Dempsey’s Class Filled
with Heavyweights. House Ways & Means chair Brian Dempsey, who just
resigned from the legislature to take a position at a lobbying firm, gave his
farewell speech on the House floor this past Wednesday. I was not surprised to learn that Dempsey was
a popular kid growing up. He talked of
visiting the House chamber for the first time as an 18-year-old student council
president at Haverhill High School participating in Student Government Day
exercises. (Getting elected to the
legislature has always been a lot like getting elected senior class president
-- a popularity contest, pure and simple.) I was
surprised at the number of reps now holding leadership positions that were first
elected to the House with Dempsey in the elections of 1990, taking office in
January, 1991. As recounted by Dempsey
on Wednesday, the class of 1991 contained 46 new state representatives, meaning
that almost a quarter of the 200-member House turned over at that time, and
that among those freshman reps were: House Speaker Bob DeLeo of Winthrop, House
Majority Leader Ron Mariano of Quincy,
Joe Wagner of Chicopee, co-chair of the Joint Committee on Economic
Development and Emerging Technologies; Tony Cabral, chair of the House Committee
on Bonding, Capital Expenditures and State Assets; Lou Kafka of Stoughton, the
House’s Fourth Division Chair; and William Galvin of Canton, chair of the House
Committee on Rules.
He ‘Had No Business
Being There.’ (Who Does?) Having caught the political bug at a young age,
Dempsey ran for the Haverhill School Committee at age 18 and lost by only 36
votes. That brush with victory inspired
him to run two years later for the Haverhill City Council. He won that race and, when he sought a second
term on the Council, did even better. “I topped the ticket,” he recalled during
his farewell speech. “In those days, the
top vote-getter automatically became Council president. So, there I was at 23, president of the
Haverhill City Council. I probably had
no business being council president.” He
soon jumped into a race for an open House seat and was still only 23 when he went
to Beacon Hill. There he remained for twenty-six and a half years. Said
Dempsey, “I have loved this job so much and I cannot think of a day I did not
enjoy coming in to the State House.”
Senate Prez Defers to
Conferees on Casino Bar Hours. Our Senate president could teach the folks
in Washington a thing or two about compromise.
Asked yesterday by Boston Herald Radio about the provision in the newly
crafted FY 2018 state budget that will allow casinos to serve liquor until 4:00
a.m., Stan Rosenberg said, “I told the proponents I wouldn’t support it. I urged the (House/Senate budget) conference
committee not to approve it, and I did what I could, but the conference
committee eventually decided to do it. I
wasn’t going to vote against the (final) budget because of that.”
Casino Machinations Predicted
Early On. A State House News Service
article yesterday recapitulated the Boston Herald Radio interview with
Rosenberg. The SHNS wrote, “Rosenberg said casino companies usually lobby to
change the rules after obtaining a license, and he predicted future efforts to
allow smoking in casinos, and for lower casino taxes if the Mashpee Wampanoag
Tribe is allowed to build a Taunton casino under federal law. A tribal casino would pay a lower tax rate
than commercial casinos under the 2011 gaming law and a compact negotiated
between the Mashpee Wampanoag and the Patrick Administration.” Rosenberg then said, “These guys applied for
a license knowing what the rules were.
They got the license knowing what the rules were. I warned people in the legislature at the time
that this is what happens in every state (where casino gambling has been
legalized), and we should protect ourselves against it.”
There’s a Casino
Rescue Bill in Our Future. I wish I
had the standing to warn legislators about anything. (Blogging is balm for those denied a
pulpit.) I’d tell them now to expect
requests from all Massachusetts casinos, five to ten years hence, to reduce the
percentage of gambling profits they’re required by law to give the
Commonwealth. They’ll say they’re not
making enough money. They’ll say increased competition from Connecticut and Rhode Island is hurting their bottom
lines. They’ll say that, if the
legislature won’t act swiftly to reduce the state “take,” they’ll have no
choice but to start laying people off. An
emergency “casino rescue bill” will be filed at the urging of a coalition of
casino industry professionals and labor unions.
By then, given my paltry retirement savings, I’ll probably be working as
a greeter at the Wynn Boston Harbor casino in Everett. I’ll probably be ripe for exploitation in a
casino ad campaign. They’ll give me
$500, I’ll say on TV anything they want.
“Hi, I’m John from Melrose. If
the casino rescue bill fails, I’ll be out of a job and eating cat food in a
month. Call your legislators today. Tell them we need to save our job-producing
casinos. Thank you…and God bless
America!”
MA: Driverless
Technology’s Worst Nightmare. Back in February, Governor Charlie Baker got
the audience laughing during a forum on self-driving vehicles at the winter
meetings of the National Governors Association in Washington, D.C. Noting that several companies devoted to
autonomous vehicle technology had set up shop in Massachusetts, he said, “I
thought they were doing it because we have a whole lot of smart people who know
a lot about technology. It actually
turns out they’re locating in Massachusetts because our winters are horrible
and our roads suck. They basically said,
If we can figure out how to move autonomous vehicles safely around the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the City of Boston, we can do it anywhere in
the country.”
Guv Concerned About
the Poor Truck Drivers. On a more
serious note at that self-driving vehicles confab, Baker urged U.S.
Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao to consider the “workforce issues” that
could result from self-driving trucks and other technologies displacing
workers. “I really think it’s important
for us as a country to be thinking far enough ahead on that one that we don’t
end up creating just a tremendous amount of economic hardship along the way,”
Baker said. Putting truck drivers
permanently out of work is not good social policy but holding back the march of
technology is not wise or feasible in the long run; therefore, we’re going to
help the displaced truck drivers and their families as they transition to new
lines of work, and that support will have to be extensive and
long-running. If Democrats had been
thinking like that over the last 10 years, maybe Trump would still be hosting
Celebrity Apprentice.
Coming Soon to a
Busy Roadway Near You. Driver-less trucks could become a reality much
sooner than you think. Jason Seidl, managing director of Cowen and Company, was
quoted recently by Railway Age as saying that semi-autonomous Level 3 trucks
“will be ubiquitous on America’s highways within 5-10 years,” and that
driverless Level 5 vehicles will be common “some time after that.”
(Semi-autonomous means a vehicle whose driver may cede control of it on certain
technologically-equipped roadways and under certain conditions. The levels assigned to trucks have to do with
the federal Department of Transportation inspections they must undergo.) Seidel added, “A truck without a driver would
no longer be subject to the current 11-hour daily drive time limit, which is in
place to protect the public from overtired drivers. Therefore, a Level 5 truck could cover more
mileage, haul more freight and ultimately generate more revenue per day than a
truck driven by a human.” More trucks on
the road for longer hours on Massachusetts highways? I am hoping that some engineer will explain to
us how it will not be awful when the Mass Turnpike gets equipped with
driverless technology.
What if McQuilken Had
Won in ’04? I appreciate the State
House News Service for all the little-but-important things it point outs. This past Tuesday, for example, it ran an item
on how the law firm of McDermott Will & Emery has hired Angus McQuilken,
who had been chief of staff to former state senator Cheryl Jacques back in the
early 2000s. Jacques resigned in 2004 before her term was up. Scott Brown, then a little known Republican state
rep from Wrentham, ran for the Jacques seat, as did McQuilken, a Democrat. “In
2004, in elections that could have altered the course of political history,
McQuilken narrowly lost two state Senate races to Scott Brown,” the SHNS
reminded us. “In a special
election, Brown outpolled McQuilken 18,876 to 18,518 before beating him 41,889
to 39,253 in the November general election.”
Only 349 votes separated Brown from McQuilken in their first showdown. If McQuilken had managed to flip just 175
votes, Brown would not have entered the Massachusetts Senate and would not have
been in a position to take on and defeat Martha Coakley in the shocking upset
election of 2010 election that produced a successor to Ted Kennedy. Elizabeth Warren subsequently displaced Brown
but Brown’s first close win over McQuilken proved to be a gift that keeps on
giving. Brown was a big Trump supporter
last year. His name recognition and prominence
as a former widely hailed Republican U.S. Senator boosted Trump, especially in
New Hampshire, where Brown relocated after losing to Warren. For his campaign services, President Trump
appointed Brown U.S. ambassador to New Zealand, unquestionably one of the best
jobs on the planet.
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