"Also on the ballot for the Nov. 4 election are four policy referendums.
Voters are evenly divided, at 42 percent, on whether to eliminate the provision in a new state law linking the gas tax to cost of living.
I'm a YES on that one. No ever-increasing gas taxes tied to inflation when this government gets enough money, then misuses what it does get.
editorial | endorsement No on Question 1: Keep gas tax tied to inflation
It's a general rule of thumb to oppose the Globe.
A question on whether to expand the state “bottle bill,” by requiring deposits on nonalcoholic, noncarbonated beverages fares far worse, with just 29 percent supporting the measure, and 63 percent opposed.
I'm a NO. Adding another five cents to certain drink items when we have curbside recycling makes no sense.
editorial | endorsement Yes on Question 2: Expand the bottle bill
Voters also appear determined to keep in motion the state’s move toward casino gambling, with 53 percent opposed to a measure to outlaw casinos, slot machines, and simulcast horserace betting. Thirty-nine percent support repeal.
I'm voting YES to repeal even though it looks like the fix is in.
editorial | endorsement Yes on Question 3: Pull the plug on flawed casino law
We agree!
Almost the same division marks voter reaction to a question on paid sick time. Fifty-three percent support a measure to grant employees earned sick time under certain conditions, while 35 percent oppose it.
I'm voting NO. I think you have all the sick days you need. Shouldn't be calling in sick to work anyway.
editorial | endorsement Yes on Question 4: Earned sick time for all
That's 3 out of 4.
--more--"
The question that concerns the Globe most:
Revere sues state gambling panel over rejection
Groups rally for ballot questions on casino repeal, sick time
The liberal case for casinos
Let ‘cheaters’ prosper
Charlestown’s stake in Wynn game
Wynn reports 3Q drop in Macau, rise in Las Vegas
Well-funded pro-casino ads tug at the heartstrings
Speaking of that region:
"Casino servers settle lawsuit over skimpy uniforms" Associated Press October 30, 2014
ATLANTIC CITY — Forty women employed at an Atlantic City casino have resolved their discrimination lawsuit over skimpy uniforms.
The lawsuit was filed in 2011 after Resorts Casino Hotel adopted a Roaring Twenties theme in response to the popularity of the HBO television series ‘‘Boardwalk Empire.’’
The uniforms were short black dresses with deep open backs. Older servers said they were told they had to audition for their jobs in the new costumes. The auditions, they said, consisted of their being photographed in awkward poses that emphasized body fat, after which a panel put together by an outside modeling agency recommended who should stay and who should go based on the photographs.
The workers’ lawyer, Kevin Costello, said the case was resolved but that he couldn’t comment on the terms.
--more--"
"Casino backers spending heavily on TV ads" by Mark Arsenault | Globe Staff October 23, 2014
Pro-casino television ads by an industry-backed political group have run nearly 3,000 times on local broadcast stations, while underfunded gambling opponents have so far been unable to run even one television ad defending casino repeal, Question 3.
The one-sided ad war appears to correlate with a rise in public sentiment against repeal of the state casino law, according to Globe polls, and the casinos are not letting up: Three gambling companies with a stake in Massachusetts injected $4.5 million more into the campaign this month.
The casino-backed Coalition to Protect Mass Jobs has spent $6.2 million this year defending the casino law, about 15 times what opponents spent, according to campaign finance reports updated Monday.
Fifty-three percent of likely voters oppose casino repeal, according to a new Globe poll, while 39 percent favor repeal. The poll of 400 likely voters was conducted Oct. 19-21. The margin of error is 4.9 percent.
The fix is in, and no way are TPTB in this state going to allow repeal of the golden goose.
“They have opened that race up in the last couple weeks. It shows the effect that resources can have in persuading people on a particular issue, especially a complicated ballot question,” said Globe pollster John Della Volpe, chief executive of SocialSphere Inc., referring to the casino companies.
The 14-point spread is up from the roughly 9 or 10 point advantage casino supporters enjoyed in a number of Globe polls in the summer.
The difference in total spending between the two sides is even greater in the campaign over Question 2, a proposed expansion of the bottle bill. A political group backed by beverage companies and retailers has run 1,340 “no on 2” television ads this campaign season, through Tuesday, at an estimated cost of more than $2.5 million, according to an analysis done for the Globe by Kantar Media. The No on Question 2 group has spent $8.2 million this year against bottle bill expansion; supporters have spent about $761,000 in 2014.
You can also tell by all the direct mailings.
Public sentiment turned hard against the expanded bottle bill after the ads began to run this fall. Sixty-three percent of likely voters oppose expanding the bottle bill, according to the new Globe poll. Just 29 percent said they would support Question 2, which would extend the state’s nickel deposit to bottled water, sports drinks, and other non-carbonated beverages.
We don't need another nickel tax.
The American Beverage Association helped keep the anti-bottle-bill campaign in the black with a $693,000 contribution in the most recent campaign filing period, covering Oct. 2 to Oct. 15, according to reports filed with the state. Demoulas Super Markets, Inc. contributed $125,000.
Related: Dysfunctional Demoulas
Market Basket cited as a model for other companies
Market Basket grows stores and jobs, starting Sunday in Revere
(Note to self: Check it for Athol. Not too far to drive for work)
Grocers piling in to Fenway amid new urban competition
Market Basket wasn't mentioned.
In the campaign against Question 3, MGM Resorts, which has been promised the Western Massachusetts resort license for a Springfield resort casino, contributed $2.5 million to the Coalition to Protect Mass Jobs in the last campaign filing period. Penn National Gaming, which is building the state’s sole slot parlor in Plainville, added $1 million. Wynn Resorts, which in September won the Greater Boston license for a project in Everett, contributed $1 million.
The pro-casino coalition has produced five television ads, including one in Spanish. The ads focus primarily on creating jobs, an issue that has tested well in focus groups, according to people familiar with the focus studies.
The coalition released one ad about recapturing money Massachusetts residents currently spend at out-of-state casinos, an arguments that dates back to the legislative debate leading up to the passage of the 2011 state casino law. The coalition also released one ad on plans by Wynn Resorts to clean up pollution at the company’s proposed casino site, another issue that tested well with focus groups.
The coalition’s broadcast ads had run 2,977 times through Tuesday in the Boston and Springfield markets since the first ad appeared Sept. 23, Kantar Media said. The estimated cost of the ad campaign is $3.5 million.
Click.
Casino opponents raised $125,000 in the most recent reporting period, most of it coming from a $100,000 contribution from Alan Lewis, chief executive of Grand Circle Travel. Lewis did not return a message left with his office.
Opponents note that they were wildly outspent in a number of local casino referendum in 2013, yet managed to defeat casino proposals in East Boston, West Springfield, Palmer, and Milford.
“It’s no news that the big bosses of the corrupt casino culture are writing checks to prop up their bad investment,” said David Guarino, a spokesman for the Repeal the Casino Deal campaign. “We’re confident voters will see through the haze of glossy ads and vote yes to stop this mess.”
I think we have; it's the voting machines and scanners we need to worry about.
He would not directly address on Tuesday whether the repeal group will buy television time. “We certainly plan to communicate our core message about the casino mess right through Election Day in any forum we can — house-to-house, door-to-door, and in the media,” Guarino said by e-mail.
Boston University journalism professor Fred Bayles, who studies referendums, said the success of casino opponents in municipal referendum may not extend to a statewide campaign, because most voters don’t live near the three casino sites. “For many people, if it isn’t in their backyard they don’t care,” Bayles said.
Yes, we do.
Justine Griffin, a spokeswoman for the coalition, said the pro-casino campaign is more extensive than just television advertising, and includes phone banks, door-to-door canvassing, and appearances at debates. “We believe the more people learn, the more support is likely to grow, and we plan to continue our efforts over the next two weeks,” she said.
Opponents of Question 1, which seeks to undo a law linking the state gas tax to inflation, ran their first television ad Monday, in the Springfield market, according to Kantar Media.
There have been no broadcast television ads yet on Question 4, according to Kantar. The measure would entitle workers to earn and use sick time under certain conditions.
--more--"
Also see: Casino backers, opponents make their cases, door by door
Sick leave, casino questions resonate with faith groups
Proposal for horse racing in Brockton wins support from mayor
Former rescuer of Suffolk Downs is back
They were just crying wolf?
At least the lottery will be fine:
"Casinos no death knell for lotteries; Other states’ figures at odds with forecast for Mass." by Mark Arsenault | Globe Staff October 20, 2014
Casino opponents are forecasting a doomsday for the Massachusetts State Lottery if casinos are allowed to open in the state, but their predictions are not supported by the results in other large states that have introduced casinos into mature lottery markets, according to specialists and a Globe analysis.
Citing a study written by a Massachusetts lawmaker in 2008, casino opponents issued a news release Oct. 8 predicting that lottery revenue would plummet by more than 20 percent, leading to massive cuts in state payments to cities and towns.
But comparable states where casino gambling has been legalized — such as Ohio and Pennsylvania — have seen only modest effects on lotteries, with flat sales or small drops that tend to reverse within a few years.
The successful Pennsylvania state lottery, for instance.
************
That first casino was followed by an explosion of eight more gambling parlors opening during the next three years, which helped Pennsylvania’s casino market become the second richest in the United States, behind only Nevada.
Traditional lottery sales in Pennsylvania held flat for five straight years through the state’s casino eruption, before lottery sales started growing again in 2011, according to the Pennsylvania Lottery.
Sales reached a record $3.8 billion in the most recent fiscal year, [and] lottery revenue “continued to grow as if nothing happened” after casinos opened.
In states that do experience a decline, the effect has generally been small and begins to reverse within three years, he said....
Yeah, isn't it great that state government depends so much on a regressive tax to fund services?
--more--"
Also see: Incentive program proposed to prevent gambling overspending
Pfffft!
Maybe this will help you wash this post down:
"Expanded bottle bill would turn more trash into more cash" by David Abel | Globe Staff November 01, 2014
Before dawn most mornings, Jose Lopez and his father slip on rubber gloves and steer their old pickup through Allston and Brighton searching for cans and bottles littering streets, parks, and alleys, as well as those destined for landfills in dumpsters and trash cans.
They don’t work for the city, but the men do serve the public, and they make a living from their long days scouring Boston, enough to afford a cramped, three-bedroom apartment in Allston and necessities for their family of seven.
If a ballot question that would expand the state’s bottle deposit law passes next week, it would allow them to redeem bottles from water, sports drinks, and other non-carbonated beverages that they now ignore. That would provide a major financial boost to their family and help clean up their neighborhood, they said.
“We could more than double our income,” said Lopez, 23, while delivering a haul recently to the Allston Redemption Center, where he and his dad redeem as much as $50 a day. “There are so many water bottles that we have to leave behind.”
Isn't that a rather sad comment on the state?
The bottle bill that lawmakers passed in 1982 was designed to reduce the mounds of glass and plastic refuse polluting the state. But the law has served another, unintended purpose, one that even its supporters are loath to mention.
The nickels from the estimated 35 billion bottles and cans redeemed since the law took effect have provided a significant source of income for retirees, the unemployed, and other low-income residents, helping many like the Lopezes make ends meet.
Yeah, it's a good thing that fellow citizens are picking through the trash trying to survive while wealth inequality in the state keeps on growing.
No one in Massachusetts has tracked how much the poor have earned from recycling, but a study in California found that nearly 60 percent of the income from redeemed bottles and cans in the Santa Barbara metropolitan area went to households that earned less than $25,000.
I'm starting to choke on this agenda-pushing garbage from the elite paper of wealth.
The study, published three years ago in the journal American Economic Review, also found that the bottom 1 percent of earners in the area – those making $10,000 or less – received about 20 percent of the overall value of all the cans and bottles redeemed.
“This is a big unintended benefit of bottle laws,” said Bevin Ashenmiller, the author of the study and an associate economics professor at Occidental College in Los Angeles. “If you increase the pool of bottles that can be collected, it would mean that much more money for the poor and a lot less litter. That’s a win-win.”
That's how we the poor are taken care of, huh?
Opponents of bottle laws argue that the deposits serve as a regressive tax on those who don’t have the time or means to redeem their bottles, especially the poor.
Oh, never mind those ever-increasing taxes here in Taxachu$etts.
Those opposing Question 2 on the ballot, which would increase the number of containers eligible for redemption by more than a billion, called expanding the state’s bottle law “harmful to low-income residents.”
“Residents on limited incomes would be forced to pay more for bottled water and juice, among other groceries,” said Nicole Giambusso, a spokeswoman for the No on Question 2 campaign. “It doesn’t make sense to ask residents who can afford it the least to pay more at the checkout counter.”
It does when you want to send the tax loot out to well-connected concerns.
But supporters of the ballot initiative say the opponents are trying to scare voters.
Then they can get in line.
The proponents cite a 2011 study of bottle laws in New England by the state Department of Environmental Protection that found beverages frequently cost more in New Hampshire, which lacks a bottle law.
A self-serving state study?
The supporters also note that the proposed law would increase the handling fees for grocery stores and other retailers by 55 percent — from 2.25 cents to 3.5 cents a bottle — which they say should be more than enough to cover any additional costs.
“Study after study shows that prices don’t rise as a result of the container deposit law,” said Janet Domenitz, executive director of the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group, which is helping lead the Yes on Question 2 campaign.
Then what is with the extra 5 cents?
She urged voters not to be swayed by their opponents. “For out-of-state beverage companies that have spent almost $9 million on deceitful ads to pretend they’re concerned about poor people is a bad Halloween scare,” she said. “The bottle bill benefits everyone.”
Heck, we have campaigns based upon such rhetoric.
At Four Corners Recycle Corp. in Dorchester this week, Genia Moorehead, 34, was returning a bundle of soda cans from a birthday party for cash that will help her pay for diapers and milk for her two young children.
It was already your money. You paid it when you bought the thing.
Isn't that an incredible viewpoint? Thankful that the government made her pay more so she could then take time out and go get it back.
Moorehead, an unemployed mother, worried that beverage companies and supermarkets will jack up their prices if the ballot initiative passes.
“We’re struggling already,” she said. “That wouldn’t be fair.”
Hey, this is Massachusetts. You want fair, go somewhere else.
An Le, who has run the redemption center for 24 years, said expanding the bottle law would be a boon to his business and most of his customers. He said he would be able to hire more help and it would mean less recyclable materials going to landfills, saving the city money while keeping the streets cleaner.
“It would increase our volume by 20 percent,” he said.
As she fed bottles into a machine at Fuentes Market in Roxbury, Brenda Lucas, 56, listed what she buys with money from collecting bottles: soap, toilet paper, dishwasher liquid, prescription drugs, and transportation to medical appointments.
She has been redeeming bottles since the law was enacted and said she has seen it help friends who can’t find work, including the homeless and those with criminal records.
“I can’t understand why the law doesn’t include all bottles,” she said.
I can. It was originally intended to reduce soda consumption.
The Lopezes, who often rummage through trash for as long as 10 hours a day, say it’s frustrating that most bottles they find aren’t redeemable.
The AmeriKan dream, and if you are against increased fees on drinks you are against poor people!
They often leave behind hundreds of sports drinks, juices, and bottles of water, which alone have increased in national sales by more than 400 percent between 2000 and 2010, according to the Container Recycling Institute, a Washington-based group that monitors the recycling of bottles.
“It’s such a waste,” Lopez said.
Not when you have curbside recycling.
--more--"
That's not the first time I've tasted that argument.
Related:
"Massachusetts voters apparently do not want to pay a 5-cent deposit on a greater variety of bottles. Question 2, which would expand the state’s bottle bill to cover bottled water, sports drinks, and other beverages, appears headed for a landslide loss. Sixty-six percent of voters say they plan to vote no on Question 2, while 28 percent say they support broadening the bottle bill."
Not much of a question:
"Mass. Republicans poised to gain legislative seats" by Frank Phillips | Globe Staff November 02, 2014
Quietly operating in the shadows of an intense race for governor, Massachusetts Republicans are on the verge of making significant gains in the state Legislature that could more than double their four-member Senate caucus and add well over a half-dozen House seats.
Much of the effort has been generated by three well-financed conservative groups, who, working outside of the Republican establishment, are using scorched-earth campaign tactics that are not only rattling Democrats but also, if successful, could threaten the current GOP leadership in the Legislature.
Tea Party comes to Massachusetts!
:-)
***********************
Whether significant gains — would mark a turning point for the state GOP is uncertain....
The three groups, which some see as a counter to the slew of pro-Democratic union groups that go door-to-door and send direct mail in legislative districts, are providing critical support to the low-key, low-financed legislative campaign work of the state Republican Party, which is focusing most of its resources on the statewide races.
Their appearance in the legislative races has caught the Democrats flatfooted, sending them scrambling to counter the political assaults that began to appear in the wake of the September primary.
The efforts, however controversial, are giving Republicans a glimmer of hope of returning to relevancy at the State House. Republican lawmakers, while still not having enough votes in either branch to sustain a gubernatorial veto, would, for the first time in more than two decades, be able to forge coalitions and play significant roles on Beacon Hill, particularly if Republican Charlie Baker wins the gubernatorial election.
The party, which for nearly a hundred years dominated the Massachusetts Legislature, began a steady decline into political impotence in the 1960s. By 1974, the Democrats had won all the major state offices and expanded majorities in both the House and Senate.
The GOP claimed the governor’s office for 16 years, but the party’s ranks in the House and Senate sank to embarrassingly low numbers.
One bright, but brief, GOP resurgence came in the wake of the fiscal and political chaos of 1989 and 1990. Republican numbers in the Senate surged from 8 to 16 seats, giving the newly elected GOP governor, William F. Weld, enough votes to sustain his vetoes of Democratic initiatives, forcing legislative leaders to negotiate. Those gains were washed away in the 1992 elections, when they were reduced to a six-member caucus.
The Republicans did play a key role in the 1996 election of Democrat Thomas Finneran of Dorchester as House speaker. In a stunning move that outfoxed his Democratic opponent, Finneran cut a secret deal with the small GOP caucus, which agreed to throw their votes to him. It was enough to give him a majority to begin an eight-year reign as speaker. In exchange, he accommodated them on staffing issues and committee assignments.
In this year’s Senate races, the GOP is heavily favored to pick up two seats now held by Democrats — Senate President Therese Murray, who is retiring, and Richard T. Moore of Uxbridge — and are ahead or highly competitive in four others. If Baker were to win with a margin of 5 percentage points or more, GOP analysts are convinced that Republicans could gain control of 10 Senate districts in Tuesday’s election.
In House races, Democrats admit they could lose up to a dozen seats. Democrats currently hold 128 seats out of 160 in the House.
The potentially strong showings in the legislative races is also stirring some trepidation among the longstanding moderate-leaning Republican leadership in the House and Senate.
House Minority Leader Bradley Jones of Reading, under fire from Tea Party insurgents, barely held onto his position after the 2012 election. Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr of Gloucester faces a tough task if his caucus suddenly doubles. Both have smooth working relationships with the Democratic leadership.
A string of Republican victories would also empower the efforts by Green of the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance and others to take control of the state GOP from the so-called moderate establishment that has been running the party for years....
That looks good to me!
--more--"
I didn't see Finkelstein's name in there, did you?
Related: Young Republican wading in a sea of Brookline blue
NEXT DAY UPDATES:
Binding referendums would raise minimum wage in four states
Parsing the referendum questions
Voter ‘report cards’ draw backlash
Some candidates punning hard for an edge
