Left In Lowell

It seems that the Governor and other pro-casino folks are willing to put more political capital on casinos. What a waste. Let’s move on to more substantive, better initiatives (and I’ll be the first to lambaste DiMasi for standing in the way). And no, Class III gambling via the Bureau of Indian Affairs federal route is not inevitable so-we-might-as-well-get-something-from-them, as proponents argued (I listened to some of the casino debate online yesterday). It’s not inevitable because courts have ruled against this same situation in Texas. In fact, the legislature could easily ban the potential loophole that’s in our laws, and get rid of “charitable casino nights” all together. Maybe we should see that law proposed next.

As to race track slots, they pose the same risk that allowing Class III to be legal with state-sanctioned casinos - that tribes will use the federal process to get land recognized and then build casinos that pay nothing to the state. So while Patrick and others were arguing that Class III casinos are inevitable because of the charity loophole (they aren’t), they ignore the fact that truly legalizing Class III for race tracks or state-allowed casinos will have the same effect. Totally nuts.

But is the casino bill dead? It went into committee to be “studied” (by 108 to 46) which means it’s dead for this year. However, with Pangy looking to “go to the voters” with a nonbinding ballot initiative, and Patrick vowing to keep at it, I don’t think this fight is over.

Local pols, except for Pangy, Rep. Colleen Garry of Dracut (gee, surprise there), and Rep. William Greene of Billerica, voted for, basically, killing the bill.

I do take exception with one paragraph in the Globe’s account, however:

The defeat of Patrick’s legislation has significant consequences in the debate over next year’s state budget, which contains a shortfall estimated at $1.3 billion. The governor had proposed relying on $124 million of casino licensing revenues to help balance the budget.

When on Gotarra’s green earth is it a good idea to rely on revenues, that, even if they materialized, wouldn’t be actually in hand for at least a year or two after the bill passed? That was one of the big problems I had with Patrick sticking that Phantom Revenue in the budget in the first place. Besides being a cynical tactic to screw up the budgeting process to push your major proposal through, there’s no way that that money would have been there right away anyway, creating the same dilemma the Globe says we have because the proposal was defeated! In other words, we’d have had these “significant consequences” regardless of the casino bill’s defeat. Idiots.