Speakers drone on at hearing, but no vote cuts them short

Tom White (left) of Middleborough and Ed Petrelli of Hull took part in a rally yesterday on Boston Common. (Michael Dwyer/Associated Press)

Workers in bright red and blue union T-shirts formed a long line at the State House door early yesterday morning, as traffic rumbled around satellite trucks parked out front. In ones and twos, clergy and social conservatives and members of the League of Women voters trickled in.

Hundreds of burly laborers in hard hats and blue jeans and Carhartt jackets thronged Boston Common, some wearing signs that read "I support destination resort casinos." They cheered when their union leaders, and the governor himself, ascended a platform and exhorted the Legislature to move the governor's gambling bill to the House floor.

"Twenty thousand construction jobs aren't enough to debate? Twenty thousand permanent jobs are not enough to debate?" cried Robert Haynes, president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, his voice echoing off the buildings along Tremont Street as he ordered the troops to lobby every last legislator in the building for the bill.

But for all the crowds, the speeches, and the impassioned testimony that droned on for hours yesterday, the chances of the governor's casino bill passing the House were close to zilch. Even if, by some freak political occurrence, the committee in charge of the bill gave it a nod on its way to the House floor, Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi's unrelenting opposition had virtually certified the bill's death certificate.

On Sunday, DiMasi half-jokingly assured Governor Deval Patrick at the St. Patrick's Day breakfast: "Gambling bills are just like casinos; the House always wins."

Still, if yesterday's hearing was a death march, nobody seemed interested in cutting it short. The casino proponents had no choice but to present their best case, and casino opponents had no choice but to respond.

"I thought my marriage bill was going to pass, too," said Kris Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, who spearheaded a failed bid to ban same-sex marriage last year and who was lobbying against the casino bill yesterday. "We're not taking anything for granted."

Representative Dan Bosley, cochairman of the Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies and the most vocal gambling opponent in the House, set the tone, starting the day by planting a big bottle of red Gatorade on the table before him and announcing that everyone who wanted to speak would be allowed to do so. At 4:45 p.m., Bosley announced there were still another 50-odd speakers to go. He started in on a fresh bottle of Gatorade.

The first person to fall asleep - an exhausted-looking hotel and restaurant workers union member, whose head drooped back over the last row of chairs - lasted only a half hour into the hearing.

Patrick took the floor first. His testimony allowed many of the committee members to have a proxy debate on the issue by sparring with him or offering encouraging words.

Afterward, Patrick headed straight for the elevator, pursued by a pack of reporters whom he declined to address. One reporter scolded his aides: "You guys are sad, sad, sad."

The committee grilled the Cabinet secretaries for more than two hours. They finally trooped out, looking wan.

Some of the union leaders tried to talk tough yesterday, emphasizing the need for new jobs in an economic downturn. Sean M. O'Brien, president of Teamsters Local 25, said his members would campaign against any lawmaker who voted against the casino bill.

Walter Mullaney, a Malden Democratic activist and leader of the Asbestos Workers Local 6, said he told his state representative, Paul J. Donato, a social friend, he would vote for his Democratic primary opponent if Donato opposes the governor's bill.

"He is an underling of DiMasi's, but when push comes to shove, I think he's going to lean our way," Mullaney said.

In reality, most lawmakers have little to fear from such talk. Rustling up the political will and financial resources to drive every gambling opponent out of office would be virtually impossible.

By far the largest union presence yesterday was that of Unite Here, the hotel and restaurant workers union, whose members, many of them immigrants, wore red T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan "Casinos + Unions = Good Jobs."

The union brought free lunches for its members, who ate in shifts at extra tables set up on the fourth floor, and flew in Robert Martinez, 32, a waiter from Las Vegas, to testify about how working on the strip had helped him pay for college.