There won’t be casinos in Massachusetts this year and a lot of people are hopping mad. It’s understandable, given that state leaders had all the time in the world to get enabling legislation together, only to see it thwarted at the last minute. If Bay State residents want to blame somebody, they ought to exempt legislators, though. The upper and lower houses were everything you’d want from a deliberative body: civil, flexible and willing to meet each other halfway.
No, the villain of the piece (if that’s not too strong a term) is Gov. Deval Patrick (D), who let the better become the enemy of the good. He only wanted to three resort casinos and wouldn’t budge. Even designating two generic racinos for slots instead of juicing in four specific ones wasn’t enough of a compromise. It was his way or the highway, and job creation and economic stimulus be damned. The narrow point of principle he was arguing is wound up being a classic case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
It’s not all bad. At least not if you’re among the Mashpee Wampanoags. If the Interior Dept. takes land into trust for the tribe, the Mashpee can leapfrog the private sector into Class II gambling. To get Class III, of course, requires tribal-state accord and the Mashpee will want something good — like exclusivity — before sharing casino revenue with the state. For the moment, though. the tribe has a leg up on everyone else.
Mohegan Sun continues to aggregate land in Palmer. It’s also witnessing a change in the perception of tribal casinos. As a local business lobbyist put it, “This is huge. It is monumental. Here is the head of a sovereign tribal nation coming to meet little old Palmer.” In terms of the public’s attitude toward tribal gaming, it’s fair to see we’ve come a long way, baby.
This is pretty impressive claptrack that bears little resemblance to fact or reality.
Truth is the Mashpee Wampanoags under present circumstances will get nothing in trust because of those minor pesky Supreme Court decisions – Carcieri v Salazar and Hawaii. And then there’s that recent Oneida decision that may be re-affirmed by SCOTUS.
From an outsider’s perspective perhaps you might label the process as ‘civil’ but having attended those hearings, I would label the ‘genuflecting before special interests.’
The IG determined that granting slots licenses to race tracks constituted a ‘no bid’ contract and as such, was unconstitutional, but don’t allow that to worry your little head! The Governor had little choice other than to return the legislation with an ‘amendment.’
Economic stimulus? I would be forced to label that as ‘donkey dust’ from a vested interest. The revenues are simply not there. The job creation is wildly overstated.
Massachusetts, like it or not, has the country’s most successful lottery.
Lottery revenues exceed what Nevada’s 266 casinos provide to the state of Nevada.
There’s only so much discretionary income you can suck out of the local economy.
You got it right. deval is the villian.
However, all the casinos would have been smoke free and as the
Boston Herald estimated, the state would have lost up to $100
million in lost revenue because of it.
No matter smoking be dammed in MA even though new casinos
could have easily built seperate casinos for smokers.
We have an ultra liberal legislature, but the independents did help
Scott Brown get in.
Hopefully the Indians wuill come in with both smoking and non smoking casinos.