YESTERDAY, HOUSE Speaker Salvatore DiMasi finished off a worthy casino bill that brimmed with the potential for creating 20,000 permanent jobs and $400 million in annual recurring revenue for the state. That's quite a feat for one lawmaker, even the powerful North End Democrat who calls the shots in the 160-member House.
In October, Governor Deval Patrick introduced a solid bill to license up to three resort casinos in the state. Patrick never said casinos would rank among the great temples of humankind. But he saw the importance of creating good jobs for workers whose skills don't fit well with the state's knowledge industries. The potential for new revenues was also great in a state with no appetite for broad-based tax increases. And no other industry was lining up to spend an estimated $800 million on one-time license fees. By emphasizing destination casinos, the bill sought to attract visitors and avoid convenience gambling. And it contained generous provisions to help the 1.9 percent of adults who are pathological gamblers.
But perhaps this thoughtful plan was doomed from the start. DiMasi took umbrage when the Patrick administration challenged him to drop his opposition or come up with a better revenue and job plan. DiMasi fired back with broad examples of legislative initiatives, such as stimulus packages and faster permitting rules - things the public would expect from its lawmakers under ordinary circumstances.
DiMasi, to be fair, is taking some tough stands to address an anticipated $1.3 billion budget gap, including proposals to close corporate tax loopholes and increase the cigarette tax. And he is showing leadership by backing a plan to give cities and towns total discretion to steer their employees into a lower-cost health plan used by state workers. The problem, in the end, wasn't so much that DiMasi was doing too little but that he was doing too much to kill a good casino plan.
DiMasi's lobbying tactics were also telling. He does not support the introduction of slot machines at the racetracks - a wise decision, because the model has more negatives and doesn't generate the kind of jobs and revenues associated with destination casinos. Yet while lobbying House members to kill the casino bill, he promised at least three legislators that he would not block their attempts to bring a racetrack slots bill to the House floor. And this from the leader who predicted Tuesday that casinos would "cause human damage on a grand scale."
The speaker showed his clout. But it wasn't his most productive victory.
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