Massachusetts: Rushing Off A Cliff

Pennsylvania crammed through legislation at midnight on the 4th of July
and failed to include many things, as the recent Grand Jury report indicates.
They failed to address the matter of children left in vehicles, a known
problem.

(Found here: Restructure gambling law, board)

The "Compromise Bill," crafted behind closed doors, passed by Beacon Hill
with no debate, contained 17 pages of ERRATA - mistakes, some of which
altered the meaning or contradicted intent.

Attorney General Martha Coakley recently -

...warned lawmakers that the cost of making it happen may be larger than anticipated. New regulations must be drawn up and new agencies created to enforce the regulation, she said.

In other words, Beacon Hill doesn't even know the COSTS.

The information is available for all to see.

If anyone has former Attorney General Scott Harshbarger recent report, can we post
and circulate it?




From: State House News Service
Subject: DeLEO EYEING JULY PASSAGE OF EXPANDED GAMBLING LEGISLATION



DeLEO EYEING JULY PASSAGE OF EXPANDED GAMBLING LEGISLATION

By Kyle Cheney
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE

STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, JUNE 6, 2011…..House Speaker Robert DeLeo told reporters Monday that he hopes a bill to bring expanded gambling to Massachusetts will pass in July.

"That is my desire," he said after emerging from a meeting in the governor's office with Gov. Deval Patrick and Senate President Therese Murray. "I think that's all of our desires, but the proof will be once we get to talk about the details whether that's going to happen or not."

Since talks to bring expanded gambling to Massachusetts collapsed last July, DeLeo, Murray and Patrick have indicated they've had few, if any, substantive conversations about reigniting the issue. Patrick has said it's on the backburner of his agenda, and he has expressed hope that any new push would come after he had agreed on a framework with legislative leaders to avoid a protracted, all-consuming debate.

In recent weeks, as a legislative committee mulls gambling bills, the leaders have indicated that they were eyeing the period following the passage of a fiscal 2012 state budget to reconsider gambling.

Lawmakers are currently negotiating a compromise on a fiscal 2012 budget plan, with a conference committee set to begin talks Wednesday and lawmakers aiming to get a bill to Patrick later this month.

Gambling bills passed both branches handily last session. Proponents touted an expected influx of jobs and new government revenues from gambling while critics predicted industry expansion would pull economic activity from other sectors and lead to a flood of social problems tied to problem gambling.

Earlier Monday, former Attorney General Scott Harshbarger, a critic of expanded gambling, issued a 19-page report suggesting that "ardent supporters of this casino 'gold rush' are content to rush off the cliff without first considering and developing critically important regulatory oversight mechanisms."

In recommendations accompanying the report, Harshbarger urged policymakers to define "the policy objectives of expanded gambling," to solicit a "truly independent study of the impacts and costs of expanding gambling," and to establish "an independent regulatory body to oversee the administration of the gambling industry."

Last session, lawmakers forged a compromise proposal to bring three resort-style casinos and two racetrack gambling facilities to Massachusetts, but the deal fell apart when Gov. Deval Patrick sent it back with an amendment, striking the proposed slot parlors after the Legislature's formal session expired.

The tension that mounted over the bill climaxed on July 31 last year, when DeLeo held a press conference backed by dozens of House members pressing Patrick to sign the compromise bill. But Patrick, who had offered to support one competitively bid racino, refused to sign the bill, saying the proposal amounted to a no-bid contract for wealthy track owners.

If you don't want to be treated like a clown........

When the Slap Dash House version of the Industry Crafted legislation was released on a Friday, with amendments due on Monday, a wasted weekend spent wading through the flawed disaster. April Fool's!

The opponents attempted to improve the disaster with sensible legislation, including a Self Exclusion Amendment that barely passed.

My Representative, Tom Calter, voted against the amendment and has failed to offer an explanation in spite of two queries for his reasoning. Not to worry! He's toast in November!

But then Representative Steve Canessa (a Middleboro Rep. as well) also voted against it and also ignored my inquiry.

Middleboro is BLESSED with 3 State Reps., the other? The Invisible William Straus who hasn't located Middleboro on the map. He got lost once and we saw him. At least I think it was him.

Then came the Slap Dash Senate version, differing in many respects, crafted, we are told by Senate President's lackey, Senator Rosenberg, the elf pictured here.

Since that version was also released....was it Father's Day weekend? Amendments also required to be submitted by Monday, there went that weekend!

NO comparison was ever done as far as I know because I requested it from several sources.

When the most recent Slap Dash version was released from the Conference Committee on Friday, did anyone seriously expect a reasonable product?

And these were the House Speaker's Pearls of Wisdom --

“Been disrespected once too many” times by Patrick, the chair said.

“Going to fight back,” the chair said DeLeo told members.

After reading legislation, amendments, watching and reading testimony, new reading glasses were required, and honestly? How could you expect something reasonable and responsible to be produced by this crowd?

ERRATA CORRECTED MISTAKES IN GAMBLING BILL

On Monday morning, two days after the gambling bill passed the House and Senate, the Legislature's website featured an error-riddled draft of the proposal, with no corrected version.

The six lawmakers who negotiated the compromise gambling bill signed off Sunday on 17 pages worth of changes to the bill, including some that erase sections of the bill and another that revises the formula used to distribute the states' gambling proceeds. The corrections, obtained by the News Service, also strike a section that requires gambling license applications to be public records.

As of Monday morning, the Legislature's website included the lengthy lists of corrections, known as "errata," but lawmakers were denied the chance at an explanation before the bills passed, and the effects of the changes remain unclear.

A pair of gambling critics sought an explanation during Saturday's race to pass the bills but were ignored, as Senate President Murray steamrolled the bills through and opted to ignore gambling opponents who raised questions about certain procedural motions. Murray, who has frequently pointed to the Senate's eight days of debate on its original gambling proposal in June, clamped down on Saturday, in the rush to get the bills to Patrick's desk by midnight, the end of formal business for the year.

Sen. Stanley Rosenberg (D-Amherst), Murray's point-man on gambling, told the News Service Monday that gambling application will still be public under language in a separate part of the bill. He also said sections that were struck pertaining to Native American tribes were duplicates of sections included elsewhere.

Although the errata struck a public health fund, Rosenberg said the bill maintains the same amount of public-health-related funding.

On the final night, Murray rammed through orders restricting debate on the final gambling bills to two 30-minute periods. When the bills came up to be sent to the governor, she restricted debate to two 10-minute periods. During those periods, Murray recognized only gambling supporters for the bulk of that time, permitting a gambling opponent to speak at the end of one of the 10-minute periods. As late as Saturday evening, some members, including Sen. Susan Tucker (D-Andover), the Senate's most vocal gambling opponent, were unaware that the conferees had filed any corrections.

Other members said they had difficulty accessing the corrections even after they were aware of their existence. Kathleen Conley Norbut, head of United to Stop Slots Massachusetts, told the News Service she has yet to see a corrected version of the gambling bills.

"Problem being neither did legislators who already voted on the bill before theses errors were identified. They did not have an opportunity to do their job and honor the people's business," she said in an email. "The people have no reason to believe that there aren't other errors in this catastrophic special interest rush-job."


After hearing about this, many voters - faithful voters some whom worked hard to get some of these candidates elected are questioning the process, questioning the seriousness with which these people hold their office and represent them.

They didn't even know what they were voting on?

We can do better!

And so, if you don't want to be treated like a clown, you can't behave like one.

So much for 'Getting it right'!