Senate leaders on Wednesday confirmed long-rumored plans, saying they will present to members on Thursday draft legislation calling for three casinos in Massachusetts but no racetrack slot parlors, a main feature of House-approved expanded gambling legislation.
Sen. Stanley Rosenberg (D-Amherst) also told reporters the developing Senate plan would designate one casino for an Indian tribe. “That’s the core of the outline at this point,” said Rosenberg.
The Amherst Democrat, charged with forging the Senate bill, also sounded optimistic that the House and Senate would reach agreement this year on an historic expansion of gambling opportunities for Massachusetts residents.
“Basically where there’s a will there’s a way. This is not rocket science,” Rosenberg said.
Rosenberg said senators believe casinos represent the best way to create the most jobs and expressed concern that racetrack slot machines could "glut" the market.
“We want the most jobs possible in the construction phase and the most jobs possible in the operating phase,” said Rosenberg. “And all of the data, all of the studies and all of the experience shows that if you want to maximize jobs and revenue you go to resort-style casinos.”
Rosenberg said “you can glut the market if you go too far and compromise the viability of the industry you’re trying to build.” He added, “You add very few jobs when you put slots at tracks.”
The House voted 120-37 in April to support DeLeo’s bill, which would sanction two resort casinos and up to 750 slot machines at the state's two horse racing tracks and its two former dog racing tracks. Proponents said the legislation would create over 15,000 jobs and generate $500 million in new annual revenue.
The House bill dedicates racetrack slot machine revenue to local aid, a popular account with legislators.
Senate leaders said members were split over racetrack slots. “It really is divided all over the place,” said Senate budget chief Steven Panagiotakos. “Some people don’t want them at racetracks, some people don’t want them at all, some people only want them at racetracks.”
The Senate voted, 26-9, in 2005 to authorize 8,000 slot machines under then-Senate President Robert Travaglini, a considerably more avid slots proponent than current Senate President Therese Murray. Murray has been publicly critical of the economic benefits derived from racetrack slot machines, aligning her more closely with Gov. Deval Patrick than DeLeo.
Rosenberg said he expected senators during a caucus Thursday to discuss the plan, including regulatory structure proposals and “things around addiction and pieces of that nature.” Senators are also still working on license fees, tax structures and ways to dedicate funds expected from expanded gambling. The Senate bill will recommend geographic zones for placement of the proposed casinos “but they have yet to be designed,” he said.
A public hearing on the bill, expected later this week, will be held on Tuesday, June 8, Rosenberg said. Asked when the Senate would debate the bill, Rosenberg said Murray would make that announcement.
Rosenberg and other senators indicated the bill is a work in progress.
“We’re meeting with the members tomorrow and going over some possibilities of where we’re headed and where the details will come, probably Friday,” said Sen. Karen Spilka (D-Ashland), co-chairwoman of the Economic Development Committee that reviewed expanded gambling legislation. “We don’t have a specific plan.”
“I think this is the beginning of the debate. I think you’re going to see a lot of amendments and a lot of conversations taking place before a final vote in the Senate,” said Sen. Steven Baddour (D-Methuen), adding that he had not seen the bill but would support racinos as he has in the past.
“The one thing I want to be in this debate is consistent,” Baddour said, pointing to job losses from a ban on dog racing that voters approved in 2008.
Asked where gambling revenues should be disbursed, Panagiotakos said, “After paying for whatever regulatory scheme you have and mitigation and enforcement, it really needs to be flexible after that.”
Casino opponents on Wednesday firmed up plans to resist the advancing expanded gambling bills, calling June a “critical month” for their fight, tapping a pair of experienced political operatives for messaging, and urging reporters to reach out for interviews with former Attorney General Scott Harshbarger and Gov. Michael Dukakis.
“The deep-pocketed, out-of-state gambling interests are all but beginning their victory dance in their decades-long drive to bring the casino culture to Massachusetts. So confident are the monied special interests that they are already setting up shop for casinos in our cities and towns and securing land and financing for their projects,” Kathleen Conley Norbut, president of United to Stop Slots in Massachusetts, wrote in an email circulated to gambling opponents Wednesday and delivered to the media by the MS&L public affairs firm.
Norbut urged USS Mass supporters to ask senators “why they support a casino culture and unwise economic development and why they are in such a hurry to pass a bill without financial studies, public hearings on any real debate.”
The stilted release of the bill’s outlines surprised both House and Senate Democrats, who said they were not expecting details until later in the month.
“I have not heard anything on that,” Sen. Robert O’Leary, a Barnstable Democrat opposed to expanded gambling, told the News Service late Wednesday.
The Boston Herald’s website first reported the three-casino, no-racino plan Wednesday hours before word from the Senate leadership.
A statement released by Murray spokesman David Falcone after Spilka and Rosenberg had discussed the draft bill with reporters, and attributed to those two senators, appeared to contradict their statements about the bill’s content.
“Despite a report on the Boston Herald’s website today, information about the Senate’s plan for gaming legislation will not be available until after members have been briefed. A public hearing on the Senate’s draft plan will be held Tuesday, June 8 in the Gardner Auditorium,” the statement said.
DeLeo stuck to the House bill, his spokesman Seth Gitell saying in an emailed statement, “Speaker DeLeo remains committed to the gaming and jobs legislation passed overwhelmingly by the House in April. This legislation, which would create two resort casinos and allow for slots at racing facilities, will foster economic development, help keep our citizens employed and provide an immediate source of local aid.”
Sen. Marc Pacheco (D-Taunton), a vocal advocate of slots at racetracks, told the News Service he learned about the Senate plan through press reports and had to contact Rosenberg to confirm them. Pacheco said the decision to exclude racetrack slots in the bill is “short-sighted.”
“If we’re going to head down the road of expanded gaming, then you should do it in a way that brings … the most amount of revenue in as quickly as possible. We have a budget shortfall today, not three years from now,” he said in a phone interview. “It just is a commonsense alternative. I guess we don’t use common sense a lot anyway with this particular issue.”
Pacheco also said Senate leadership has been basing its gaming decisions on advice of a consultant but that he has been denied the opportunity to ask questions of the consultant.
“We’ll see what happens. I’ll go into caucus tomorrow and find out what’s going on,” he said. “I would hope that the members will finally get some information about it.”
