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Stein Only Candidate Who Opposes Gambling In Massachusetts Governor Race

Posted on April 29th, 2010

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The Green-Rainbow candidate for Massachusetts governor Jill Stein presented a petition to the Legislature and Gov. Deval Patrick asking them to reject House Speaker Robert DeLeo’s bill allowing two casinos and adding slots machines at the state’s four racetracks.

The online petition that was posted April 6 was able to garner 500 signatures by the end of the week.The petition, exhorting government officials “to reject attempts to establish a government-endorsed program of predatory gambling in Massachusetts,” also reads, “The predatory gambling industry is harmful to local businesses, undermines sound job growth, and fosters addiction, bankruptcy, crime, divorce and other social problems. Building casinos locks us in to high greenhouse gas emissions and makes our economy vulnerable to oil price shock. In the final analysis, these problems will consume more tax dollars than we can recover from gambling taxes.”

DeLeo has refused to hold public hearings on his bill, saying that the bill is a rewrite of a previous proposal that was already given public hearing. The measure has passed the House and is now pending in the Senate. Senate President Therese Murray, who, like Gov. Patrick, is in favour of casinos, but not slots said the Senate has decided to hold public hearings before taking up any casino proposal and that the Senate will soon introduce its own separate casino bill but will first give priority to passing the new state budget.

Before DeLeo’s casino bill was voted on by the House, the Speaker organized a campaign to raise funds, but the list of supporters will be available on Sept. 7 yet, the deadline for lawmakers’ filing of campaign finance reports.

Stein charged DeLeo of “attempting to ram the bill through the House,” days after casino crusaders gave contributions to the Speaker in his campaign fundraiser. The Associated Press has reported that in 2009, lobbyists whose clients include casino operators gave DeLeo $8,000 in donations, $7,800 to Murray, $4,900 to Patrick and $8,100 to Lt. Gov. Tim Murray. Stein also claimed that, “Casinos kill more jobs than they create.

Coping with the problems caused by casino gambling will cost taxpayers more than will be received in tax revenue. This is a bad deal for the people of Massachusetts, and truth needs to be told before an irreversible mistake is made by the Legislature.”

The other candidates for governor all support gambling one way or another. Patrick wants casinos but not slots at racetracks. Republican Charlie Baker supports casinos, so does Independent Tim Cahill, and Republican Christy Mihos is backing slots at tracks but not casinos. Grace Ross, running against Patrick for the Democratic nomination, said she remains neutral “because the bill pits different good forces against each other as it advocates for jobs and revenue against people concerned about the social impact.”