission intends to continue its work of reviewing casino proposals, said Stephen Crosby, the commission’s chairman. The panel is preparing to award the Boston area resort casino license later this summer, to either a Mohegan Sun casino proposal in Revere or a Wynn Resorts proposal in Everett.
Mayor Martin J. Walsh, who has tussled with the gambling commission in an effort to win more power over the two Boston-area projects, said he was pleased the court had “given the people of East Boston and Charlestown the right to vote, which the Massachusetts Gaming Commission has failed to do.”
Anticipating the ruling, the Repeal the Deal group has in recent weeks begun to transform itself into a political campaign. The group has hired a campaign manager and an experienced fund-raiser.
Opponents will seek to knit together a number of anticasino citizens’ groups that cropped up in 2012 and 2013 to fight individual casino proposals across the state. The anticasino coalition will also probably include religious leaders and public officials who actively oppose the industry.
“The challenge is to turn the grass-roots network into a unified statewide effort,” said Nathan Bech, leader of a group that defeated a casino proposal in West Springfield.
On the other side, the procasino effort will include municipal officials who have embraced the industry for the jobs and revenue it promises to provide. These include Mayor Domenic Sarno of Springfield, Mayor Dan Rizzo of Revere, and Mayor Carlo DeMaria of Everett. The coalition will likely also include potential employees of the industry and labor unions eager for the construction jobs.
That last guy will be coming up below. You can search my blog hand for the others if you like.
“Going forward, we will proceed like we did last year before our local referendum and present the facts on what this means to not only Springfield but to Western Massachusetts and the entire Commonwealth,” said Sarno.
Racing fans complained Tuesday that repeal would kill the state’s last harness track, Plainridge Racecourse, where Penn is building the slot parlor.
Patrick Pelosi spends several days a week at Plainridge, making small bets on horses. Without the coming slots, he said, the complex would be “dead as a doornail.”
“If other states can have them, why can’t we?” he said of casinos.
But Daralyn Reardon, a bartender at Suffolk Downs who supports the Mohegan Sun project, saw the benefit of a public vote. “I mean everybody has a right to vote, and this will make a final resolution . . . It’s just the way it has to be,” she said.
Boston University journalism professor Fred Bayles, who studies referendums, said the procasino side begins with the advantage that most voters do not live in the handful of municipalities where casinos are planned.
“The direct impact is limited to a couple of communities that have already voted in favor of it,” Bayles said.
As always, money will play a large role in the campaign, and casino backers probably will outspend opponents. But in this case money alone may not guarantee a victory.
“Gaming referenda are one of the few things where the amount you spend is not necessarily the determining factor in who wins,” said Barrow. “I don’t think this is the kind of referendum where the gaming industry can just win it with money. They have to build a grass-roots coalition.”
Cignoli, the Springfield strategist, said opponents also have more ammunition for a campaign than they did three years ago, when state lawmakers and Patrick legalized Las Vegas-style casino gambling and created a five-member commission to regulate it.
“Even the governor who put the idea of casinos forward has since said he would not want one in his town,” Cignoli said. “I do see energy on the part of the opponents.”
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Hand Globe dealt me:
"Casino repeal activists vow to build on momentum" by Peter Schworm | Globe staff June 24, 2014
Three years ago, when the state’s casino law passed after years of debate, casino gambling in Massachusetts seemed all but inevitable. The fight over where casinos would be built would surely be long and drawn-out. But the time for stopping them entirely had passed.
On Tuesday, the opponents drew an inside straight.
Suddenly empowered by a Supreme Judicial Court decision that approves an anticasino ballot measure, activists from Palmer to New Bedford hailed the unanimous ruling as a hard-won victory.
“The challenge is to turn the grass-roots network into a unified statewide effort,” said Nathan Bech, leader of an opposition group that turned back a casino proposal in West Springfield.
Their court victory in hand, the opponents now turn to waging a campaign for voters’ support for a ballot initiative that would overturn the law allowing casinos in Massachusetts. They say opponents who fought local casino proposals for more than a year have joined the statewide campaign, eager for the chance to defeat casinos on a broader scale.
Repeal advocates expect to be decisively outspent by casino supporters but welcomed a “David versus Goliath” battle.
“Once people learn what comes along with casinos, they reject them out of hand,” said John Ribeiro, chairman of the Repeal The Casino Deal campaign.
Repeal The Casino Deal, a statewide coalition of opponents, challenged a ruling last year by Attorney General Martha Coakley, who had rejected the proposed anticasino ballot initiative as unconstitutional. The state’s high court said Tuesday that Coakley was wrong.
Casino opponents said the setback of Coakley’s 2013 ruling might ultimately work in their favor by redoubling their resolve and bringing more public attention to the issue.
“If anything, I think she [Coakley] helped our cause,” said Gail Miller of East Boston.
At a press conference outside the State House Tuesday, opponents said they had built support for the repeal measure through many local campaigns against casinos proposed in communities across the state.
“We fought this from town to town,” said Ribeiro, chairman of the repeal campaign. “This decision proves that the people’s voice matters.”
In West Springfield, Palmer, East Boston, and Milford, opponents defeated casino plans at the polls. Other towns, such as Foxborough, Boxborough, and Tewksbury, blocked proposals before they came to a vote.
“It’s not just Nimbyism,” Miller said. “Casinos really impact communities within a 50-mile radius.”
Scott Harshbarger, a repeal supporter and former state attorney general, praised the court’s decision for putting a pivotal issue to a popular vote.
“The people have a right to vote,” he said. “The people have a right to be heard. That was really the core of this decision.”
Opponents said casinos bring a host of social ills that would be felt far beyond the host communities, and that message is gaining traction.
“The more people know, the less comfortable they feel,” Harshbarger said. “This is a chance for a do-over.”
Joseph Curtatone, Somerville’s mayor, said the casino law is deeply flawed, a “bad hand from the very beginning.”
Repeal advocates had assembled a campaign in expectation of a decision in their favor and said the ruling gives them renewed energy.
“The inevitability argument [that casinos in Massachusetts are a certainty] is dead as of today,” said David Guarino, a spokesman for the repeal group. “Now it gets a lot more real.” Guarino said the group will raise money for the effort, but realizes it cannot compete with casinos financially.
“We know this is going to primarily be a grass-roots effort,” he said. “We like our chances that way.”
Last week, casino opponents announced they had more than 26,000 signatures, twice the number needed to bring the measure to the ballot. Organizers said the final push came at the state Democratic convention, where more than half of delegates signed petitions.
At the same time, casinos have moved forward. Construction on a slots parlor is underway in Plainville, and the state gambling commission recently awarded the first casino license to MGM Resorts, which plans to build an $800 million development in Springfield.
While resistance has been concentrated at the local level, casino opponents say many remain committed to the fight. “These people are still involved because they know you can’t contain it in one area,” Stratis said. “Now it’s about educating people.”
EmmaLadd Shepherd, a leader in the successful campaign against a casino in Palmer, said the court decision felt like vindication. “Yes indeed,” she said. “There couldn’t be better news.”
Shepherd, 79, admitted she was a bit burned out after fighting the Palmer plan for years.
“I’ve kind of pulled back, but I intend to get back out there.”
Leo Allen, an opponent of the casino proposal in New Bedford, said voters deserved to be heard on such an important issue. Three years had passed since the casino law passed, and much had changed.
“I think we’re at a stage now where people want to take it back,” he said.
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Dealer's hand:
"Casino firms may unite to fight repeal of state law" by Mark Arsenault | Globe Staff June 26, 2014
Casino developers deeply invested in Massachusetts are discussing joining forces on a political campaign to protect the state’s 2011 casino law and preserve the gambling industry’s access to an estimated $1.7 billion market.
Though they hope to be competitors eventually, MGM Resorts, Penn National Gaming, and Mohegan Sun have been driven together by mutual interest to fight a threatened repeal of the state casino law, which the state’s high court cleared for a vote in November.
They have not yet settled on the specifics of a coordinated campaign, but the gambling companies are “going to end up working together in different ways and various forms,” said MGM executive Michael Mathis, president of the company’s Springfield casino project, which has been promised the state’s Western Massachusetts resort casino license.
“I think there is a real sense that we all need to work together to educate the Commonwealth about all the benefits of the gaming law,” he said.
For all its wealth and high-powered consultants, the Massachusetts casino industry has so far lacked a cohesive strategy to push its message — more jobs and tax revenue — and to counter attacks from those backing repeal.
The companies are highly motivated to develop a strong campaign to fight a ballot initiative that has the gambling industry facing extinction in Massachusetts before the first casino even opens its doors. They are expected to be joined by labor unions in the fight to preserve the casino law.
The Supreme Judicial Court on Tuesday ruled that a citizen-sponsored casino repeal measure can appear on the November ballot, overruling a decision last year by Attorney General Martha Coakley, who had concluded the repeal was unconstitutional.
With a statewide referendum just four months away, both sides have pledged to run fierce campaigns.
“It would not surprise me if $10 million is spent on media ads,” said Paul DeBole, assistant professor of political science at Lasell College and a specialist on gambling regulation.
The companies were not ready Wednesday to offer a campaign budget.
“There will be an appropriate amount of print and air time devoted to the effort,” Mathis said. “We don’t know yet what that is.”
Eric Schippers, a senior vice president for Penn National, said the money spent on the other side, in favor of casino repeal, could affect the spending calculus for the industry’s defense of the law.
“If we see money coming in from competing interests from out of state, that certainly is going to change things and may escalate things,” Schippers said. “It’s going to depend upon what sort of outside money comes into this fight.”
Penn in February won the state’s sole slot parlor license, for a project at Plainridge Racecourse in Plainville. Penn did the local casino industry a big favor by taking a chance, paying the $25 million state licensing fee and starting construction despite the threat of repeal. Casino-related construction jobs — touted for years as one of the benefits of the expanded gambling law — are no longer just theoretical, and Penn can make the political argument that repeal would cost people their livelihoods.
The companies are counting on labor unions to be a key component of their pro-casino coalition.
Mark Erlich, executive secretary-treasurer of the New England Regional Council of Carpenters, said his union will be active in the fight to defeat the repeal effort, though he declined to discuss specifics.
“We supported the legislation when it was passed, and we’ll be mobilizing our members to vote against repeal,” he said. “We will undoubtedly use all the various tools at our disposal.”
The issue, he said, is vitally important to labor.
“There’s a lot of jobs at stake and, I think, an economic boost for the Commonwealth at stake,” he said.
Casino companies also intend to enlist support from business owners who want to sell products and services to the industry, city and state officials hungry for casino tax revenue, tourism bureaus, potential casino employees, and the state’s horse racing industry, which would benefit from larger race purses if casinos open.
The first phase of the campaign “is really grassroots outreach,” to organize supporters and expand the industry’s base of support, Mathis said. “It’s going to take a lot of time on the ground. There is no shortcut to that.”
Mohegan Sun, which is competing for the Boston-area casino license with Wynn Resorts, confirmed in a statement the company “will also join the chorus of others making the case to voters on why this law is good for workers, good for the economy, and good for the commonwealth.” Wynn Resorts declined to comment.
For casino opponents, the campaign strategy is to build a superior field organization, said Darek Barcikowski, manager for the citizen-led Repeal the Casino Deal effort.
“We don’t expect to compete with the casinos on multi-million-dollar media buys,” Barcikowski said. “If we have a solid ground game and people hear from their neighbors about why casinos are bad for Massachusetts . . . that will carry much more weight than the messaging the casinos will put on the air waves.”
Opponents must “start talking to people, start knocking on doors, hitting the phones, calling people,” he said.
The repeal campaign is raising money and will have a presence on the air waves, Barcikowski said. “We are confident we will raise the money we need to compete,” he said.
David D’Alessandro, former chief executive of John Hancock and a supporter of repealing the law, said he believes the casino opponents can raise $2 million, though the campaign “will be about getting grass roots votes out.”
The repeal effort apparently has passed a final technical hurdle — submitting at least 11,485 signatures to be certified for the initiative to secure a place on the November ballot.
Secretary of State William F. Galvin said Wednesday that it appears the pro-repeal group has collected more than enough valid signatures.
Galvin anticipates that the casino repeal — “a real water-cooler issue” — will drive public debate this fall and lead to higher turnout in the November election.
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Related: Gaming commission says it will continue its work
Also see:
Longer odds for casinos
Scrap the casino idea — Boston is booming
Screw the rest of the state seems to be the attitude over there.
"Mayor’s ties to shady pair cloud casino plan; An ownership tangle, with two felons perhaps in the mix, for Everett site where Vegas mogul hopes to build" by Sean P. Murphy, Andrea Estes and Scott Allen | Globe Staff June 22, 2014
EVERETT —Developer Gary P. DeCicco — a felon with a history of fires of suspicious origin on his properties and nasty disputes with the government over his unpaid taxes — found a new ally when Mayor Carlo DeMaria took office in 2008.
DeMaria stood virtually alone in support of DeCicco’s project at a key 2010 hearing, admitting that even his staff opposed the plan, meeting minutes show. But with the mayor’s blessing, DeCicco won the approvals he needed, setting up DeCicco and his partners to make millions when they sold the land to another developer as soon as they secured their permits.
The mayor’s relationship with DeCicco and another felon, their mutual friend Charles Lightbody, sheds new light on the controversy over Steve Wynn’s proposal to build a $1.6 billion casino in Everett along the Mystic River. DeCicco and Lightbody were among the investors who bought the land in 2009, but their names disappeared from official documents by the time Wynn arrived in 2012.
When the Globe reported late last year that the two felons might be among the owners, the news threatened to derail the casino proposal, and spurred a federal and state investigation into potential secret owners and whether anyone gave false statements to government officials.
Through it all, DeMaria has been Everett’s biggest casino booster as the city voted overwhelmingly in favor of Wynn’s plan. He even offered to have Everett acquire the proposed casino site by eminent domain to make sure any questionable characters were bought out before the casino was approved.
See: Everett to Use Eminent Domain to Wynn Casino
But one thing DeMaria did not do is disclose his relationship with DeCicco and Lightbody or their involvement in the casino project, which would have been a serious black mark against Wynn’s effort to obtain a state casino license....
All I can think of is how the Globe crawled up the butts of the medical marijuana folks.
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Where the money is on the next governor:
"Bill would increase PAC disclosures; Mass. plan seeks naming of donors in each expenditure" by Frank Phillips | Globe Staff June 18, 2014
The Massachusetts Legislature is poised to pass a bill that would dramatically increase disclosure requirements for the huge political action committees known as super PACs, a groundbreaking move that could shed light on the deluge of corporate and labor money expected to flood this year’s race for governor.
The bill would also double the amount of money individuals can give to state candidates from $500 to $1,000 a year, the first change to those limits in 20 years.
With strong support from House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo and Senate President Therese Murray, the legislation, which is expected to clear a key joint committee Wednesday, is likely to pass in the next month, a senior legislative aide said.
The disclosure crackdown, aimed at super PACs as well as nonprofit advovacy groups that fund huge numbers of television ads, would go into effect immediately, should the bill be signed by Governor Deval Patrick. Aides say Patrick expressed support for the concept. The new individual donation limits would not take effect until next year.
The legislation would create one of the strictest and most comprehensive state campaign finance laws in the country. It was designed in response to the array of outside groups that have proliferated since the 2010 Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court, which opened the door to unlimited spending by unions and corporations in political races.
“We are powerless to stop the influx of money to our local races, but we can shed light on those shadowy groups and where their dark money is coming from and how it is being spent,’’ said state Representative James M. Murphy, a Weymouth Democrat and co-chair of the Joint Committee on Election Laws.
The bill is expected to clear that committee Wednesday.
Currently, voters have no way of knowing who or what organization is actually funding many of the ads that saturate the airwaves in the months and weeks leading up to an election. Sometimes all viewers see on the advertisement is the innocuous-sounding name of a super PAC.
Under the proposed law, super PACs will have to disclose their funding sources within seven days of each expenditure they make. The timeline would accelerate to every 24 hours during the eight days before a primary and again eight days before the general election.
In addition, PACs that run television advertisements would have to list in the ad each of the top five “persons or entities” who contributed the most money.
The increased disclosure rules would go into effect in the middle of a gubernatorial campaign that is expected to be heavily influenced by super PAC money. One group has already been created by supporters of Democrat Steve Grossman. Big money donors have also created a PAC in support of Republican Charlie Baker. At the same time,some labor unions are backing a super PAC that has already begun attacking Baker.
Pam Wilmot, executive director of Common Cause Massachusetts, who worked with House and Senate leaders to craft the bill, said the legislation puts Massachusetts in the national forefront of states addressing the torrent of mystery campaign money.
“Other states have done similar legislation,’’ Wilmot said, but when you add up all the elements included in a single bill, “it puts Massachusetts in the leadership in terms of exposing secret money in elections.’’
Opponents of increased campaign disclosure efforts say they violate basic First Amendment principles by not allowing donors to remain anonymous.
David N. Bossie, president of Citizens United, the plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court case, said in a statement that the bill would have a negative effect on free speech.
“This legislation will chill political speech and no doubt benefit entrenched incumbents,” he said. “More political speech — not less — is good for our democracy.”
The difference between the proposed legislation and the state law now on the books comes on the funding side.
Under current state regulations, super PACs must report how they have spent the money within seven business days of making expenditures. But they only need to report a list of contributors three times: eight days before the primary election, eight days before the general election, and in a year-end report.
And even when the contributors are disclosed, it does not necessarily reveal who the money is actually coming from.
In the final days of the 2013 Boston mayoral race, a mysterious super PAC called “One Boston Independent Expenditure Political Action Committee” spent $480,000 on a major television advertising campaign backing then-candidate Martin J. Walsh.
But the group did not have to reveal its donors until after the election. And when it did, the new information wasn’t very revealing: Its year-end report filed with the Office of Campaign and Political Finance showed a single donor, a group called simply One New Jersey.
The American Federation of Teachers confirmed in late December that it was the donor behind One Boston. The Globe reported at the time that the union gave about $500,000 to One New Jersey, which then gave it to One Boston, which in turn spent it on ads backing Walsh.
Related: Teacher Trickery Put Walsh Over Top
He said thank you before starting to screw you.
Murphy said the new legislation specifically deals with the issues that arose in the mayor’s race. The bill, he said, instructs the head of the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance to develop regulations aimed at revealing the original donors who fund those super PACs.
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And those holding the winning hands?
"Winners and losers in decision on casino repeal vote" by Shirley Leung | Globe Staff June 25, 2014
The house always wins, but not this State House.
The casino law was one of Beacon Hill’s biggest bets, and it could be a complete bust. Tuesday’s Supreme Judicial Court ruling will allow voters in November to decide whether to repeal the gaming law. Those who felt blindsided by casinos — despite years of public debate and headlines — have another chance to weigh in on whether they want a thousand slot machines and blackjack tables to bloom.
It will be messy, but that’s the Massachusetts way.
The SJC opinion, like any good game of chance, produced plenty of winners and losers. Here’s a look at who has a stack of chips to cash in and who goes home with empty pockets.
Winners
Marty Walsh At first, it seemed as if the rookie mayor didn’t know what he was doing, bluffing his way through the casino process and insisting Boston be considered a host city. It was hard to take him seriously because no one was proposing to build a gambling palace within Boston’s borders.
Walsh, who even threatened to sue the gaming commission, has said his fight was never about money. It was about the neighborhoods — Charlestown and East Boston. If a casino was going to be built in their back yards, he said, the residents should be able to vote on it.
He rolled the dice and won. Talk about beginner’s luck.
Twin River, Foxwoods, and Mohegan Sun That big exhale you just heard blew in from Rhode Island and Connecticut. Massachusetts patrons keep the slot machines and cash registers ringing at Twin River and the two Indian casinos in Connecticut.
If the Massachusetts law is repealed, Twin River could be biggest winner of all because both Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods have also been trying to expand here. Maybe the Rhode Island casino should start bankrolling the repeal effort — complete with free drinks at the polling stations.
Scott Harshbarger Our former attorney general has been the muscle behind Repeal the Casino Deal, the group that appealed to the SJC to put the casino question on the ballot. Harshbarger started worrying about casinos two decades ago when he was AG and kept close tabs on the Indian casinos taking root in Connecticut. He saw his job as being about protecting consumers and figured it was only a matter of time before gambling would be legalized here.
“The strategy of the industry is to get in,” he said in a phone interview. “Once in, it’s hard to move them out.”
Media Expect the casino industry, flush with cash, to spend millions on a campaign to keep gaming on the books. You are forewarned: TV and radio, the Internet, and newspapers will be bombarded with feel-good ads about how casinos create jobs and save lives.
Losers
Martha Coakley The ever-so-cautious Democratic gubernatorial candidate stuck her neck out as attorney general and got her head chopped off by the state’s highest court. The SJC in a 55-page unanimous decision concluded that the “Attorney General erred” and should have certified the anti-casino petition.
No doubt Charlie Baker and Don Berwick will find a way to use this against her in a tight race for governor. Berwick, the health care reformer and staunch gambling opponent, could get a lift out of this.
Could this also be the fateful turning point in an otherwise sleepy gubernatorial race?
Deval Patrick Our governor was out of town when the SJC decision came down. He was in sunny San Diego at the BIO International Convention. As luck would have it, so was my colleague, Priyanka Dayal McCluskey, who tracked him down.
That explains the proliferation of these articles I have yet to get to:
Boom underway as biotech industry kicks off convention
Red Line touted as biotech connector
State offers life science partnership grants
Study faults life sciences initiative
Another failure, unless you count looted tax loot into certain $elect intere$ts a $ucce$$. Only cost you some debt interest payments, too.
“It is what it is,” Patrick said, doing his best impersonation of Bill Belichick. “I respect the people’s voice.”
As for himself, “I’m going to vote for keeping expanded gaming on the books.”
Now, even though he pushed for this law, don’t expect our Teflon Governor to show up in any ads telling us to support it.
Springfield Earlier this month, Lady Luck finally found this struggling Western Massachusetts community. The gaming commission awarded MGM the state’s first resort license to build an $800 million Las Vegas-style casino there.
MGM spent three years and $40 million building its case. Even without a shovel in the ground, Springfield merchants, from restaurants to hotels, benefited from all the activity. If the repeal succeeds, the city loses not only a casino, but hope for a brighter future.
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Related:
Ruling on casino ballot question ‘healthy,’ Coakley says
Not for here campaign.
Coakley, Grossman fail casino test
Should have folded when he was ahead.
Also see:
GOP tries to stifle dissent within state committee
Gubernatorial candidates sound off on mental health
Someone should check theirs, as well as the voting machines in the Bronx and Mississippi. I only mention it over iced tea or mint juleps or whatever you like down there because I was cantoring through my notes. I suppose you can tell my vote on my level of interest in those articles. How $cum keep getting elected to Congre$$ is a mystery.
