Massachusetts has proven time and again the importance of 'grassroots - you and me!
A few dollars, some information to friends, family and acquaintances.
Please join. Please support. Let's do this to protect ALL Massachusetts communities!
My
friends – I received this note last evening from a supporter of, and donor to,
the REPEAL effort:
“Hey Scott – I read the Vennochi piece in the Sunday
Globe (See Below), and I know Tom Bean. I’m glad he is fighting on your behalf
– top-notch lawyer.
Let me know what I can do to further
spread the word about the cause.”
To
which I replied:
“Thank you. I agree! Joan’s piece is great and I’m
glad to share the briefs
with you any time, but, now more than ever, we need to raise money – in whatever
increments anyone can afford or is willing to contribute, even if merely
symbolic.”
Frankly, my friends, if everyone who we
know who is opposed or neutral, or simply believes there ought to be more
information, debate and a vote, contributed a small amount, we could fund
our valiant, lean, mean legal and media effort, and a core campaign manager to
staff our amazing grass roots citizen leaders all over the state.
A
request to your networks, enclosing the link, also serves to raise awareness and
remind folks this is not a done deal! In fact, we are winning!!
Thanks, my friend
Scott Harshbarger
On
casinos, SJC holds trump card
| GLOBE
COLUMNIST APRIL 20, 2014
LANE TURNER/GLOBE STAFF/FILE 2013
Guy Romano (left) and Nancy Wojick
(center) held signs opposing a casino in Milford.
THE
SUPREME Judicial Court is the next and last stand in the battle to keep casinos
out of Massachusetts.
If you have any doubts, listen to former
mayor Thomas M. Menino, talking last week on
WBZ-TV’s “Keller at Large.” Asked by host Jon Keller if voters will
still support casinos in Massachusetts if the SJC allows a ballot measure on the
question to go forward in November, Menino said, “I really believe that if it
goes on the ballot, it’ll lose.”
“If it goes on the ballot” is entirely up
to the SJC, which is scheduled to hear arguments on that question in early May.
After a year of controversy and confusion over the license-granting process, recent polls show
slippage in support.
If
Menino — once the key political force behind a casino in East Boston and always
an astute reader of public opinion — now believes the tide has turned enough to
trigger repeal, the industry must be nervous. So nervous that it is determined
to keep the question off the ballot.
Last
August, the group that wants to kill casinos filed a petition with Attorney
General Martha Coakley. It proposed a law that would essentially overturn the
expanded gambling law passed by the Massachusetts Legislature in 2011. In
September, Coakley — the current front-runner in the Democratic race to be
governor — blocked the petition. In a ruling that essentially put the AG on the
side of gaming, she argued that the millions that casino operators put on the
table to take part in the state’ s licensing process amounts to an “implied
contract.” Therefore, if the ballot question wins and the law is repealed, the
outcome amounts to an unfair and unconstitutional taking of property.
Put
aside the irony of trying to protect from risk the investments of an industry
that makes its fortune off other people’s risks.
The “No Casino” group, which appealed
Coakley’s ruling, contends the weight of the law falls on the side of the people
and their right to vote. According
to the brief they filed with the SJC, Coakley’s argument of an
“implied contract” runs up against a US Supreme Court decision — Stone v.
Mississippi. The case, which goes back to 1879, eerily echoes the
circumstances at issue in Massachusetts today.
In
Stone, the Mississippi legislature granted a 25-year charter to a lottery
company in exchange for an initial $5,000 fee, an annual $1,000 tax, and a
percentage of receipts from the sale of tickets. A year later, voters adopted a
new state Constitution which outlawed lotteries. The holder of the lottery
charter argued that it had contracted with the state to operate a lottery and
that the new Mississippi Constitution violated it and, with it, the contract
clause of the US Constitution.
But the
Supreme Court ruled that no contract existed. The fundamental principle, which
the SJC has adopted, is that the state cannot bargain away, even by express
grant, the right to exercise its police powers to protect the public welfare,
said Thomas O. Bean, one of the lead lawyers for the “No Casino”
plaintiffs.
In Massachusetts, there is more recent
precedent. The SJC ruled in a 2008
case that owners of a dog-racing track had “no compensable property”
in their racing license after voters approved a ballot question banning dog
racing.
The
ballot initiative process followed by “No Casino” advocates was added to the
state Constitution almost 100 years ago. It allows citizens to adopt laws they
want enacted, or repeal those with which they disagree. After gathering nearly
70,000 signatures, casino repeal backers are hoping that Menino’s prediction
holds true. But first, they have to get the question before the
voters.
But there are huge business interests at
stake, and the casino industry is rallying to protect them. MGM Resorts, for
example,has asked the state
gambling commission to delay the formal award of its license until after the SJC
makes a ruling. The license award would trigger some $200 million in
obligations to Massachusetts. MGM doesn’t want to pay that sum — and still risk
losing the right to build a casino if the ballot measure goes forward and is
approved by voters.
This is
an industry that understands risk better than any other. To improve its odds of
cashing in, it must stop the people from cashing out. How lucky that, on the
next legal battlefield — before the SJC — gaming has the state’s AG on its
side.
Joan
Vennochi can be reached at vennochi@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @Joan_Vennochi.
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