THE ED MOSCA BLOG

Guest post by Rep. Steve Vaillancourt:

How strange it is to see a majority of pro gambling Manchester Democrats ready to vote for Lou D’Allesandro’s Senate Bill 489!

If there’s any group that should vote against this bill, it’s pro gamblers from Manchester.

The D’Allesandro bill, by mandating slots for Rockingham, Seabrook, Hudson, Belmont, the north country, and nowhere else, would gurantee that Manchester never share in the revenue, jobs, or economic development from slots.

The only way Manchester will ever have a shot at slots is to kill the D’Allesdandro bill and push for one next session which provides an open opportunity for everyone and every community to get slots.

No wonder Hudson and Salem Reps are supporting the D’Allesandro bill. It guarnetees three percent of overall revenues (right off the top) to the host communities. By most estimates, that means an annual windfall of $10 million for those towns, both of which, by the way, have at least $20,000 median family income more than Manchester. Even Nashua gets one percent with the D’Allesandro plan which earmarks one percent for communities abutting the towns with slot facilities.

Not only will Manchester not get the jobs associated with slots, it will miss out on $10 million with no hope of ever getting in on the action.

Do you doubt it? Does anyone really think that if 17,000 slots go into the six D’Allesandro locations, there’ll ever be another chance for Manchester? Well, never is a long time, but certainly not in our lifetimes.

But it’s worse than that. Senator D’Allesandro was quoted in the Union Leaded saying that Manchester doesn’t need slots because it has charitable gambling. The one sure way to drive charitiable gambling out of Manchesrter is to pass the D’Allesandro plan. Why? Because those facilities which have slots will be most attractive for charitable gaming tables. Why go to the charitable gaming parlor on the West Side when you could get in the car and go to the one in Hudson or Salem? You might want to play table games while other members of the family play slots there. As the senator himself is fond of saying, “This is a no brainer.”

And it’s a no brainer terrible idea for Manchester.

Wake up Manchester.

The D’Allesandro plan is the worst of all gambling plans for Manchester.

Once the D’Allesandro plan is defeated and the Governor’s commission issues its report in May, we’ll be in the election season. Any person elected to the House or the Senate in November will have plenty of time to file a plan which would make a Manchester group eligible to bring slots to the Queen City.

Senator D’Allesandro apparently thinks only Hudson, Salem, Seabrook, Belmont and the North Country deserve that chance, not his own home city.

Go figure!

By Rep. Steve Vaillancourt

I have been receiving so many emails regarding “expanded gambling” that I thought I’d write this generic response for everyone. I trust this clarifies my position and will be sending this to anyone who emails me in the next few weeks.

I agree with many who say they support “expanded gambling”. I have long been an advocate of allowing people to “waste” their money any way they see fit whether it be on an expensive outing to Fenway Park, Patriots Stadium, Waterville Valley, Cannon, or Europe. I don’t buy the argument that expanded gambling will be the ruination of society. While there will undoubtedly be some social costs, I believe these are generally overstated. A dollar lost gambling can never be retrieved any more than a dollar lost rooting for the Red Sox or Patriots can ever be retrieved. Nor am I convinced that crime rates will increase dramatically with expanded gambling. Likewise, although we can argue about the specific revenues the state will derive, I do not deny that the state will receive significant monies from expanded gambling ($150 million a year seems doable to me, but let’s say between $100-200 million).

Now comes the big IF…

Having said all that, I will not be supporting Senate Bill 489, the 40-50 page bill (from Senator D’Allesandro) which will be heard before the Local and Regulated Revenues Committee. The Senate had every opportunity to whip this bill into shape, and it is, in my opinion, fatally flawed, in dozens of specific ways which we may or may not get into at the committee level, but in a couple of general ways which make the bill unacceptable.

The biggest flaw is that this amounts to a state monopoly for private businesses. Worse than that, it amounts to a monopoly for three pre-existing businesses and from the way the bill is worded, quite clearly a fourth business (the proposed Hudson gambling/slots emporium). While this may not technically be in violation of Part 1, Article 10 of the NH Constitution, I believe this state-mandated monopoly is certainly in violation of the spirit of that article (the right of revolution article, ironically enough) which begins, “Government being instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security, of the whole community, and not for the private interest or emolument of any one man, family or class of them;”

Clearly, to me, allowing these six facilities to have a monopoly (albeit for a fee) on gambling (in effect a license to print money) is instituting government for the “interest or emolument” of a certain class of people.

End of argument in my book. If we are to have expanded gambling, the state should either open it up to every interested party (probably not a great idea) or should control the operation itself and keep 100 percent of the profit as we do with alcohol and liquor.

Regarding the state share, the D’Allesandro bill has already lowered the state’s share down to 30 percent (39 percent if you include the numerous dedicated funds, none of which I support–the entire amount the state gets should go into the general fund to be split up during the normal budgetary course of events). Last year, the state’s share was 40 percent (49 percent if you consider the dedicated funds), so we’ve lost 10 percent already. What a way to do business!

My other general concern is with the pervasiveness of this bill. Again, I’m not against people going gambling, but this bill in fact creates three mega-establishments within 25-30 miles of each other. How far is it from Hudson to Salem to Seabrook? Does anyone honestly believe three huge gambling emporiums can exist in such close proximity? Or are these three locations just thrown into the pot to curry votes from legislators in those three areas?

Note that the D’Allesandro bill offers three percent of revenues to the host community. That’s good for Salem, Seabrook and Hudson, but not so good for Manchester and most other cities and towns. Speaking of Manchester, it would be an ideal location for the gambling emporium. We have 700,000 visitors to the Verizon Wireless Arena each year and at least a couple million people flying into the Manchester airport. Certainly Manchester would be a better (maybe even at the Verizon!!) than Salem, Hudson, or Seabrook, but let’s not get into parochial quibbling here other than to note that Manchester needs the revenue more. The median family income for the state (as noted in the most recent education funding data sheets) is $57,575. It’s $50,039 for Manchester; $67,278 for Salem, $71,313 for Hudson!!

While Seabrook’s median income is only $47,718, its equalized property valuation per student is $2,665,548, nearly four times the $685,593 per student in Manchester. Talk about the rich getting richer! This gambling bill certainly does not reward communities which need help the most….So if you’re from Manchester and you’re emailing me to support this bill, think twice because I’ll ask you why Manchester should not get a piece of this expanded gambling action.

I’ll go into just one of a dozen or so less major points here. Section 284-A:8 spells out distribution formula. Again, I do not support dedicated funds, but I have special problems with section 8 (A) which will funnel one percent of revenues from five locations (all except the Hudson one which will “give” to one percent to commuter rail) into the racing and charitable gambling commission for enhancing “live racing purses”. There’s no language as to how this will be split up, so just imagine the fight over this. Will 100 percent go to Rockingham? How much will go to bring back dog racing which the House last week voted by a 69-31 percent margin to end? In effect, what this expanded gambling bill is doing is force feeding a dying industry. We’re going to give millions and millions of dollars to force dogs to race whether people want to watch dog racing or not.

No thanks.

Expanded gambling, by all means!

But not this incarnation!

By Rep. Steve Vaillancourt:

Exactly one year from the day that the New Hampshire House voted 295-72 to kill a gambling bill, orange shirts were out in force in Reps Hall as senators lined up to support a very similar bill, sponsored by–you can guess it–Manchester’s Lou D’Allesandro. The crowd was so large that senators moved the hearing from room 100 to the more spacious digs upstairs, and orange was the color du jour.

Who paid for the orange shirts? Here’s a hint. Emblazoned on them in black lettering were the words “Jobs Now” and then in bigger and bolder black lettering “Expand Gambling” and then in the biggest and boldest of black lettering “NOW”.

My guess is that all these people didn’t go out and buy the shirts, but rather that they were provided by the same people who’ve spent tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars to get slots and other gambling games at New Hampshire tracks, in the North Country, and now at a special Hudson emporium.

It was the Full Monty before the New Hampshire Senate for a full five hours, and by the time the dog and pony show was over, even long-time gambling opponents admitted that the Senate has the votes to pass this “economic development” bill. That’s the mantra Senator Slots and his colleagues, desperate for an influx of money to state coffers, have latched on to this time around.

Along with D’Allesandro, six other senators co-sponsored the bill (Gallus, Downing, Lasky, Gilmour, Sgambati, and DeVries) and Londonderry Senator Sharon Carson, an opponent of gambling in the past, testified in favor of the bill. Yes, the Hudson emporium is in her Senate district.

Last year, D’Allesandro never joined forces with those advocating a full-fledged casino in Hudson. He held out for slots only at the existing tracks and in the North Country, but this year, realizing he needed more support certainly in the House if not the Senate, he’s included the Hudson emporium in his bill.

It now seems to be a question not of if, but of when (crossover day when all bills must move from one body to the other is March 25), this bill will pass the Senate and come on over to the House Local and Regulated Revenues Committee which considered a very similar bill last year, the one sponsored by current gubernatorial candidate Frank Emiro. Yes, that would be House Bill 593, the one that failed by that 223 vote margin on March 2, 2009.

Divide 223 by two, and all other things being equal, about 113 House members would have to change their positions for the bill to pass this year. Newport Republican Bev Rodeschin became the first to take the plunge. Buying the economic development argument, she switched from anti to pro gambling.

Now, the forces in orange shirts, those who would let New Hampshire keep not 49 percent of revenues but only 39 percent this time around, those forces need merely to change the minds of another 112 or so Representatives.

Could it happen?

Of course, anything is possible.

Is it likely to happen?

Certainly not unless John Lynch sticks his finger in the air and decides that he’ll be hurt more by cutting $140 million in state spending than by jumping aboard the gambling express.

Rep. Jim Craig, who in exchange for supporting the governor’s budget last spring was appointed to the gambling study commission, told the Senate today that the panel should have its report by the end of May, but of course, if the governor wants the report earlier, what do you wanna bet, he’ll get it.

Without Lynch’s support, with both House Democratic and Republican leadership traditionally against expanded gambling, it has about as much chance to pass the House as it does to fail in the Senate, that is to say none.

This bill is laden with dedicated funds, something House leaders from both parties have opposed in the past. Senator Sgambati offered an amendment for yet another dedicated fund this morning. Sgambati, a former high ranking employee in the health and human services department, wants the first $50 million generated from the bill (most likely from Las Vegas-based Millenium, chief orchestrator of the Fully Monty) to go to…

Why don’t you take a guess…?

You got it; she wants the first $5o million to go to the Health and Human Services Department.

Your humble correspondent, a long-time supporter of gambling albeit not a gambling plan which stretches the intent of the Constitution by providing a monopoly to certain out of state interests, kids you not.

As anti gambling opponents, including the State Attorney General who again testified against the plan today, have long suggested…there’s so much money behind these plans that our entire political process could be corrupted…

Or maybe it already has been.