Well, that was fast, wasn’t it?
Last week, the Massachusetts House of Representatives (not typically known for its speediness) passed a bill to expand gambling in the state just a few days after it was filed by Speaker Robert DeLeo. It now heads to the Senate.
If you’re kicking yourself for missing your chance to let House lawmakers know your thoughts about the bill, well, you can let yourself off the hook. It turns out DeLeo wasn’t especially interested in your opinion anyway; indeed, he decided not to even hold a public hearing on the bill. (House Republicans tried to force a hearing but were defeated.) Democratic notions like legislators being responsive to the people who give them their jobs and pay their salaries are nice. But sometimes they just get in the way of getting done the things that powerful pols, and their campaign contributors, want done.
If you were in favor of the bill, fear not. Your perspective was more than sufficiently voiced, courtesy of casino lobbyists who’ve been blanketing the Statehouse for years now, making their pitch and dropping serious dough. According to the Associated Press, “firms, unions and interest groups hoping to influence the gambling debate” spent $2 million in 2009, up from $800,000 in 2006. Totals from 2010 promise to be even more impressive.
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Perhaps it’s just as well you didn’t waste half a tank of gas driving into the Statehouse to go through the motions of a public hearing. Since the departure of former House Speaker Sal DiMasi—who’d managed to hold off a casino bill filed by Gov. Deval Patrick in 2008, but was not able to hold off a federal corruption indictment—the writing’s been on the wall.
With the ascension of the pro-casino DeLeo, many in the state accepted gambling expansion as inevitable and began looking for ways to mitigate the damage. Performing arts venues have called for limits on the size of casino theaters so they’ll pose less of a competitive threat to local venues. Misguided Western Mass. lawmakers called (unsuccessfully) for an amendment requiring that at least one casino be placed in this part of the state, lest we miss out on the promised benefits.
Other amendments that failed to pass: one that would have capped the amount a gambler could lose in a single day at $500; another that called for intervention if someone had been gambling for more than 12 consecutive hours; one that would have forbidden the use of “luck ambassadors” who circulate the floor urging “guests” to keep gambling. Legislators also rejected an amendment that would have prohibited casinos from pumping synthetic human pheromones into the air, a tactic that’s believed to relax people, making them more likely to linger at the tables and slots.
Are you starting to feel like this isn’t exactly a fair fight?
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A disappointing number of House members who once opposed casinos this time were on board. In the Valley, that list included Reps. Ellen Story, Stephen Kulik, John Scibak and Peter Kocot.
Former opponents who supported DeLeo’s bill cited the state’s struggling economy; indeed, backers smartly promoted the proposal as a “jobs bill,”including the labor unions that jumped on board at the promise of work for the building trades. (How casinos square with “new labor’s” emphasis on social justice and sustainable development is a little hazy.) Opponents contend the promised economic benefits are greatly exaggerated and fail to take into account the economic and social costs casinos bring.
The lure of new jobs aside, it’s hard to swallow DeLeo’s claim that there was no “arm-twisting” involved in the process: “We debate, and there’s give-and-take,’ he told the Boston Globe.
That doesn’t quite match up with Story’s explanation, offered last week in the Daily Hampshire Gazette, of why she voted for the bill: it was going to pass anyway, she said, meaning a vote against would “be symbolic, but meaningless.”
It would also, apparently, land her in the legislative Siberia reserved for lawmakers who buck House leadership. After 18 years in the House, Story said, “it was only in the past year and a half that I’ve been invited to be in the inner circle of advisers to the speaker.” A vote against casinos, she added, would “sacrific[e] my place at the table to have influence on the direction the House moves in.”
A frank explanation, perhaps. But does that sound like democracy to you?
