With no gambling accord, lawmakers pan Patrick call for extended session

Legislative leaders, still groping for an agreement on expanded gambling and other major policy matters, shunned Gov. Deval Patrick’s call Wednesday for a session extended beyond midnight Saturday’s official close.

Senate President Therese Murray emerged Wednesday afternoon from a meeting with Speaker Robert DeLeo and reported the sides had not reached a gambling accord, and reaffirmed the Senate’s deadline of 8 p.m. Wednesday for general agreement.

"We're working, we're trying to come to yes and a compromise and we're going to keep at it until we can somehow get to yes," Murray told reporters.

She said the 8 p.m. deadline for an agreement was "the production deadline that we're looking at."

Murray said lawmakers would not stay past Saturday, as Patrick requested more than an hour earlier.

House budget chief Charles Murphy said it was "highly unlikely" the Legislature would remain in session after Saturday.

Murphy said a gambling compromise was not necessary to green-light progress on other bills.

“I’m not buying into the hype that people are saying, that this particular bill is holding everything else up,” Murphy told the News Service. “Those conference committees continue, and there’s discussions ongoing. I think absolutely we can get other things done.”

Patrick, citing unfinished work on major bills, said lawmakers should finish their work irrespective of rules calling for formal sessions to end on July 31.

Pointing to a passel of bills he has touted as a jobs package, Patrick told reporters, “I hope it can get done by the end of the day on Saturday, when the session formally ends. But if it doesn't, then the Legislature needs to stay in session until it’s done. If that means some additional days and extending the session, I'm calling on them to do just that.”

Patrick said people wanted action on the major bills, which he has described as part of an overall jobs package.

Patrick cited economic development, health care, criminal justice legislation and a supplemental spending package as bills that deserved completion.

Senate officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said one late-hour effort to shake loose the gambling bill involved essentially punting thorny questions, such as slot licenses, to an oversight entity created within the legislation.

Sen. Marc Pacheco, who earlier Wednesday disputed assertions by Senate leaders that Wednesday night was the effective deadline for agreement on an expanded gambling bill, said he was not opposed to holding a special session, if necessary, but said he had not heard any talk about such a session among this colleagues.

At least three other senators told the News Service Wednesday that they'd heard no talk of a special session.

The primary hang-up in the high-level bargaining talks are the number of gambling licenses that should be issued, and how to deal with the House insistence on slot machines for the state's racetracks. The original House bill called for two casinos and four racinos, with licenses guaranteed to the tracks, while the Senate-passed bill allowed three casinos distributed across the state according to legislatively drawn geographic zones.

“The update is this, that we’ve come back to the office to work on a proposal,” said Steven Panagiotakos, on his way into Murray’s office.
Conference reports need to be filed by 8 p.m. Friday in order to come up in time for Saturday's session, the last scheduled day of formal sessions for the year. The rule can be suspended by a two-thirds vote in each branch. The House was meeting in an informal session Wednesday, with both chambers keeping Thursday through Saturday open for formals.

Senior House members have backed off DeLeo’s assertion several weeks ago that the big-ticket measures were “intertwined,” saying in recent days that each could advance individually, despite the clear bottleneck created by the gambling debate.

While the House and Senate have deep disagreements over the best way to control health care costs, smaller pockets of agreement in their two bills could emerge in the final days, including efforts to smooth premium hikes over several years and to curb the practice of individuals purchasing insurance for expensive care, then dropping their coverage.

Second Assistant House Majority Leader Patricia Haddad echoed Murphy’s assertion that the non-gambling bills could survive if gambling goes down.

“I really think everything’s standing on its merits right now. We’re trying,” she said.
Rep. Joseph Wagner, DeLeo’s transportation chair, said, “I understand the thought process would have people perceiving that they’re all linked together, and that’s the dynamic created when you have so many matters still pending this late in the session. My guess is that we’ll get to each of them.”

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